Coca-Cola has bought a 10% stake in Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, investing $1.25 billion to launch its new cold drink machine Keurig Cold.
According to the 10-year agreement signed between the two companies, they will work together to introduce Coca-Cola’s products on Green Mountain’s new machine.
The Keurig Cold system will be launched between late 2014 to early 2015 and will be able to produce “carbonated drinks, enhanced waters, juice drinks, sports drinks and teas,” Green Mountain said in a statement.
The system will bring both the companies into a direct competition with SodaStream, which was rumored to be a target of Pepsi last year. No such deal ultimately took place and Pepsico had shot these rumors down.
It's sparked a lot of media commentary proposing that the Green Mountain v SodaStream rivalry will develop to become the next Next Coke v Pepsi.
Under the terms of the agreement, Coca-Cola will acquire roughly 16.7 million newly issued shares of Green Mountain. The new shares have been priced at US$74.98, which represents the trailing 50-trading-day volume weighted average price as of market close.
© 2014 - European Supermarket Magazine by Enda Dowling
