Drinks giant Suntory bids £1.6bn for Schweppes

Just days after Cadbury began fighting off a takeover attack from America, it has emerged its old sister business Schweppes could be turning Japanese.

Suntory — the Japanese drinks giant best-known for making whisky of the same name — is believed to have tabled a $2.6 billion (£1.6 billion) bid for Orangina Schweppes, the UK and European soft-drinks arm of the former Cadbury Schweppes group.
The business was sold by Cadbury Schweppes for 1.85 billion (£1.6 billion) three years ago.

That was the earlier stages of the break up of the company which left the Cadbury's chocolate business open to this week's £10 billion takeover bid from Kraft.

The business was bought by its current owners the American private equity firms Blackstone Partners and Lion Capital.

Orangina was bought by Cadbury Schweppes in 2001 from Pernod Ricard but when Schweppes was sold off the business was headquartered in France and renamed to give prominence to Orangina.

Suntory confirmed it is in talks. Reports indicate a deal could be done by the end of the week.