Coke Flags Eventual Return to Au-NZ Beer Market
Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) may have agreed to sell off its current beer stakes to English brewer SABMiller but the beverage specialist has indicated that it will return to the market as soon as time permits.
As part owner of Pacific Beverages, maker of popular Australian beer brands such as Bluetongue and Miller, CCA struck a deal with SABMiller that would inject some $300 million cash to the Coke maker in exchange for its interest in Pacific.
The June agreement, according to the Herald Sun, also requires CCA to stay out of the Australian beer market for two years and everything will be formalised once SABMiller's takeover bid on Foster's Group has been approved by the target's shareholders.
The $10.8 billion SABMiller-Foster's merger will also require the approval of regulatory authorities, according to industry experts.
Yet this early, CCA chief executive Terry Davis is setting his eyes on a likely CCA comeback to the Australia-New Zealand beer market once the two-year prohibition clause on its deal with SABMiller lapses.
Part of CCA's preparation, Davis said, is the consolidation of its non-beer products, including the addition of new brands such as the Cougar and Black Douglas labels and Cascade, which the company will purchase from Foster's for an estimated amount of $200 million.
From there, Davis looks to strengthen its beer operations in Fiji and over the next two years, the CCA chief revealed his plans of retesting the beer industry via the New Zealand market.
"I'm passionate (about manufacturing in) Australia rather than have it made somewhere else, so that would be my aim ... to start off in distribution but ultimately to be a manufacturer," Davis told the Herald Sun.
In two years time, Davis is upbeat that CCA should be strong enough for a return to the beer market, both in Australia and New Zealand, as he envisions that "international brewers will be looking for alternative forms of distribution and we think (CCA can) offer that."