Products on Parade

Do you remember when there was a prediction that someday, there would only be three companies that owned every business in the world?  

Meet one of them.

Unilever owns everything from Axe manspray to Hellmann's mayonnaise to Knorr dry soups to Ben & Jerry's ice cream to Klondike ice cream bars to Mazola oil to Noxzema skin goo to Popsicles to Shedd's Spread.  That's a whole big steaming pile of businesses, and this warmly-named conglomerate operates them all.

And now they are interested in buying Honest Co., a household-products company co-founded by actress Jessica Alba.

Watch how this works:  according to the story I saw, "Honest Co. is also working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley on an initial public offering."

This might be the one and only time you will see the word "honest" in the same sentence as "Goldman Sachs" and "Morgan Stanley."  Ordinarily, you see their names in headlines like "Goldman Sachs Reaches $5 Billion Settlement In Mortgage Securities Penalty" or "Morgan Stanley Banker Is Said to Pass Along Illegal Tip."

But that's none of my beeswax.

Star and business leader

Unilever just bought Dollar Shave Club for a billion dollars, and it seems that the natural baby products, home cleaning stuff and beauty items that the former star of Dark Angel on television and Fantastic Four on film has been Honestly peddling would make a good fit for their portfolio.

Great idea, and I tip my hat to Jessica for turning her idea into tangible products and a huge profit in the end.

And if anyone from Unilever happens to read this (laughter), I would like to point out that I have an idea for grass that grows 2 1/2" on your lawn and stops growing forever, trees that have leaves that come with stamps on them so that when they fall to the ground, the post office has to mail them to a central leaf dump in Indianapolis, and bacon-flavored eggs.

I'm gonna be rich!