Coca-Cola HBC to acquire Irish vending services business
BDS Vending, founded in 1993, is a well-established privately-hold drink and snack vending services business in Ireland. It is based in Dublin and primarily active in Ireland (with minor operations in Northern Ireland), with depots in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Sligo, Limerick and Wexford.
This proposed acquisition is part of Coca-Cola HBC’s strategy to enhance its route-to-market capabilities and provide new opportunities across a ’24/7’ portfolio of cold and hot beverages and snacks.
Furthermore, BDS Vending’s tech and services will help Coca-Cola HBC develop further capabilities across its markets: which span 28 markets with a diverse geographical footprint in Europe and beyond.
Davide Franzetti, General Manager, Coca-Cola HBC Ireland & Northern Ireland, said: “We are delighted to be announcing this proposed acquisition of BDS Vending and we look forward to working with the BDS team. BDS will provide us with a joint platform to build capabilities in our route-to-market, to offer our customers greater choice and to further enhance our consumer experience.”
The transaction is subject to approval by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) in the Republic of Ireland and is anticipated to be completed over the coming months.
The two founders, David Mullan and Brian Berry, will continue to lead BDS Vending throughout the transition period.
The acquisition comes as Coca-Cola HBC reported 16.9% organic revenue growth earlier this week, driven by ‘focused execution’ of its 24/7 strategy. Volumes were up 1.7%.
Key strategic categories for the Coca-Cola bottler are sparkling, energy and coffee: all of which performed well over the year.
Energy volumes grew by 27.3%, with Coca-Cola HBC championing the eighth consecutive year of strong double-digit growth. In established and developing markets, growth was driven by Monster, while growth in emerging markets was led by Predator, as well as the successful launch of Coca-Cola HBC’s energy portfolio in Egypt.
Coffee volumes grew 31.5%: with the company making good progress its out-of-home customer recruitment, adding 5,000 outlets in the year to bring our total to 13,000.
