LONDON, United Kingdom
Tata Global Beverage's vice chairman says the company is in talks to sell about 20 percent of its international operations in the next few months to further its expansion.
Tata, which owns Tetley Tea and Eight O'Clock Coffee mong other holdings, is the second largest tea group in the world. It is seeking to expand its offerings to include a wide range of beverages and non-beverage products.
In a report in the Financial Times of London, Tata Board Vice Chairman RK Krishna Kumar said investors may be brought on board, but they should be able “to make a contribution to what we set out to do.”
“There are quite a large number of strategic players who have come to us. So it’s a process of carefully analyzing what is a good fit and then moving further down the road,” he told the Times.
In the past few years TGB has inked partnerships with PepsiCo and Starbucks. Kumar said the firm has $1 billion to spend on acquisitions and is looking closely at United States businesses. Tetley is now the largest tea company in the United Kingdom and Canada and the second largest brand by volume in the U.S.