Coca-Cola to buy British coffee chain for US$5 billion
Coca-Cola is hoping for a caffeine-fueled boost with the acquisition of British coffee chain Costa.
Costa is Britain's biggest coffee company, with over 2,400 coffee shops in the U.K. and another 1,400 in more than 30 countries, including around 460 in China, its second-biggest market. Coca-Cola said Friday it would buy the Costa brand from Whitbread for 3.9 billion pounds ($5.1 billion) in cash.
The deal, expected to close in the first half of 2019, comes on the heels of Coca-Cola's announcement earlier in August that it was buying a minority ownership stake in sports drink maker BodyArmor for an undisclosed amount. Coca-Cola's other investments in recent years have included milk that is strained to have more protein and a push into sparkling water.
The move is Coca-Cola's latest diversification as health-conscious consumers, at least in America, move away from traditional soda.
Rival PepsiCo, meanwhile, recently bought carbonated drink maker SodaStream, which produces machines that allow people to make fizzy drinks in their own homes.
READ: Why Pepsi’s SodaStream deal goes beyond healthier soda
Coca-Cola already owns the Georgia and Gold Peak coffee brands, which make bottled and canned drinks, but the purchase of Costa could allow it to compete with brands such as Starbucks.
Coffee is growing by 6% a year, making it one of the fastest-growing beverage categories in the world, said James Quincey, Coca-Cola president & CEO.
"Hot beverages is one of the few remaining segments of the total beverage landscape where Coca-Cola does not have a global brand," he said.
Coca-Cola has over 500 brands in its stable including Fanta, innocent smoothies and Powerade sports drinks. In 2017, it generated operating income of $9.7 billion on revenues of $35.4 billion.
Without being specific about expansion plans, Quincey said in a video posted on Coca-Cola's website that the company would "over time" look to take Costa "to more people in more places."
Costa doesn't currently have a presence in North or South America, but Quincey indicated that one potential early expansion route would be to use Costa's vending operation and grow the company's ready-to-drink products. In addition to its shops, Costa has self-serve coffee machines in grocery stores and gas stations.
Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at London-based stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown, said Costa will get "lots of care and attention" from Coca-Cola.
"Its global reach should turbo-charge growth in the years to come, and hot drinks are one of the few areas of the wider beverages sector where the soft drinks giant doesn't have a killer brand," he said.