P.M. BRIEFING : Quaker Oats to Sell Fisher-Price

Quaker Oats Co. said today that it will spin off its troubled Fisher-Price toy division to Quaker shareholders, leaving the parent company free to concentrate on its food business.

Fisher-Price, whose durable toys once dominated the infant and preschool categories, has struggled against fierce competition in recent years.

Quaker Chairman William D. Smithburg said Fisher-Price should fare better as an independent, publicly owned company.

The decision to spin off the toy subsidiary did not come as a complete surprise. Smithburg, at a meeting with securities analysts in February, had indicated that a sale of Fisher-Price was possible, although he said nothing was imminent at that time.

The Fisher-Price unit, based in East Aurora, N.Y., posted an 11% decline in operating income in fiscal 1989 and last month closed a manufacturing plant. The plant closing in East Aurora affected 450 of the division’s about 7,400 employees.