Nestle, the world’s biggest food company, agreed to buy Pfizer’s infant-nutrition unit for $11.9 billion, edging out Danone in a contest for a business that gets most of its sales in fast-growing emerging markets.

The purchase will lead to annual cost benefits of $160 million and will boost earnings per share in the first full year, Nestle Chief Executive Officer Paul Bulcke said today on a conference call. The Pfizer unit will increase Nestle’s sales of infant formula to $7 billion a year from $5 billion.

Nestle’s offer beat a bid of about $11 billion from Danone, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The purchase will help the Vevey, Switzerland-based company, already the top seller of infant-nutrition products, regain traction in the Chinese baby-food market, where it has been losing market share since 2005. The Pfizer unit gets about 85 percent of sales from emerging markets such as Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

滬江英語(yǔ)快訊：惠氏奶粉有了新東家！雀巢CEO在電話會(huì)議上宣布已經(jīng)斥資119億美元收購(gòu)輝瑞制藥旗下的惠氏嬰兒奶粉。雀巢的此次收購(gòu)具有戰(zhàn)略意義。據(jù)預(yù)測(cè)，通過(guò)收購(gòu)惠氏奶粉，今年其嬰兒奶粉這一塊的收入就有可能增加20億美元，而且將擴(kuò)大其在新興市場(chǎng)的占有率。