That is in line with the time frame P&G outlined when the company announced in May that it had decided to relocate the 240-person pet food headquarters staff to P&G’s Mason Business Center complex, Hopkins said.
The Iams-Eukanuba pet food business has become global and P&G sees a benefit to giving the unit’s employees direct access to other P&G business units in Mason, the company has said.
Oct. 24 may turn out not to be the precise date for the shutdown, but it will be within 10 days of that date, P&G spokesman Jason Taylor said.
P&G’s tax payments for the Vandalia operation amount to about 5 percent of the city’s $12 million in yearly tax collections from all businesses, city officials have said.
P&G hired Jones Lang LaSalle, a commercial real estate consultant, to find a buyer for the 12-acre complex on Poe Avenue in Vandalia, which includes two buildings of about 53,000 square feet apiece just off Interstate 75.
“Nobody’s submitted formal offers yet. We have had some local interest,” said Ben Herrig, a vice president for Jones Lang LaSalle in Chicago. He declined to say who had expressed interest.
His company plans an Oct. 8 online auction in hopes of selling the complex as quickly as possible for P&G. Herrig said he expects the sale to close in late November.
The transfer does not affect P&G’s pet food manufacturing plant and technical center at Lewisburg in Preble County, which collectively employ between 250 and 300 people, Taylor said.
P&G said this week that it has sold its prescription drug business to drug maker Warner Chilcott for $3.1 billion. P&G’s pharmaceutical division is based in Mason and has about 520 pharmaceutical employees there. That sale won’t affect the relocation of the pet food business, P&G said.
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