RFM will focus on food after sale of Cosmos

On July 18, Philippine conglomerate RFM Corp said it would focus on its core food business after the sale of its lucrative soft drinks subsidiary Cosmos Bottling Corp to a joint venture of Coca-Cola and San Miguel Corp. Jose Concepcion III, president of RFM Corp, told Reuters that a memorandum of understanding on the sale would be signed next week with Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines Inc, a joint venture between San Miguel and Coca Cola Co. He added that he had the choice of selling the company's 83.5 per cent stake in Cosmos outright to Coca-Cola Philippines, the joint venture, or merging Cosmos' operations with Pepsico Inc. However, remaining in the beverage industry would have meant RFM would have to sell its food businesses to survive. He said also that it was not clear how a merger with Pepsi would work out if the partnership ran into difficulties. "The refreshment (beverage) model is great provided you are not leveraged to the hilt,"​ Concepcion said. "And the exit was not clear. I felt the safest thing to do was stay with the food and get the cash."​ Besides soft drinks, RFM is also involved in the dairy, flour, meats, and bakery businesses. Concepcion said price details of the sale of Cosmos, the oldest soft drinks company in the Philippines, would be announced next week, but he referred to it as a $ 300 million company.