Coke cracks Schweppes

By Dita De Boni

The Commerce Commission has given Coca-Cola the go-ahead to buy the rights to Cadbury Schweppes drinks in New Zealand for around $38 million.

The move is one more step in Coke's master plan to buy $US85 billion worth of Cadbury Schweppes properties in 155 countries worldwide.

Coke will immediately assume control of all Cadbury-Schweppes beverages in New Zealand, the best known being the mixers and lemonades marketed under the Schweppes brand.

Combining the manufacturing and bottling of the two brands will not be necessary as Coke already processes Schweppes drinks under licence at its Mt Wellington plant.

Cadbury Schweppes sells 6.4 million cases of drink a year in New Zealand, but the external affairs manager for Coca-Cola South Pacific, Geoff Walsh, would not disclose the market share Coke would now hold.

He stressed that Coke's new acquisitions would still be marketed with the Schweppes brand name.

In New Zealand, Coke's biggest competitor is Pepsi, with just 11 per cent market share.

The three companies have intertwined histories - Cadbury Schweppes owned the Pepsi franchise before 1990 when it sold to Lion Nathan, which failed to sell it back to Cadbury in 1997.

In Australia, the Competition and Consumer Commission has still not approved an identical deal, despite many reworkings and revisions to the Australian terms of the Coke-Cadbury Schweppes worldwide agreement.

Mr Walsh said Coke was considering its options in Australia and had no date to complete the deal.