Coca-Cola closes Russia juice subsidiary - report

MOSCOW, May 8 (Itar-Tass) - Coca-Cola will close Russian subsidiary Nidan Juices in June, Kommersant daily reported. The company ends operations at two plants in the Moscow region and the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, losing annual capacity of 560 million litres and about 1,000 workers, the paper says, adding that Nidan’s flagship brand Moya Semiya will be handed over to another Coca-Cola juice company, Multon, while the fate of Da! and Caprice brands remained unresolved. Nidan had already notified Novosibirsk region’s authorities of pending job cuts at the local facility, says the paper, quoting the region’s interim Vice-Governor Sergey Semka. “All the region’s retailers were notified in written form about Nidan’s closing,” said comments attributed to Holiday Classic retailer, information said to be confirmed by Maria Kurnusova from French network Auchan in Moscow, her words adding that no offer had been made to conclude an agreement for supplies with any other Coca-Cola company. Industry data records Coca-Cola as having acquired Nidan for $276 million in 2010 when the company was the fourth-largest juice producer in Russia with a 13 percent market share. But Coca-Cola had failed to sustain Nidan’s competitiveness, Russia's Union of Juice Producers is cited as saying, noting Nidan’s share slipping to nine percent in 2011 and 6.9 percent the following year. Coca-Cola is said to explain the wind-up of Nidan operations by a juice market contraction in Russia falling five percent last year. “Since Nidan’s results came in below market average, the company decided to streamline its juice business on the basis of a more efficient Multon,” Coca-Cola’s spokesman Vladimir Kravtsov is quoted as saying. Learn more on itar-tass.com