Swire Pacific Ltd. is buying Coca-Cola Co.’s bottling operations in Vietnam and Cambodia for $1.015 billion, marking the Hong Kong conglomerate’s first expansion into the Southeast Asian beverages market. The deal will “expand the group’s beverages business into one of the most rapidly growing beverages markets,” Swire said in a stock exchange filing on Monday. Swire has a long-standing relationship with Coca-Cola, and previously bought the soft-drink maker’s bottling operations in southern China in 2016. Among the major assets that Swire has offloaded in recent years in its re-direction of investment is Swire Pacific Offshore Holdings Ltd., which Tidewater Inc. agreed to buy in March for $190 million, partly in cash and partly in warrants. And in 2020, Swire Properties Ltd. agreed to sell a stake in a Hong Kong office tower to private equity firm Gaw Capital Partners for almost $1.3 billion.

Source: Daily Nation July 18, 2022 12:43 UTC