Coke to invest $250 mn in India over 3 yrs

ATLANTA: Within days of acquiring vitamin water Glaceau, American giant Coca Cola today said it will invest 250 million dollars in India in next three years and said its bottling operations would turn profitable in 2008.

"In bottling operations, the business will move into profitability next year. In one of the months in 2007, we broke even but on the full year basis we are expecting to be in profits in 2008," Irial Finan, Head of Coke's Bottling Operations world wide, said in an exclusive interview.

He said most of the investment will stay within India as the required infrastructure like coolers and trucks are manufactured in India.

Along with the 250 million dollars by Coke, franchises of the company's bottling operations in India are also likely to put in between 50-100 million dollars to ramp up infrastructure.

Of the 60 bottling plants in India, Coke owns 25 while 24 are owned by the franchises and the remaining are with the co-packers.

Finan said the company is also open to divest in the bottling business and move towards more and more in the hands of franchises.