Varun Beverages’ Africa push extends its growth runway, but patience will be crucial
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Varun Beverages Ltd (VBL)’s acquisition of South Africa-based Twizza (Pty) is less about shoring up near-term earnings and more about extending its growth runway beyond India. While the domestic business remains resilient, stiff competition is creating challenges.
Africa offers scale, even if the payback is slower. Twizza manufactures and distributes non-alcoholic beverages and operates in a mature yet sizable ready-to-drink market, which is about 40% the volume of India’s. “Though the market is mature, we are confident of a market share-driven double-digit volume growth in the geography, basis VBL’s strong track record for turnarounds in Zimbabwe and Nepal (>50% share now)," said an Emkay Global Financial Services report dated 22 December.
With Twizza integrated, VBL’s volume market share in South Africa is expected to rise to around 20% by 2027, up from about 10% currently. Twizza’s own volume growth is modest, at roughly 3% CAGR. VBL’s realizations in South Africa are estimated to be about 50% lower than those of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, offering potential upside as consolidation unfolds.
Any narrowing of this gap, however, is likely to be gradual and mix-driven rather than the result of sharp price hikes. Varun Beverages will acquire a 100% equity stake in Twizza through its South African subsidiary, The Beverages Company Proprietary Ltd (Bevco), for an enterprise value of ₹1,120 crore. Based on FY25 numbers, this translates to an EV/sales multiple of 1.24x and an EV/Ebitda of 7-8x.
Read on livemint.com