By Cliff Peale
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Procter & Gamble Co. is studying the relocation of its Fabric and Home Care executives to Cincinnati from Brussels, Belgium.

The company confirmed the study this week but said it is just beginning. If P&G chooses to relocate the executive team from the European Technical Center in Brussels, it would bring the managers of all five of the company's global businesses into the Tristate, and affect more than 50 jobs overall.

P&G would not speculate on when a decision might be made or where the unit's top executives - including president Bob McDonald - might be housed.

One possible location might be the division's new $67 million Innovation Center on P&G's Ivorydale campus in St. Bernard. Up to 600 workers are moving into the building in the first half of this year, all of them relocated locally.

The relocation would continue P&G's consolidation throughout its core businesses. And it would cement the company's ties to Cincinnati, even as its global reach expands in countries such as Russia and China.

The Fabric and Home Care division makes and markets brands including Tide, Ariel, Dawn, Swiffer and Cascade.

Since its 1999 restructuring, P&G has winnowed its business units to five. Their executives and locations are:

• Health Care: President Bruce Byrnes is downtown. The pharmaceutical business, headed by Mark Collar, is housed in P&G's Health Care Research Center in Mason. The unit also includes Iams pet food, located in Dayton, Ohio, under president Jeff Ansell.

• Beauty Care: Byrnes also is head of this unit; personal beauty care president Susan Arnold is downtown. The hair-care business is based in Egham, England, while hair-color offices are in the Clairol headquarters in Stamford, Conn. Feminine care, which moved into this unit last year, is headquartered at the Winton Hill Technical Center.

• Baby and Family Care: Business unit president Mark Ketchum's office is at Winton Hill, along with Family Care leader Charlie Pierce. Baby Care president Deb Henretta is housed with that unit in Blue Ash.

• Snacks and Beverages: President Jorge Montoya and global beverage chief Mike Griffith are downtown.

• Fabric and Home Care: It has been based in Brussels since the restructuring.

P&G's downtown buildings also house the global market-development groups; corporate functions including legal, finance and information technology; and the company's top executives.

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com