Italy's biggest food group Parmalat, crippled by a multi-billion-euro accounting scandal, has valuable milk, yoghurt and juice businesses to interest rivals in any fire sale, analysts and bankers said.
But any buyers are likely to be wary until the financial uncertainty clears at the company, which faces one of Europe's biggest-ever corporate crises and is set to get special fast-track bankruptcy protection from the Italian authorities.
And the way in which the company made piecemeal acquisitions to become a near $10 billion-a-year food conglomerate also means potential buyers, which might include Swiss-based Nestle SA and French group Danone, will only want the tastiest bits of the sprawling empire.
Investment bankers say any Parmalat sell-off may take some time, although it had planned a sale of its bakery division of biscuits, snacks and breads earlier this year which analysts said might raise €300 million.
Many analysts were uncomfortable with a highly acquisitive company, with little transparency and the founding 51 per cent-owning Tanzi family determined not to lose control, resulting in a web of complex bond deals and ever-mounting debts.
"The stock was simply not investment grade. It was highly acquisitive and we were uncomfortable with the financial information coming out. We had seen what happens to acquisitive groups like Polly Peck and Hillsdown," said one London analyst.
Analysts have been wary of fast-growing acquisitive food groups after Polly Peck collapsed in the early 1990 and its founder Asil Nadir fled to his native northern Cyprus, while Hillsdown rocked by poor trading and increasingly despairing shareholders ended in private equity hands in the late 1990s.
While many of Italy's big food names remain in private hands such as Barilla and Ferrero, the Parma-based group built up an empire of Lactis and Frescoblu milks, Parmalat and Loseley yoghurts, Santal juices and Grisbi, Mr Day and Archway biscuits.
Such was the drive to expand abroad, especially in South America like fellow Italian group Fiat and Pirelli, that 52 per cent of group profits had come from north and south America compared to just 41 per cent from Europe during 2002.
The rapid growth sent Parmalat's market capitalisation to €1.8 billion pushing Parmalat into the world's top league of dairy product groups alongside Nestle and Danone, but since the crisis the shares are now virtually worthless.
If any Parmalat sell-offs are planned then it will be the value-added yoghurts, juices and bakery side which will offer the most interest rather than its large low-value liquid milk operations, London-based investment bankers said.
The world's two biggest dairy products group, Nestle and Danone, are focused on value-added products such as yoghurts and not on Parmalat's staple of liquid milk, which makes up 57 per cent of group sales.
Parmalat's milk and milk-based sales of €6.2 billion in 2002 put it within a whisker of Danone's €6.3 billion while Nestle sales are estimated at €10 billion, but sales from these two come almost entirely from added-valued milk products.
After inheriting a delicatessen, Calisto Tanzi set up his first dairy plant in Parma in 1961, and built up the world's largest liquid milk group in 42 years, with milk and fresh milk-based produce making up 81 per cent of 2002 turnover of €7.6 billion, and 82 per cent of profits.
Mr Tanzi made his first overseas buying sortie in 1974, to Brazil, before expanding into Germany, France, Spain and Portugal, but it was the Milan stock listing in 1990 that gave Mr Tanzi the funds to set off on a true shopping spree.
Cash from the float funded his move into North America, the rest of South America, eastern Europe, and he also set up operations in Africa and China and Australia.
The group tapped the share market for funds in 1993 and 1996 and then turned increasingly to the bond and debt markets as Tanzi remained determined to stay in control.
Parmalat's acquisitions built up more than seven billion euros of outstanding bonds, but that seemed manageable since it said it had cash and equivalents of €4.2 billion at end-September.
Why the group did not use the cash to repay some of the bonds was made clear last week when Bank of America invalidated a document purporting to show Cayman Islands unit Bonlat Financing Corp held €3.95 billion in investments and cash.
Parmalat, saddled with this near four-billion-euro accounting hole which some media reports say may deepen to €10 billion, now faces an Enron-type accounting crisis, while Mr Tanzi and three former directors have been named in a criminal probe.