Coca-Cola sells SPC business for $40m

Coca-Cola Amatil has sold its Victorian-based SPC fruit and vegetable processing business.

Picture: Alex Coppel

COCA-Cola Amatil says it is selling its Victorian-based SPC fruit and vegetable processing business to the Shepparton Partners Collective for $40 million.

The new owners were “offering employment to all permanent staff,” Coca-Cola Amatil said in an announcement that caps a sale first mooted in August 2018. Shepparton Partners Collective, a joint venture between Perma Funds Management and The Eights, said it would focus on reducing the complexity at SPC and product innovation.

“We believe there is enormous opportunity to grow this unique 100-year-old brand further domestically and internationally,” Perma managing director Hussein Rifai said.

Coca-Cola Amatil said it expected a profit of $10 million to $15 million on completion of the sale, which both parties anticipated would occur before the end of June.

“Amatil’s ability to frank dividends will be significantly impacted in the short to medium term” by the sale because of deferred tax assets, the company said in a statement to the ASX on Tuesday.

Coca-Cola Amatil group managing director Alison Watkins said there had been strong domestic and international interest in SPC because of the brand’s “iconic status” and the Victorian government’s $22 million contribution to support the fruit processor between 2014 and 2018.

“This outcome is good news for SPC and good news for the Goulburn Valley,” Ms Watkins said.

Shares in Coca-Cola Amatil were worth $9.37 before the start of trade on Tuesday, up about seven per cent in the last six months.