优马思每周慢速商务英语新闻 20070418 雀巢花50亿美元收购诺华的婴儿食品Gerber

A chocolate company is buying a baby food company from a drug company. Swiss company Nestle is the world's biggest food and drink company; they're known primarily in the United States for the brand of chocolate with the company's name on it. They have a large market share of infant nutritional products in the developing world, but none in the US. They're paying $5.5 billion to Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis for Gerber Products, which has a 79% share of the US baby food market. Nestle tried to buy Gerber in 1994, losing to pharmaceutical company Sandoz, which later merged with Ciba-Geigy to form Novartis. Novartis is selling their baby food business to focus on health care products.