Mubasher: Nestle on Wednesday announced selling its US confectionery brands, namely: Crunch, Nerds, Runts, and Butterfinger to Italy’s Ferrero for $2.8 billion.

With this acquisition, Ferrero would be the third largest confectionery business in the US.

These brands would give us a "substantially greater scale" and a "broader offering of high-quality products" for US customers, Italy’s Nutella maker said.

Nestle has sold these brands to invest more in other products like pet care, bottled water, coffee, frozen meals, and infant nutrition, the Swiss company’s chief executive Mark Schneider said in a statement.