Brands
Coca-Cola aims $2.5 bn target in India by 2020
MUMBAI: Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB) has announced its plan to become a $2.5 billion FMCG company by 2020. The company’s plan includes manufacturing and selling a wide range of beverages and modifications to its operating structure. It is also apportioning more resources to its frontline and field, both financial and human. This includes setting up of the premium division to service customer requirements around niche and premium beverages – smartwater, frozen fruit desserts, mixers and tonic water etc. and amalgamating the existing alternate beverages division to the mainstream distribution system.
HCCB has achieved significant scale in the sale and distribution of an extensive range of juices under the Minute Maid and Maaza brands and also sparkling and dairy products. As a part of its growth plan, the company aims to open 1 million new outlets by 2020. It currently distributes its products in 2 million outlets across 25 states.
The 2020 plan focuses on being consumer and customer centric, driving revenue growth, building a strong and agile system that has efficiency as its core and digitising the enterprise and unlocking the power of associates (employees).
In order to better flex and respond to changing consumer demands, HCCB will now operate under seven zones instead of the current five and will also reorganise its corporate centre resources to serve in the zones and factories. The company will have a leaner corporate office and a much-strengthened sales and supply chain organisation, thereby creating several hundred new jobs.
HCCB expects to fill most of these new jobs from within. The re-organisation will, however, make a few existing jobs redundant, the incumbents of which will be encouraged to apply for the new jobs that have been created.
“In my time as CEO, I have focused on listening to our employee base,” says Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages CEO Christina Ruggiero. “It was very clear from our research, conversations and market data that today we are not structured in a way that allows us to fully leverage our scale and market capabilities. Changes of this nature take time to seep in, but our associates are committed to ensuring that HCCB is key fixture in India’s consumer landscape and delivering the growth that we know is possible in India.”
By refining the operating structure and simplifying processes, HCCB solidifies its investment in India’s future with an infrastructure capable of favourable long-term impacts.
Brands
UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
