CNS is an Eden Prairie company. They are located in the Golden Triangle industrial area. The company made the front page of Monday’s Star Tribune Business section with the announcement that it has agreed to be purchased by Europe’s largest pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline for $566,000,000. You may not know the name, but you probably know their products. They make BreathRight nasal strips and Fiber Choice nutritional supplements. Mayor Tyra-Lukens, Economic Development Manager David Lindahl, and I paid one of our business “Meet & Greet: visits to CNS in 2004. It was a very interesting visit. CNS’s CEO, Marti Moffitt, is an inspiring leader. She managed a turnaround in the company that led to this sale to Glaxo. No word yet on what this sale means to Eden Prairie, but we’re going to look into it very soon.
On the front page of yesterday’s Star Tribune Business section there was a positive story about another Eden Prairie company – Super Valu, Inc. Super Valu has a higher consumer profile than CNS. They are the grocery giant of the Midwest. In the graphic to the left is a display of all the different logos uses to define their various consumer brands. I wrote about Super Valu earlier this year when they announced their acquisition of the much larger grocery operation Albertsons. The Star Tribune story talks about the announcement by Super Valu of their first full quarterly earnings statement since the Albertson’s acquisition. The announcement surprised financial skeptics who said the Albertson’s purchase was too big of a bite for Super Valu. They were wrong. Super Valu turned a nice profit last quarter. Congrats all around.
Eden Prairie has a vibrant and successful business community. It’s nice to read about their success in the paper.
