可口可樂天價收購costa,正面battle星巴克
The soft drinks giant Coca-Cola is buying the Costa Coffee chain in a near-￡4bn deal that underlines the scale of the global coffee revolution.
軟飲料巨頭可口可樂公司用近40億英鎊的價格買下Costa咖啡，標誌着全球範圍內咖啡界的革新。The takeover will overnight turn Coca-Cola into the UK's biggest coffee shop player and give it a foothold in what is one of the world's fastest-growing drinks categories. The global coffee shop market alone is worth $165bn (￡127bn).
這項收購讓可口可樂搖身一變成爲英國最大的咖啡店領導者，在世界增長最快的飲料領域謀得一席之位。Costa這家全球連鎖咖啡公司市值在1650億美元，摺合1270億英鎊。Alison Brittain, the chief executive of Costa Coffee's owner Whitbread, said the coffee chain had been approached by a number of potential buyers but Coke's desire to snap up the 4,000-store chain was a “dream deal” for investors.
韋博得集團旗下Costa咖啡的總裁Alison Brittain稱，有許多潛在的買家想要買下Cost，但是可口可樂公司想買下4000家分店，對於投資者來說是“很理想的買賣”。
Whitbread, which also owns the Premier Inn hotel chain, bought Costa from its founders Sergio and Bruno Costa for ￡19m in 1995 when it had only 39 shops.
韋博得旗下還有Premier Inn連鎖酒店，Costa是在1995年從Sergio和Bruno Costa手中花了190萬英鎊買來，當時只有39家門店。
Angus Grierson, the managing director of the advisory firm LGB Corporate Finance, said the lightning speed the deal was done – it was brokered in five weeks – reflected the urgency with which Coca-Cola wanted to reduce its reliance on sugary drinks.
LGB財務顧問公司的管理總監Angus Grierson稱這項交易幾乎是光速完成的，只用了短短5周的時間，反應出可口可樂公司是對想要減輕對於含糖飲料的依賴是多麼急切。“The deal is an attempt to adapt quickly to changing tastes, notably the continuing rise in popularity of coffee, particularly among millennial consumers,” Grierson said. “Customers are choosing lower-sugar varieties of soft drinks more than they ever have, with sales of sugary drinks declining rapidly, down 11% in 2018, thanks in part to the introduction of the UK's first-ever sugar tax.”
“這項收購也能夠快速適應人們善變的口味，特別是最近咖啡的銷量的不斷上升，尤其是出生在千禧年之後的消費者的羣體中。”Grierson說道。“相較之前，顧客更傾向選擇低糖的飲料，2018年糖類飲料的銷售量下降很快，高達11%，一部分也要因爲英國第一次開始徵收糖稅。
