China Huiyuan bets on sparkling fruit juice sales

HONG KONG - China Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd, the country's largest fruit juice producer and once a takeover target of Coca-Cola Co, expects its new product of sparkling fruit juice to account for about one-fifth of its sales by the end of 2012, and is under no pressure to lift prices of its other products.

About 10 new plants making the drinks called "Juizee Pop" will come on stream in the next two years with a combined annual capacity of about 2 billion bottles, Huiyuan's Chairman Zhu Xinli told Reuters in an interview. Huiyuan grabbed headlines in 2008 when Coca-Cola launched a $2.4 billion bid for the company. Huiyuan accepted the bid, which represented a huge premium to its share price then. But the Chinese government blocked the deal in 2009, saying the proposed transaction would be bad for industry competition.

Months later, US private-equity fund Warburg Pincus sold off its stake in Huiyuan. The move was followed by French food group Danone SA, which sold its 22.98 percent stake in Huiyuan for about 200 million euros ($258 million) in July last year to Hong Kong-based private equity group SAIF partners.