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Nearly three months after news broke that Nestlé was considering selling Blue Bottle Coffee, the company may have found a buyer: Centurium Capital, the private equity firm and major shareholder of Luckin Coffee.
The Chinese investment firm is “putting the final touches on a deal,” Dong Cao reports for Bloomberg. Centurium had previously explored other coffee chains to acquire, including Costa Coffee and the company that operates % Arabica in China.
In 2017, Nestlé paid around $425 million to acquire a controlling stake in Blue Bottle. Following the purchase, the Bay Area-based specialty chain expanded significantly, growing from 40 stores to more than 100 worldwide, particularly in Asia.
The Chinese news site 36Kr reported that Centurium’s potential purchase will be “for less than $400 million,” citing information from an anonymous source. As part of the deal, the 36Kr report said, Nestlé will retain Blue Bottle’s consumer goods business, such as its instant coffee and ready-to-drink beverages.
None of the companies involved has commented on the possible deal. Luckin is one of the world’s largest coffee chains: it has more than 30,000 stores, mostly in China but also a handful in Malaysia and Singapore. It is also in the early stages of its U.S. expansion, opening 10 locations in New York City in a matter of months. “As one of the world’s largest and most mature coffee markets, the U.S. represents one of our important long-term opportunities,” Luckin CEO Jinyi Guo said during a recent earnings call.
The Blue Bottle acquisition may be part of Luckin’s move away from strictly small-footprint, low-cost stores. In February, Luckin opened its first premium flagship store in Shenzhen—an expansive, multi-floor cafe that news reports compared to Starbucks’ Reserve concept.
Read more on the latest Blue Bottle sale news from Bloomberg here or via Yahoo! Finance here.
Photo by Pontus Wellgraf on Unsplash
