Kimberly-Clark Takeover Offers $48 Billion of Pain Relief to Tylenol-Maker Kenvue
The deal, expected to close in the second half of 2026, comes as Kenvue’s Tylenol political fight is heating up.
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At least Kimberly-Clark will have unlimited access to free Tylenol.
The toiletries giant announced an agreement Monday to acquire Kenvue for $48.7 billion in stock and cash. It’s a big bet on the Tylenol-maker, whose shares had plummeted some 30% in the days since a bombshell White House allegation in September linking use of the popular pain reliever by pregnant women to autism.
Do You Need a Band-Aid?
On its surface, the deal makes plenty of sense. While Johnson & Johnson didn’t see much reason to stay in the low-growth consumer health space, spinning off Kenvue in 2023, Kimberly-Clark is pitching its shareholders on the idea that the acquisition is a chance to level up. The consumer goods titan already owns brands such as Kleenex, Cottonelle and Huggies. Kenvue’s brands, which also include Band-Aid and Listerine mouthwash, would give it dominion over the rest of everyone’s medicine cabinet.
Over at Kenvue, activists have been agitating for a deal, too. Sources told Bloomberg on Monday that Third Point, D.E. Shaw, Starboard Value, and TOMS Capital Investment Management were all pushing for a sale due to the lackluster results preceding the political firestorm. For its part, Kimberly-Clark says a merger would be more than just a corporate bandage, and it could create a health and wellness giant:
- The unified company would have a total annual revenue of $32 billion, placing it roughly on par with the health and wellness businesses of fellow consumer conglomerates Unilever and Procter & Gamble.
- Kimberly-Clark executives also said Monday that the combined company could find some $1.9 billion in cost savings, $1.4 billion in incremental revenue within four years of the deal closing, and “approximately $500 million in incremental profit from revenue synergies.”
Watch It, Partner: The deal, expected to close in the second half of 2026, comes as Tylenol’s political fight is heating up. Just last week, the state of Texas sued Kenvue and Johnson & Johnson, claiming they hid the risk that use of the medication by pregnant women might lead to autism in children. (Scientifically speaking, the data so far is mixed, and most experts say more research is necessary to confirm actual causation.) Shares of Kimberly-Clark closed down almost 15% on Monday. Shares of Kenvue, on the other hand, closed up 12%. We’ll call that pain relief.
