US-based beverage giant Coca-Cola Company is planning to retain majority stake in its African bottling business Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) for foreseeable future, dropping previously announced plan to refranchise the business.
Image: The Coca-Cola Company corporate headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia in the US. Photo: courtesy of DXR/Wikipedia.
The firm earlier announced its intention to refranchise the largest bottler of Coca-Cola beverages in Africa, as part of its global plan to focus on main beverage business by offloading its manufacturing and distribution assets.
Coca-Cola president and chief operating officer Brian Smith said: “Coca-Cola Beverages Africa is a very important part of the Coca-Cola system, and we see great opportunities to create even more value.
“While we remain committed to the refranchising process, we believe it’s in the best interests of all involved for Coca-Cola to continue to hold and operate CCBA.”
Coca-Cola said it expects to provide reclassified prior year financial information before releasing the second quarter earnings in 2019, and reclassify CCBA’s results into continuing operations.
Coca-Cola said in a statement: “Coca-Cola estimates depreciation and amortization expense for 2018 of approximately $400 million on a comparable basis.”
The firm plans to report CCBA’s results as part of the Bottling Investments Group segment.
CCBA was formed through the combination of the African nonalcoholic ready-to-drink bottling interests of SABMiller, The Coca-Cola Company and Gutsche Family Investments, in 2016.
In 2018, Coca-Cola signed a loan agreement with Ioniqa Technologies to facilitate the development of Ioniqa’s technology to produce high-grade, recycled PET content from hard-to-recycle PET waste.
The agreement aims to accelerate the development and deployment of high-grade recycled content PET for use in bottles used by Coca-Cola.
The firm said that the investment will support its global vision to work toward a World Without Waste, which aims to create packaging using at least 50% recycled material by 2030.
Coca-Cola Company chief innovation officer Robert Long said: “Our investment in new and pioneering recycling technologies is an opportunity for significant movement toward closing the loop and creating a circular economy for PET.
“We plan to continue investment in developing the right partnerships and initiatives – like with Ioniqa – to support our vision of a World Without Waste.”