Pepsi Bottling Group beats earnings, but I'm not interested

Here are some more bad points. Net sales came in at $3.3 billion. Analysts were expecting closer to $3.5 billion. Total worldwide physical case volume declined 4% and net revenue per case declined 3% (excluding currency effects, it was up 5%). Maybe we'll give the latter a pass on a currency-excluded basis, but the physical case volume metric is one of the most important data points for a beverage company. Seeing that one in decline is always disheartening for shareholders.

I've never been a huge fan of owning a bottler. I own Coke myself. I enjoy being on the side of the company that markets the brand; the bottlers tried to be more capital intense. And as I wrote just recently, PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) wants to buy Pepsi Bottling Group to have more control over distribution. Problem is, Pepsi Bottling Group believes it's worth more than the $29.50 per-share offer it received. As of Wednesday's close, shares of the bottler were priced at $33.53. An individual investor probably doesn't want to deal with this arbitrage situation.

Shares of Pepsi Bottling Group didn't really react to the earnings news yesterday. It was down slightly. Personally, I would pass on this company. There are better ideas out there.

Disclosure: I own Coke; positions can change without notice.