Check Stock: Hain Celestial (NASDAQ:HAIN) buys health and beauty products maker Belvedere; S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY), Springleaf (NYSE:LEAF)

Hain Celestial   (NASDAQ:HAIN)  has announced the acquisition of Belvedere International, a health and beauty care products maker.  The Live Clean brand is the leading natural hair care and baby care brand in Canada. In calendar year 2014 Belvedere had approximately $25M in net sales and is expected to be accretive to Hain Celestial's earnings in fiscal year 2016. Hain CEO Irwin Simon said "We are excited by the acquisition of the Live Clean brand, which expands our presence in the personal care category and complements our Avalon Organics, Alba Botanica and JASON brands that we sell into Canada. This acquisition increases the scale of our Canadian operations to over $150M in net sales and provides us with opportunities for sales expansion and cost efficiencies as we leverage our existing infrastructure in Canada and our manufacturing and research and development expertise in personal care”.

 

S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) hits fresh life high, watch these levels. S&P 500 index (NYSE:SPY) closed at a fresh lifetime high at 2109.45 on Friday last. At this price, there is no overhead resistance level suggesting a move in the index to 2110 to 2120 is in the cards unless some exogenous event takes palce. For the index, intraday support is at 2104.93. Strong sectors include Health Care, Financials, and the Industrials which are the leaders on the upside with Energy the weak link in the red.

 

Springleaf  (NYSE:LEAF) gains lead to buy OneMain for over $4B. According to a reports in Reuters, Springleaf (LEAF) has beaten out rival bidders and is in advanced talks to buy consumer finance unit OneMain Financial from Citigroup (C) for more than $4B.  Reuters cited people familiar with the matter. The report quoted a sources saying a deal is not finalized and Citigroup may still decide to pursue an IPO of OneMain instead. Springleaf shares are up nearly 12% to $38.18 in afternoon trading following the report.