Clorox Acquisition of Burt's Bees Smells Familiar

NYT has an interesting article about Clorox's (CLX) recent acquisition of Burt's Bees, the sorta hippy producer of natural cosmetics.

The story has shades of Ben & Jerry's sale to Unilever (UN), which seemed similarly incongruous. Ben & Jerry's was in Vermont; Burt's Bees got its start it Maine. And both were started by a quirky pair of folks. Interestingly, the pair behind Burt's Bees, who were once a couple, had a falling out several years back. So the actual Burt has made a sliver of the money made by his partner, Roxanne Quimby, who bought him out.

Ben and Jerry had disputes too, but it was mainly that one of them liked chunky-style ice cream and other preferred smooth. That's not a joke; that's what I heard from someone close to the company a while back.