Refresco has completed acquisition of the Cott’s bottling activities in the North America, UK, and Mexico for $1.25bn.

Refresco provides a range of product and packaging combinations from 100% fruit juices to carbonated soft drinks and mineral waters in carton, PET, Aseptic PET, cans and glass.

The deal integrates European capabilities of Refresco with Cott’s strength in the UK and North America. It nearly doubles Refresco’s production volume to about 12 billion liters.

The new combination extends Refresco’s activities in North America, with national coverage with 22 manufacturing sites in the US, four manufacturing sites in Canada and one in Mexico.

Refresco currently has 26 manufacturing sites in continental Europe and six manufacturing sites in the UK.

Cott’s bottling business in the UK will be combined into Refresco Europe, while Cott’s North American organization will be integrated with Refresco North America.

Cott North America is a beverage manufacturer and distributor focused on private label, contract manufacturing and own brands with better positions in both the shelf stable juice and drinks area as well as in soda or carbonated soft drinks.

Refresco CEO Hans Roelofs said: “The joined business will be well positioned to meet customers’ continuously changing needs and requirements and offers ample opportunity for employees to develop their careers in an increasingly international setting.

“The company has a well balanced portfolio with exposure to all categories for retailers and a strengthened contract manufacturing exposure with unique geographical spread for branded beverage companies.”

Refresco has recently agreed to sell UK facility in order to address the concerns raised by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over its merger with Cott.

Cott CEO Jerry Fowden said that the beverage manufacturing business sale will allow it to significantly deleverage its balance sheet as well as position the firm to focus on accelerating growth across its route-based services platform in water, coffee, tea, extracts and filtration solutions.