Coca-Cola buys Costa Coffee from Whitbread for £3.9bn

The soft drinks giant Coca-Cola is buying the Costa Coffee chain in a near-£4bn deal that underlines the scale of the global coffee revolution.

The takeover will overnight turn Coca-Cola into the UK’s biggest coffee shop player and give it a foothold in what is one of the world’s fastest-growing drinks categories. The global coffee shop market alone is worth $165bn (£127bn).

Alison Brittain, the chief executive of Costa Coffee’s owner Whitbread, said the coffee chain had been approached by a number of potential buyers but Coke’s desire to snap up the 4,000-store chain was a “dream deal” for investors.