Coca-Cola Company has announced that it will maintain its majority stake in Coca-Cola Beverages Africa for the foreseeable future.
With the change, Coca-Cola will begin presenting the financial statements of CCBA within its results from continuing operations in the second quarter of 2019, in accordance with U.S. accounting standards. CCBA has been accounted for as a discontinued operation since Coca-Cola became the controlling shareowner in October 2017.
Coca-Cola previously announced its intention to refranchise CCBA and has had discussions with a number of potential partners.
In reclassifying CCBA’s results into continuing operations, Coca-Cola expects depreciation and amortization for CCBA will be reinstated, per accounting guidelines. Coca-Cola estimates depreciation and amortization expense for 2018 of approximately $400 million.
CCBA was formed in 2016 through the combination of the African nonalcoholic ready-to-drink bottling interests of SABMiller plc, The Coca-Cola Company and Gutsche Family Investments. AB InBev later acquired SABMiller and reached an agreement to transition AB InBev’s 54.5% equity stake in CCBA to Coca-Cola. That 2017 transaction made Coca-Cola the controlling shareowner of CCBA.
