Greenwood Village-based Orange Glo’s acquisition by Arm & Hammer baking soda maker Church & Dwight is a marriage made in heaven, according to Orange Glo founder Max Appel.
Princeton, N.J.-based Church & Dwight agreed to buy Orange Glo for $325 million in a deal announced today.
There will be no “initial” job losses at Orange Glo, which employs 183 people, said James Craigie, Church & Dwight’s CEO. Craigie’s company has 3,800 employees.
Max Appel, who was a fundraiser for environmental causes before founding the company with his wife Elaine in 1992, has long considered the larger Church & Dwight a good model for his own business.
“As we were growing, I kept looking at what they had done with Arm & Hammer baking soda and I thought, Gee, Orange Glo will do the same thing,” said Appel. He and Elaine started Orange Glo, maker of OxiClean, Kaboom and other products, in their garage. Early on, they sold their products home and garden trade shows.
“We developed our first product, Orange Glo Wood Cleaner & Polish, in the garage. Max would mix it, I would fill the bottles, and we would drive to a show,” Elaine recently told The Passionate Philanthropist, a publication of the Jewish Family Service of Colorado.
All four of the Appel’s grown children are also involved in the enterprise. The family will help to integrate the business with Dwight & Church, said Orange Glo chairman David Appel.
“Over time, our involvement with the company will diminish,” he said. The family members haven’t decided what they will do in the future, he added.
The aquisition is expected to be completed in the third quarter. The merged company will have sales of over $2 billion, said James Craigie, Church & Dwight CEO.
Orange Glo, which makes OxiClean and Kaboom cleaners, had sales of $200 million last year, two thirds of which were from OxiClean.
OxiClean, which is used with detergent, gives Church & Dwight a product in the laundry additive market, Craigie said. Kaboom is a bathroom cleaner and Orange Glo is for more general use.
The acquisition is expected to reduce earnings per share this year, add slightly to profit in 2007 and “strongly” increase profit in 2008, Church & Dwight said.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at (303)820-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
Bloomberg contributed to this report.
