P&G sells Gillette deodorant brands to Henkel

Procter & Gamble sold the deodorant brands -- Soft n Dri, Dri Idea, and Right Guard -- obtained in the Gillette merge, as required by US and EU regulators.

The brands brands were sold to the German CPG company Henkel (Bloomberg's headline says Henkel, The Boston Globe headline says Dial, but Henkel owns Dial).

Last year, US and European regulators required the consumer products conglomerate P&G to divest itself of several brands, to address anticompetitive concerns as part of its $54 billion acquisition of Gillette.

Already, P&G has sold off its Crest SpinBrush line to Church & Dwight and Gillette's Rembrandt teeth-whitening products to Johnson & Johnson to satisfy regulators.

P&G also had to shed some deodorant brands because Gillette's Right Guard line and P&G's brands would give the combined company a dominant market share in the men's deodorant category in the United States. P&G owns Old Spice, the number two brand with 19 percent of market share, and Gillette owns Gillette Series and Right Guard, a number one player with combined 24 percent market share, according to a report by AG Edwards analyst Jason Gere. All of these brands together would give P&G about a 43 percent share of the market, compared to rivals Unilever Co.'s 18 percent share and Colgate-Palmolive Co.'s 16 percent share.

In addition to buying Dial and these brands, Henkel has also recently purchased the Combat and Soft Scrub brands from Clorox.