There is renewed talk that a prospective buyer - probably a trade buyer from overseas - is looking at vitamin supplements business Blackmores Limited (ASX:BKL) with its $65 share price its lowest level in five years and its market value at $1.3 billion. It comes with suggestions Driscoll's may be working with Paine Schwartz Partners to buy Australian-listed fruit and vegetable grower and marketer Costa Group down the track. One market expert said both Blackmores and Costa are perennial candidates for mergers and acquisitions, and Blackmores' 30% shareholder, Marcus Blackmore - the company's former longstanding Executive Chairman and board member from 1973 to 2021 - has made it clear he is a seller of the company founded by his father, Maurice.

He earlier hired Rothschild & Co to scan the market for a buyer, and in recent weeks was vocal at the annual general meeting with his discontent over the company's directors, arguing they did not have an appetite for calculated risk or enough understanding of the company that should have entered the India market some time ago.