Nestle SA, the Swiss foodmaker, announced this week that it is in talks to buy the50 per cent stake that it does not own in an ice-cream joint venture with Haagen-Dazs. Nestle has the right to buy out its partner in Ice Cream Partners USA after a change of ownership. Haagen-Dazs is owned by Pillsbury, which Diageo Plc is selling to General Mills Inc. The Swiss company and Haagen-Dazs merged their U.S. ice-cream businesses last year to become No. 3 in the market, with 1998 sales of $600 million. Nestle is trying to catch up with the world leader in ice cream, Unilever, the Dutch-British company that bought Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc. earlier this year. The remaining half of the venture is valued at about $650 million before taxes by analysts at Prudential Securities. Source: Bloomberg News
