Soft drinks giant, Coca Cola company is mulling options for its bottling business in Africa, which includes either a sale or an Initial Public Offering (IPO). As Bloomberg reports, a sale or IPO of the stake could value the business at about $6 billion. However, this could change depending on the level of buyer interest.
The company holds 66.5% of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa and is speaking with potential advisers about its exit options.
Coca-Cola initially tried to offload the stake in 2017, when it drew interest from Heineken NV and Coca-Cola HBC AG’s likes. It had acquired the majority holding less than a year earlier when it paid $3.15 billion to buy Anheuser-Busch InBev out of the African bottling joint venture.
The Coca-Cola Beverages Africa business serves 13 countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana. It accounts for about 40% of the company’s drinks sold on the continent.
Based on Interbrand’s “best global brand” study of 2015, Coca Cola was the world’s third most valuable brand, after Apple and Google. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings each day.
It ranked No. 87 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Coca Cola concluded a deal earlier this year to increase local shareholding in its South Africa bottling unit.
