By Lavern Clarke, Staff Reporter 
CARIBBEAN BOTTLERS Jamaica Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Company, has sold out its assets to Facey Commodity Company Limited which will bottle and distribute the four lines produced at the Kingston plant, under franchise.
"We're going to make Jamaica Coca-Cola country," said Patrick Scott, Facey's managing director and chief executive officer. " (Today) we tidy up and finalise the deal." His company will bottle and sell Fanta, Sprite, Coca-Cola, and Canings.
CBJL/Coca-Cola Jamaica was producing a combined 2.5 million cases at the time of the sale, according to general manager Mark Roddy.
The five-year-old Caribbean Bottlers is being wound up as a company, and the formal take-over will happen today. As a precursor to closing the deal, Coca-Cola yesterday made its 230 staff corps redundant, 95 of whom were employed in the Spanish Town Road plant.
Mr. Roddy, held comment on the cost of the redundancies to his company, but said the compensation was more than the law required.
The sale falls within the global strategy developed by the parent Coca-Cola to identify and build markets for its products and then selling out to local interests, according to the Caribbean Bottlers general manager. The company was established here in 1997.
"The Coca-Cola Company has a strategy of going into markets that are under-performing, buying the franchise, putting money into it, building up the assets and the market. Then when it is at a certain level of maturity, the plan is always to sell it off to local business people," he told The Gleaner.
Facey, he said, was expected to rehire a significant number of the displaced workers. Scott said positions will be offered but hinted that his company would be going mainly after plant employees. Facey already has the infrastructure in place to support the sale of the soft drinks, having built up an "excellent" distribution network over its decades of operation.
"A fair amount will be offered jobs in the plant," said Mr. Scott. But those offers will be made after the conclusion of the deal, and after the company has had the opportunity to meet with the staff, he said.
Coca-Cola declined comment on the proceeds from the sale, with Roddy noting that his company's "confidential clauses" precluded divulging such information. Scott said he would give more details of the acquisition after today's formalities.
