Coca-Cola to retain majority stake in CCBA

Coca Cola has announced its intention to retain a majority stake in Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA).

The company previously announced plans to refranchise CCBA, which is one of the company’s largest bottlers in Africa and serves 12 countries.

As part of the initiative, the company carried out discussions with a large number of potential partners.

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.”

With this move, Coca-Cola will start presenting CCBA’s financial statements from continuing operations in Q2 2019.

CCBA was established in 2016 through the combination of SABMiller’s non-alcoholic, ready-to-drink bottling interests, The Coca-Cola Company and Gutsche Family Investments. Coca-Cola became the controlling shareowner of CCBA after AB InBev acquired SABMiller.

Later, AB InBev reached an agreement to transition its 54.5% equity stake in CCBA to Coca-Cola.

Since 2017, CCBA has been a discontinued operation.

Earlier this month, CCBA signed an enterprise software agreement with Demand Driven Technologies (DD Tech).

As part of the agreement, DD Tech will install its supply chain technology Replenishment+ across CCBA’s 26 manufacturing facilities and 20 distribution centres across ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa.