Shaklee to Sell 78% Stake in Its Japanese Division

Shaklee Corp., a vitamin and personal-care products company whose growth has stalled in recent years, agreed Thursday to sell a 78% stake in its profitable Japanese subsidiaries to a leading Tokyo pharmaceutical company for $350 million.

The sale to Yananouchi Pharmaceutical comes one month after San Francisco-based Shaklee began tightening its anti-takeover defenses to ward off corporate raider Irwin L. Jacobs of Minneapolis. Company officials said the deal with Yananouchi was a further step to protect the company against a hostile takeover.

“To the extent that the (sale) results in an increase in stock price . . . you lessen the interest in people trying to take over the company,” said David M. Chamberlain, president and chief executive of Shaklee.

Through the first three quarters of 1988, Shaklee earned $12.9 million, down from $14.5 million a year earlier, on sales of $431.7 million. But in trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, Shaklee stock closed at $30.75, up $4.

With an independent sales force patterned after direct sales firms such as Amway Products and Herbalife, Shaklee’s vitamins and food supplements have become well established in Japan. The company said the Shaklee Japan subsidiaries now account for 28% of the parent company’s sales and 48% of its earnings.

“This came as a surprise to me,” Gerald S. May, an analyst for Paine Webber, said of the deal. May added that he does not think the move is a reaction to any specific takeover threat.