Pepsico to Sell Wilson Sporting Goods Unit

NEW YORK —  Pepsico said Monday that it had agreed to sell its Wilson Sporting Goods unit to Wesray Capital, a privately held investment banking firm.

Terms weren’t disclosed, although Pepsico said the sale would “have no material effect” on its financial results.

Pepsico had said in February that it was considering the sale of Wilson as part of a restructuring plan aimed at allowing the company to concentrate on its largest operations--soft drinks, snack foods and restaurants.

Pepsico previously sold its Lee Way Motor Freight transportation unit. It is about to close the sale of its North American Van Lines subsidiary to Norfolk Southern.

Pepsico, whose soft drinks include Pepsi-Cola, Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew, also operates the snack-foods concern Frito-Lay and owns the Taco Bell and Pizza Hut restaurant chains.

“Wilson has long been one of the largest, most successful and widely respected companies in the sporting goods industry,” Donald M. Kendall, Pepsico’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statment. “But it is not closely related to our major product lines and last year accounted for only 3% of our total sales” of $7.70 billion, he said.

Wilson’s revenue fell to $247.6 million last year from $265.7 million in 1983, and its operating loss widened to $16.7 million from $11.2 million.

Pepsico, based in Purchase, N.Y., said that Wesray indicated that it plans to operate Wilson “as an independent company and expects to aggressively expand its operations through the development of existing product lines as well as new ones.”

Wesray, whose chairman is former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, has in the past few years bought 14 companies with combined 1984 revenue exceeding $6 billion. The companies include Atlas Van Lines, Gibson Greetings and Proctor-Silex. Wesray has offices in New York and Morristown, N.J.