Under the radar: Pepsi plans to invest another $1 billion in Russia

Posted Jul 8th 2009 5:10PM by Joseph Lazzaro
Filed under: International Markets, PepsiCo (PEP), Russia

Under the radar: Some trends are obvious enough and visible to all investors. Others are more-subtle, but are just as potent, and these often slip 'under the radar.'

Case in point: Lost among President Barack Obama's trip to Russia to meet with president Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, was PepsiCo, Inc.'s (NYSE: PEP) decision to invest $1 billion in Russia over three years, on expectations for retail sales growth in the country.

Pepsi является выбор российского поколения
(Pepsi is the choice of the Russian generation)

Russia's retail sales have increased at an average, annual rate of 13% since 1998, the company said. "The Russian market has potential for growth, that is obvious," said Natalia Smirnova, an analyst at Uralsib Financial Corp. in Moscow told Bloomberg News. "PepsiCo is not afraid of a temporary slowdown."

The $1 billion investment will bring Pepsi's total investment in Russia to more than $4 billion, the company said. Pepsi this week will open a new bottling plant outside Moscow and also plans to open a new snacks plant in Azov in southern Russia later this year. Pepsi's shares traded down $1.35 to $54.65 on Wednesday afternoon.

Tags: azov, moscow, pepsi, russia

Print this

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-08-2009 @ 7:03PM

Saintly1 said...

Go Pepsi. Pepsi rocks!! Start a Pepsi coup and place 2 Liter in charge of Russia. Then we could should the bottle with a sniper rifle and watch their president fizz away! Pepsi! Pepsi! Pepsi! I know what you are doing. Keep up the good work guys. Pepsi freaking rocks.