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Roxanne Quimby Case:

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Running head: BURT’S BEES MOVING DECISION 1

Roxanne Quimby Case:
Burt’s Bees Moving Decision
Katherine J Kelley
University of Mary Abstract
Burt’s Bees is an American natural personal care products subsidiary of Clorox, originated in 1984 in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine as a partnership between Roxanne Quimby and Burt Shavitz making and selling items out of leftover beeswax. Over many years, they built the business into Burt’s Bees, which was a leading natural personal-care brand. In 1993, the business had reached $3 million in sales and Quimby was convinced moving to a new location would bring new advances to the business. That’s when she started to seek out locations that were more business-friendly. Its headquarters moved from Maine to Creedmoor, North Carolina. Over many years, they built Burt’s Bees to offer over 100 natural personal-care products in 4,000 locations with sales growing more than $8 million in addition. Growing out of their 18,000-square-foot factory, they moved once again to Durham, North Carolina. In 1999, Quimby bought out Shavitz’s stake in the company. In 2004, Quimby sold Burt’s Bees to AEA Investors for 80% of the company for $173 million. She would continue to stay on as the CEO of the company. They continued to build Burt’s Bees to offer over 197 products for facial and body skin care, lip care, hair care, baby care, men’s grooming, and outdoor remedies in nearly 30,000 locations. In late 2007, Clorox Company acquired Burt’s Bees for $925 million. (Burt’s Bees, 2015). The Clorox Company is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer company with 7,700 employees worldwide as of 2014. The company’s net sales were $5.5 billion at that time, ranking them #451 on Fortune 2014 Fortune 500 list. (Clorox, 2015).

Burt’s Bees Moving Decision
As Quimby saw Burt’s Bees grow to $3 million in sales, she felt she

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