Coca-Cola confirms it will keep Costa after dropping sale

Coca-Cola has confirmed it will keep full ownership of Costa Coffee after an attempted sale of the business did not proceed.

Last month, it was reported that the US-drinks giant had dropped plans to sell the coffee chain after bids from private equity firms failed to meet its valuation expectations.

Firms in the latter stages of talks included TDR Capital, which has a controlling stake in the UK arm of fast-growing fried chicken chain Popeyes, and Bain Capital’s, which has backed Gail’s and PizzaExpress.

Coca-Cola first considered selling Costa in August 2025, after only having bought the brand in 2019 from Whitbread for £3.9b.

News of a potential sale came as the high street coffee chain’s losses grew to nearly £13.5m in the 12 months to 31 December 2024, representing a 132% increase on 2023’s loss of £5.8m.

But, according to Bloomberg, Coca-Cola chief financial officer John Murphy said the company plans to retain the Costa.

He said: “We have decided to continue to have Costa 100% owned inside our portfolio. There are no immediate plans to do anything with Costa other than to get it performing even better.”

Murphy said certain core markets for Costa are doing well, including in the UK and Ireland, but the business in China has been “more challenging than we expected”.  

Costa currently has more than 2,700 branches across the UK and Ireland. 

The group was founded by Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa in 1971. It was sold to Whitbread for £19m in 1995, when it had fewer than 40 stores.