MINNEAPOLIS — Just over a week after unveiling a $2.1 billion sale of its North American yogurt business, General Mills Inc. chairman and chief executive officer Jeffrey Harmening said the company is keeping an eye open for potential acquisitions.

“We’ll continue to look for options to strengthen our growth profile through M&A, with our near-term focus on bolt-on acquisitions, with the most likely transaction size ranging up to $1 billion to $2 billion dollars, which would be more similar to our Annie’s or Tyson pet treats acquisitions, as opposed to Blue Buffalo,” Harmening said in reporting General Mills’ fiscal 2025 first-quarter results.

Under the yogurt divestiture, announced Sept. 12, Minneapolis-based General Mills agreed to sell its Yoplait, Liberté, Go-Gurt, Oui, Mountain High and :ratio brands in the United States and Canada, respectively, to French companies Lactalis Group and Sodiaal. The transactions — including manufacturing plants in Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Reed City, Mich.; and Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec — are slated to be finalized in calendar 2025.

When announcing the yogurt sell-off, General Mills said it expects to use the net proceeds to repurchase shares. But Harmening noted that those funds also could be earmarked for acquisitions.

“And if we don’t see attractive acquisition candidates, we plan to return excess cash to shareholders in the form of share repurchases,” he said.

Speaking in a Sept. 18 first-quarter conference call, Harmening told analysts that General Mills took the same approach in fiscal 2024.

“In the last fiscal year, we did exactly what I said, which is we didn’t find any acquisition candidates that we really liked, so we returned the money to the shareholders in the form of share purchases,” he said. “When it comes to this year, our balance sheet is in a great place. And with this divestiture of our (North) American yogurt businesses, we felt it important to make sure that all of our investors know what we intend to do with those proceeds. As we look at the environment, I got a little bit more specific in this (earnings) release, and it really is what we see in the near term as the kinds of things that might be available to us in terms of bolt-ons, similar to what we had done for Annie’s or for Tyson.”

General Mills’ most recent acquisitions have focused on the pet category, including Edgard & Cooper (European pet food) this past April (financial terms not disclosed), Fera Pets (pet supplements) in January 2024 (terms not disclosed), the Tyson Foods’ pet treats business for $1.2 billion — including the Nudges, Top Chews and True Chews brands — in July 2021 and Blue Buffalo Pet Products for $8 billion in April 2018.

On the food side, General Mills acquired TNT Crust (frozen pizza crust) in June 2022 (terms not disclosed) and Annie’s (natural and organic foods) for $820 million in October 2014.

“Certainly, if something bigger came along that we don’t see now, we could entertain the notion,” Harmening told analysts about acquisition opportunities that may surface in the near term. “But for us, it seems like our focus right now and what we see in the marketplace is probably more availability of smaller-size assets that we could bolt on that would enhance our growth — so still enhancing our growth but bolted onto businesses we already own.”

He declined to provide analysts more color about potential acquisition candidates but acknowledged that a possible deal could be domestic or international.

“I’m not going to get that level of detail, but really where we have a competitive advantage where we see growth, maybe get little synergies along the way, those are the places where we will continue to look,” Harmening said.

TD Cowen analyst Robert Moskow cited General Mills’ acquisition talk in a Sept. 19 research note on the food company’s first-quarter results.

“Management emphasized that they can use the proceeds of the yogurt divestiture to buy back shares and make an acquisition at the same time,” Moskow said. “They reaffirmed their near-term focus on bolt-on acquisition targets in the range of $1 billion to $2 billion as opposed to a larger deal. They will continue to look for deals that will enhance growth in existing categories where they have a competitive advantage, specifically in pet, snacking or foodservice.”

With the completion of the yogurt transactions, General Mills said, the company will have turned over nearly 30% of its net sales base since fiscal 2018. Besides the pet and food acquisitions, that also includes the divestitures of the Hamburger Helper and Suddenly Salad side dishes businesses to Eagle Family Foods Group for $610 million in July 2022 and the sale of its Knack & Back and Jus-Rol European dough businesses to Cerelia Group in November 2021.