The Vietnamese family drinks firm that turned down Coca-Cola’s US$2.5 billion buyout offer
- Harvard-trained Phuong Uyen Tran charts the growth of her father’s drinks company – Vietnam’s largest – in book Competing with Giants
- He made his fortune after the Vietnam war, and rejected a buyout by Coca-Cola
In the opening pages of Competing with Giants, Phuong Uyen Tran describes the scene at the Coca-Cola Company headquarters in Atlanta, in the US state of Georgia, in 2012, where its CEO offered to pay US$2.5 billion to take over the family drinks business her father had built – only to be snubbed.
Coca-Cola executives were stunned at her father Tran Qui Thanh’s decision to walk away from the deal, she writes. Tran recalls her father’s words in the lift as they were leaving: “A partnership should be exactly that – a meeting of minds tied together by a shared passion. What we just experienced was not a meeting of minds.”
Speaking by phone from Ho Chi Minh City, Tran explains how her father had been thrilled at the prospect of his company, Tan Hiep Phat Beverage Group (THP), partnering with the US multinational. “Coca-Cola was like a big brother to us. Once they suggested we work together, it was exciting and we wanted to see if we could create a future with Coca-Cola,” she says.
However, after a series of talks at the regional level, they flew to Atlanta to meet Coca-Cola’s then CEO, Muhtar Kent, only to be disappointed with his proposals. Kent wanted Coca-Cola to gain a larger market share in emerging markets. That would rule out THP’s own expansion in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The Vietnamese company was also expected to hand over its export business for Thailand, Australia and other countries in Asia, and stop producing new products.
Finding the deal unacceptable, Tran Qui Thanh declined, then turned down the buyout offer.