Slaughter and May is advising Whitbread on its sale of Costa to The Coca-Cola Company

Slaughter and May is advising Whitbread PLC ("Whitbread") on its sale of Costa Limited (“Costa”) to The Coca-Cola Company ("Coca-Cola") for an enterprise value of £3.9 billion.

Costa is a leading international coffee brand, with over 2,400 coffee shops in the UK and over 1,400 stores in more than 30 international markets. Coca-Cola is a total beverage company, offering over 500 brands in more than 200 countries and territories.

Slaughter and May is supporting Whitbread’s in-house legal team led by Chris Vaughan (General Counsel and Company Secretary), Russell Fairhurst (Group Legal Director and General Counsel of Costa) and Sunita Savjani (Senior Commercial Counsel).

The Transaction is conditional upon, among other things, shareholder approval and certain antitrust approvals. The Transaction is expected to complete in the first half of 2019.

Following completion of the Transaction, Whitbread will be a focused hotel business with over 75,000 rooms in almost 800 hotels in the UK, Germany and the Middle East, operating under the Premier Inn brand. Whitbread will also retain its 49% investment in Pure, a London-based healthy-eating quick-service restaurant business with 15 stores.

Chris Vaughan, General Counsel at Whitbread, said: “The Slaughters team has done a fantastic job for Whitbread. From the main corporate team through all the specialist teams, the work has been of exceptional quality, and delivered in a thoughtful and commercial way. It’s been a great deal for Whitbread. And it’s been fun”.