Alexander Coolidge

acoolidge@enquirer.com

Duracell is no longer part of Procter & Gamble or one of its storied billion-dollar brands after the closing of the Cincinnati-based company's sale of the iconic battery brand.

P&G has closed on its previously announced sale of Duracell to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. P&G invested $1.8 billion into the outgoing brand as it prepared to exit the business unit. In exchange, Berkshire Hathaway tendered 52 million P&G shares worth more than $4 billion back to the consumer products giant.

Duracell was acquired by P&G in 2005 as part of the Gillette acquisition, but has been criticized ever since by Wall Street analysts as a bad fit for the company. The deal closed on Monday.

The brand commands $2.5 billion in annual sales and was one of the first major divestitures after P&G executives first announced in August 2014 a bold plan to slim the company down to a core 65 major brands while selling off or exiting nearly 100 laggard labels.

The move affects roughly 2,700 Duracell employees worldwide, but very few P&G employees in Cincinnati. Duracell's headquarters are in Bethel, Connecticut, and Geneva, Switzerland.

The separation will cut three U.S. factories from P&G: Cleveland, Tennessee; Lancaster, South Carolina; and La Grange, Georgia. Two international plants will also be affected: Aarschot in Belgium and Dongguan in China. There are also regional hubs in Singapore and Panama City.

“Duracell is a strong, global business with a great future ahead of it as part of the Berkshire Hathaway family. We thank Duracell’s employees for their many contributions to P&G and wish them continued success for the future,” said P&G CEO David Taylor.