Care for a Minute Maid fruit juice to wash down
your Pringles potato chips? Procter & Gamble Co. and Coca-Cola Co.
sure hope so.
The consumer-products giants announced Wednesday they are
forming a jointly owned company to sell their drinks and snacks.
The new company, with about 40 brands, 6,000 employees and 15
manufacturing plants, would have annual sales of around $4.2
billion, Coke and P&G; said in a statement.
Coke will contribute to the new company its Minute Maid juice
division, which includes Hi-C and Five-Alive beverages, plus its
Fruitopia drink. P&G; will contribute Pringles chips and Sunny
Delight juice drinks. Both companies will own 50 percent of the new
venture, as yet unnamed.
"This new company will focus all of its resources on becoming
the global learder in innovative snacks and nutritional
beverages," Douglas Daft, chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola, and A.G.
Lafley, president and CEO of Procter & Gamble, said in a joint
statement. "It multiplies our respective strengths, creating
something better than either of our companies could do alone — it's
the perfect combination."
Coke will bring its global distribution system to the table,
while P&G; boasts research expertise. It will have its own
management and two directors from each parent company. Veteran Coke
executive Donald Short will be the chief executive officer.
Shares of the Atlanta based Coke were down $2.90 to $55.57 in
early trading on the New York Stock Exchange, where shares of the
Cincinnati-based P&G; were up 50 cents to $76.21.
