Three European bottlers of The Coca-Cola Company KO — Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc. CCE, Coca-Cola Iberian Partners and Coca-Cola Erfrischungsgetränke AG — will merge to form a new Western European bottler, Coca-Cola European Partners.
While Coca-Cola Enterprises is a publicly traded Atlanta-based bottler of Coca-Cola Company (Coke) serving some Western European countries, including France and Great Britain, Coca-Cola Iberian Partners is a privately held Coke bottler that caters to Spain and Portugal. Coca-Cola Erfrischungsgetränke AG is a German beverage company owned by Coke.
Per the merger, Coca-Cola Enterprises’ shareholders will receive one Coca-Cola European Partners share and one-time cash payment of $14.50 per share.
Coca-Cola Enterprises will hold 48% stake, Coca-Cola Iberian Partners will own 34% with Coke commanding the remaining 18% in the new bottling company.
Coca-Cola European Partners will be the largest independent Coca-Cola bottler in terms of revenues — combined pro-forma 2015 revenues of about $12.6 billion. With more than 50 bottling plants, Coca-Cola European Partners will serve over 300 million consumers across 13 Western European countries, including Andorra, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands.
With its increased scale, Coca-Cola European Partners should realize substantial synergies from supply chain savings and better operating efficiencies. The synergies are extimated to culminate into annualized pre-tax savings of $350–$375 million within three years of closing.
Coca-Cola European Partners will be headquartered in London and trade on the Euronext Amsterdam, the New York Stock Exchange and the Madrid Stock Exchange. Some analysts claim that the merger aims to derive benefits from tax inversion by shifting headquarters from the U.S. to the U.K. where tax rate is much lower.
CEO of Coke, Muhtar Kent, believes that the merger will help drive profitable growth across Western Europe. The merger is the latest in Coca-Cola’s strategy of combining its smaller bottling operations to form larger companies to improve efficiency and cut costs.
In November, last year, Coke formed an agreement with South African bottler, SABMiller, and Gutsche Family Investments, to merge their bottling operations in southern and eastern Africa to form Coca-Cola Beverages Africa which would be the largest Coca-Cola bottler on the continent. In 2013, the company merged some of its bottling partners in Japan, Spain and Portugal and Brazil.
Coke has also been buying equity stakes in growing companies. It owns 16% stake in Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. GMCR and 16.7% stake in energy drink maker, Monster Beverage Corporation MNST.
While Coke has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), Coca-Cola Enterprises has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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