US PepsiCo to buy Israel’s SodaStream for $3.2 billion in cash
PepsiCo Inc., the US-based drinks, food, and snacks giant, is acquiring Israel’s SodaStream, a home seltzer machine company, for $3.2 billion in cash.PepsiCo says SodaStream to stay local, as buzz builds around $3.2b ‘entrance’
In a statement on Monday, the US company said it had acquired all of the outstanding shares of SodaStream for $144 per share in cash, a 32% premium on its 30-day volume weighted average price.
“PepsiCo and SodaStream are an inspired match,” PepsiCo chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi, who earlier this month said she plans to step down, said in a statement.
The Israeli company makes “great-tasting beverages” while reducing the amount of waste generated, she said. And this is aligned with PepsiCo’s philosophy of “making more nutritious products while limiting our environmental footprint,” added Nooyi.
The deal will enable PepsiCo to reach customers at home, rather than just at stores, CNBC reported, and comes as grocers are witnessing changes in purchasing trends, with more shoppers buying their products online.
“Today marks an important milestone in the SodaStream journey,” Daniel Birnbaum, the SodaStream CEO, said in the statement. “It is validation of our mission to bring healthy, convenient and environmentally friendly beverage solutions to consumers around the world.”
The SodaStream team will have access to PepsiCo’s capabilities and resources to take the firm to “the next level,” he said.
At the start of a press conference held by SodaStream and PepsiCo in Tel Aviv on Monday, after the announcement of the US giant’s $3.2 billion cash acquisition of the Israeli home seltzer machine company, SodaStream’s CEO said he wanted to begin with a statement in Hebrew.Five times SodaStream bubbled over in the headlines
Daniel Birnbaum recounted the story of the Exodus, a ship that carried Jewish immigrants, most of whom were Holocaust survivors, from France to British Mandatory Palestine in 1947. They were sent back to Europe and some were killed after British soldiers boarded the ship, stopping their entry to Israel.
Twenty-two years later, Birnbaum’s father, Ervin, a Holocaust survivor from Czechoslovakia and one of the ship’s passengers, immigrated to Israel and settled in the Negev, in Sde Boker, with his wife.
“Who would have believed, father,” Birnbaum said, visibly moved, as he looked across the hall past the scribbling journalists to his two parents, proudly sitting in the audience, “that after the Holocaust and all that you went through, after you lost 30 members of your family, you got to enjoy this moment,” in which the “ashes of the Holocaust have been transformed into a moment of glory and pride” for his son and for Israel.
SodaStream, the Israeli carbonated drink making company which was sold Monday to PepsiCo for $3.2 billion, hasn’t been a stranger to being in the headlines in recent years. Here are five instances when the company, and not its product, became the story.Netanyahu praises Pepsi acquisition of SodaStream
1. Scarlett Johansson controversy
Scarlett Johansson, the A-level American actress signed on as a celebrity endorsement for SodaStream in 2014, appearing in a number of advertisements. However, she ran into some non-carbonated hot water when Oxfam, the food charity for which she served as global ambassador expressed its disapproval due to SodaStream’s main factory being situated in Mishor Adumim in the West Bank.
Johansson hit back by resigning from her Oxfam position and issuing a statement defending her role with SodaStream.
“While I never intended on being the face of any social or political movement, distinction, separation or stance as part of my affiliation with SodaStream, given the amount of noise surrounding that decision, I’d like to clear the air,” she said.
”I remain a supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine. SodaStream is a company that is not only committed to the environment but to building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine, supporting neighbors working alongside each other, receiving equal pay, equal benefits and equal rights. That is what is happening in their Ma’aleh Adumim factory every working day.”
2. SodaStream at the Super Bowl
A TV ad for SodaStream with Scarlett Johansson was set to make a big splash on American TV during the airing of Super Bowl XLVIII in February 2014.
However, because the ad referred directly to the game’s main sponsors Coke and Pepsi by name, and in a critical fashion for creating unnecessary waste with their products, a decision was made to censor the ad.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu praised the acquisition of Israeli company SodaStream for $3.2 billion by PepsiCo Monday.
"The recent major acquisitions of Israeli companies prove not only the technological capabilities that have been developed in Israel but the business capabilities as well," Netanyahu said. "I welcome this huge deal that will enrich the state treasury and also the important decision to keep the company in Israel."
PepsiCo, which produces not only Pepsi Cola but a wide range of snacks, beverages, and other food products ranging from Lipton Teas to Cheetos to Quaker brand oatmeal products, announced Monday morning its plans to acquire SodaStream at $144 a share – a 32% premium over SodaStream’s estimated stock value before the deal.
SodaStream, which was initially based in the town of Mishor Adumim, east of Jerusalem, relocated across the Green Line in 2015 to pre-1967 Israel following boycott threats, laying off some 500 Palestinian Authority residents it had employed.