snapple success
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The turnaround of Snapple fruit and tea drinks - once such an albatross around Quaker Oats Co.'s corporate neck - was underscored today when Britain's Cadbury Schweppes PLC bought Snapple and several other beverage brands for $910 million in cash.
Although the new deal includes more than just Snapple, the price tag is three times more than Triarc Cos. paid Quaker for Snapple in 1997. Cadbury also is assuming $420 million in debt.
The sale adds an ironic postscript to the sad legacy of Snapple's ownership under Quaker. The Chicago-based food and beverage company sold Snapple in 1997 at the fire-sale price of $300 million - $1.4 billion less than it paid for the company in 1994 - as losses mounted after a series of management and marketing miscues that sent sales into a tailspin. The corporate disaster brought an abrupt end to the 31-year Quaker career of Chief Executive William D. Smithburg...