Snapple and Motts go solo

Unable to find a buyer for its American operations, global confectionery giant Cadbury Schweppes P.L.C. will spin off its Americas Beverages business, including the Snapple Beverage Group and Mott”™s L.L.P. in Rye Brook.

The de-merger, expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2008, will be preceded by job cuts in the Americas Beverages division that will affect Snapple and Mott”™s employees in Westchester County, a company spokesman said last week.

Cadbury Schweppes officials in London, England, put the company”™s Americas Beverages division on the market last spring and in July extended their sale timetable to allow bidders to wait out an unstable debt financing market. But the continued credit squeeze persuaded them the business could not be sold “in the foreseeable future.” Instead, the spun-off America Beverages will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and shares will be issued to existing share-owners.

Cadbury Schweppes officials said 470 jobs will be eliminated at Americas Beverages, based in Plano, Texas, before the de-merger. The restructuring will save the parent company about $70 million.

More than 400 employees worked at Snapple and Mott”™s offices at 900 King St. in Rye Brook when Cadbury Schweppes consolidated its Stamford, Conn. and White Plains operations there in 2004. Westchester operations will be included in the job-cutting and reorganization, but details were not available last week.

“It”™s a little bit too early to tell what changes might be made at that location,” said Chris Barnes, a Cadbury Schweppes spokesman in Texas.

Snapple”™s regional distributor, Snapple Distributors Inc., operates in Greenburgh. 
Cadbury Schweppes paid $1.45 billion to acquire Snapple from Triarc Co. in 2000. It purchased Duffy-Mott Co. in 1982.

The Americas Beverages brand portfolio also includes Dr. Pepper, 7 UP, RC Cola, A&W

Root Beer, Sunkist Soda, Canada Dry, Hawaiian Punch, Schweppes, Diet Rite,

Clamato, Yoo-hoo, IBC, Stewart”™s and Nantucket Nectars, among other brands.

In the first half of 2007, Americas Beverages accounted for about $2.85 billion of total Cadbury Schweppes revenue of about $7.5 billion.