McCormick will buy Unilever’s food business for a combination of cash and equity, in a deal that values the Unilever unit at nearly $45 billion, the two food companies announced.

To buy most of Unilever Foods’ portfolio, including Hellmann’s mayo and U.K. favorite Marmite, McCormick will pay $15.7 billion in cash, and Unilever and its shareholders will own 65% of the combined company.

The deal will add billions of dollars in annual sales for McCormick and expand the spice giant’s portfolio further into spreads and condiments. It already owns Frank’s RedHot and Cholula hot sauces.

For Unilever, divesting much of its food business allows the company to focus on its personal care segment, which is growing faster. In December, Unilever spun off its ice cream business, now trading separately as Magnum Ice Cream Company.

The deal follows a broader trend among Big Food. Many packaged food and beverage companies have been getting leaner through divestitures and spinoffs as consumers buy less of their products. In 2024, nearly half of mergers and acquisitions activity in the consumer products industry came from divestitures, according to consulting firm Bain.

President Donald Trump late Saturday called on Netflix to fire board member Susan Rice or “pay the consequences,” after she said Democrats would push for corporate accountability if they regain power in the November midterm elections.

In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump described Rice, who served as President Joe Biden’s domestic policy chief and held top foreign policy posts under President Barack Obama, as “purely a political hack” with “no talent or skills.”

“HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK,” Trump wrote.

Rice argued during a podcast last week that “it is not going to end well” for corporations, news organizations, and law firms that “bent the knee” to Trump, and that their deference is unpopular.

“There is likely to be a swing in the other direction, and they are going to be caught with more than their pants down,” Rice told Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. “They’re going to be held accountable by those who come in opposition to Trump and win at the ballot box.”

She added, “If these corporations think that Democrats, when they come back in power, are going to play by the old rules, and say, ‘Never mind, we will forgive you for all the people you fired and all the policies and principles you violated, all the laws you skirted,’ I think they got another thing coming.”

Rice served on Netflix’s board from 2018 to 2021, and rejoined in 2023 after leaving the Biden administration.

Netflix representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump included a screenshot of an earlier post from far-right activist and Trump ally Laura Loomer, who said Rice’s remarks were “anti-American” and urged the president to “kill the Netflix-Warner Bros. merger now.” Loomer also tagged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr in her post.

The comments come after Trump told NBC News earlier this month that the Department of Justice will “handle” the deal and that he’ll stay out of their review, after previously saying he’d be involved in the process. The DOJ is currently reviewing Netflix’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Netflix has proposed acquiring WBD in a $72 billion deal that would not include the company’s cable networks, including CNN.

Paramount Skydance, in response, launched a hostile takeover bid for all of WBD, promising its shareholders $30 per share in an all-cash deal.

The DOJ is investigating whether Netflix’s proposed deal could hurt competition, and it’s also asked how the company’s previous acquisitions have affected competition for creative talent, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.

As part of its review, the agency is also examining whether the streaming giant uses anticompetitive tactics in negotiations with independent content creators for acquiring programming, Bloomberg reported, citing documents.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said last month that he’s confident the company will be able to secure regulatory approval “because this deal is pro-consumer … pro-innovation, pro-worker.”