Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) is once again looking to sell Costa Coffee, reviving a sale process for the British coffee chain that stalled late last year, Semafor reported on 8 October 2026.
The move would unwind a deal valued at roughly $5bn when Coca-Cola bought Costa from Whitbread in 2018, according to the report.
Coca-Cola sell Costa Coffee push returns after failed bid
Coca-Cola first explored offloading Costa in mid-2025, working with Lazard on a sale process, Reuters reported at the time. That attempt collapsed in December, with the Financial Times reporting via FoodNavigator that Coca-Cola pulled the plug after private-equity offers fell short of its price expectations.
Semafor’s report was picked up the same day by Reuters and separately by Seeking Alpha, which noted at least one strategic buyer had looked at the chain during the renewed process. City A.M. had earlier reported that Coca-Cola brought in restructuring advisers after the first attempt failed, having begun talks with bankers in August 2025.
What Coca-Cola paid for Costa
Coca-Cola agreed to buy Costa from Whitbread for $5.1bn when the deal was announced in August 2018. The transaction closed in January 2019 at $4.9bn net of cash acquired, according to Coca-Cola’s own 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. A sale at close to the original headline price would mark a rare case of a consumer-goods giant recovering most of the value from an acquisition it has decided to exit.
Costa has sat awkwardly in Coca-Cola’s portfolio since the deal closed, a bricks-and-mortar retail chain inside a company built on concentrate and bottling. The renewed sale effort suggests Coca-Cola still wants out, even after the first attempt to find a buyer willing to pay up failed.
Balance-sheet backdrop
Any Costa disposal would land against a business generating far larger sums than the coffee chain’s value. Coca-Cola reported full-year 2025 revenue of $47.9bn and net income of $13.1bn, according to its 10-K filing with the SEC. Diluted earnings per share for the year came to $3.04.
The company’s most recent quarterly filing, covering the three months to 3 April 2026, showed revenue of $12.5bn and net income of $3.9bn, with diluted earnings per share of 91 cents, according to its 10-Q. That compares with revenue of $11.1bn and net income of $3.3bn in the equivalent quarter a year earlier, when diluted EPS stood at 77 cents, filings show. A roughly $5bn Costa sale would represent well under half of one year’s net income for the group, underscoring that the disposal is a portfolio tidy-up rather than a balance-sheet necessity.
Coca-Cola’s quarterly profile has also shown some seasonal lift through 2025: net income ran at $7.1bn for the second quarter and $10.8bn on a nine-month basis by the third quarter, according to filings covering the periods ended 27 June 2025 and 26 September 2025 respectively. Revenue over the same nine-month stretch reached $36.1bn, filings show.
Coca-Cola shares closed at $87.73 on 8 October, up 0.11% on the day, with trading volume running 1.46 times the 20-day average, consistent with investors digesting fresh M&A news rather than treating it as background noise. The stock has traded in a 20-day range of $85.24 to $89.21.
Positioning and the macro backdrop
Short interest in Coca-Cola stock has stayed muted through early October, with FINRA data showing a daily short-sale ratio ranging between 0.44 and 0.64 over the ten sessions to 8 October, suggesting the stock has not become a target for bearish positioning around the Costa headlines.
The report also lands against a steady US rate backdrop. The 10-year Treasury yield stood at 5.28% on 7 October, barely changed from 5.27% a day earlier, while the 2-year yield eased slightly to 4.77%, Federal Reserve data show. The 10-year/2-year spread narrowed to 0.47 percentage points from 0.51, a modest flattening that has done little to reshape appetite for large-cap defensive consumer names such as Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola has not issued an on-the-record statement confirming the renewed sale process. Whether a buyer willing to meet Coca-Cola’s price materialises this time, after private equity balked last December, remains the open question hanging over Costa’s long-running search for a new owner.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Markets move quickly; figures are correct as sourced at the time of writing. Always do your own research before making financial decisions.
