No word on whether Tom and Kate Chappell, owners of Tom's of Maine, checked in with Ben Cohen or Jerry Greenfield before they sold an 84% stake in their business to Colgate-Palmolive in a $100 million cash deal announced last week. But it’s a reasonable guess that Colgate saw the parallels between its purchase of a Maine-based countercultural personal products company (have you tried the fennel toothpaste?) and Unilever’s acquisition of a Vermont-based, countercultural ice cream company in 2000. According to this AP article on Boston.com, the consumer products giant plans to run its new unit as a standalone sub, a model it already employs with its Science Diet pet food line. That’s also the strategy followed by Unilever with Ben & Jerry’s, and letting the ice cream maker retain its political personality has certainly helped fatten the profits it turns over to its big parent.

There are differences in the deals as well. Ben & Jerry was a public company and is now 100% owned by Unilever (which paid $326 million for it). Ben and Jerry are no longer running it; they seem to devote their time to causes. Tom’s, with annual sales of about $50 million, was private. Tom Chappell, who is 63, will stay on to run it. Under the terms of the transaction (negotiated for Tom’s by Goldman Sachs, according to The Deal), Colgate has an option to buy more shares. According to a press release from Tom’s the co-founders are interested in both Colgate’s cultural values and its global capabilities; they want to take the company "to the next level."

A few years out, the deal could get even more interesting. There is a delicate balance to be struck between autonomy and efficiency, and of course the tradeoffs change over time.

Colgate has been relatively quiet on the acquisition front—especially compared with its much bigger rival, P&G, which bought Gillette for $57 billion last year—even as M&A activity has heated up in the personal care market. Colgate CEO Reuben Marks has said he likes organic growth—but he did recently acknowledge he’s interested in Listerine, which Pfizer has put up for sale. — Kenneth Klee

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