Coca Cola production to take place in Iraq: The largest in the ME.

[Fingers_crossed]

Coke investing $250 million in it's production lines in Iraq.

Will this raise the stock price of North Soft Drinks (INSD) or will it trade under a different symbol? 

 

http://bit.ly/15SPKfp

 

[haymon]

Not sure.. need help, to find out.

I think I'll sell mu USA stock and by ISX stock.

[sandfly]

DONT KNOW

[waterman13]

Here's the whole article.

WM13

 

Babylon (newsletter). Babylon Investment Authority announced the opening of the biggest production line of drink ' Coca Cola ' in Iraq through a competent industrial enterprises producing soft drinks and juices for granted as an investment license in the province.

He said General Manager Alaa Ibrahim (News Agency): the whole project opened ' Coca Cola ', which is one of the most important investment projects granted by the investment Commission of Babylon as a license of investment in the industrial sector, the first of its kind in Iraq, the largest in the Middle East.

He added: the project is in accordance with modern international production tech using machines and equipment developed and produce bottles of juices, water and soft drinks in different sizes, stressing that the project development phase.

The new production lines worth up to 250 million dollars, noting that this project meets the objectives of the investment law through the Act and labour supply.

This project is a project by the investment Commission of Babylon license investment within the private sector./finished/8 l. Eng.

Edited July 10, 2013 by waterman13

[moneysoon]

haymon,

 

Let me know what you find out about the symbol. This would make a good sit and wait stock if they line it up right. If pre-rv, life could become quite interesting.

[unirod]

INSD is trading for about .40 Dinar per share. I will wait untill it trades for a minimum of 1.0 Dinar per share since that is the charged rate of entry regardless. I'm not going to pay more than I'm going to be charged at the minimum. I have always wondered who would get that extra .60 Dinar if I did. Does anyone know?

Thx Fingers!!

[Fingers_crossed]

My broker is Warka.  I could buy this now pretty cheap for 80,000 IQD.  It rarely goes up or down, so there's not much risk IMO.  I know that Baghdad Soft Drink is Pepsi and North Soft Drink is cola, but is it Coke?  In the article it says Coke coming to Iraq, the first of it's kind.  Leaves me scratching my head.  Hmmmm.

[TrinityeXchange]

I think we are all stumped on determining the symbol that Coke is trading under.  Here is a 2005 article on Coca-Cola and its historic woes in Iraq:

 

Cola wars as Coke moves on

 

The Guardian, Monday 4 July 2005 19.34 EDT

 

Coca-Cola has returned to Iraq after an absence of nearly four decades, triggering a cola war in a lucrative but potentially hostile market.

Coke ended its 37-year exile last week by setting up a joint-venture bottling company to compete with Pepsi for 26 million consumers.

 

The upsides for Coke include a thirst-inducing climate and burgeoning Islamic conservatism which has banned beer and other alcoholic drinks in much of the country.

The downsides, besides Pepsi's head start, are a raging insurgency and banditry which threaten supply routes, and a perception that Coca-Cola is linked to Israel and "American Zionists".

Coke withdrew from Iraq in 1968 when the Arab League declared a boycott because of business ties to Israel, leaving Pepsi to dominate the Middle East market for soft drinks. The boycott ended in 1991, but sanctions and wars kept Coke out of Iraq.

 

After a trickle of Coca-Cola imports from neighbouring countries, the company is attempting a proper comeback by launching a joint venture with a Turkish company, Efes Invest, and its Iraqi partner HMBS, which will reportedly bottle the Coke in Dubai and distribute it across Iraq.

 

"A local bottling company will employ local people to do this," a Coca-Cola spokesman said yesterday. "This happens in most of the 200 countries in which we operate around the world, despite the perception of us as an American company."

 

The response in Baghdad yesterday was mixed. One drink wholesaler, Abbas Salih, said the initiative was doomed. "Coca-Cola does business with those who are shooting our brothers in Palestine," he said. "How can we drink it?"

 

Abu Ream, a shop owner in Baghdad, repeated a widespread conspiracy theory: "If you hold up a Coke can to the mirror, the writing says 'No Allah'," Mr Ream said. "Or maybe 'No Mohammad'. I can't remember which."

 

But Mr Ream said since supplies became available two years ago he had sold more Coke than Pepsi. "People like the taste better. And they like the novelty."

Coca-Cola denies any political or religious bias. "The myth is indeed sometimes perpetuated, but has no truth to it," the spokesman said. "We are a local business that employs local people ... Our Palestinian bottler employs 250 Palestinians."

 

After the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, sanctions led the Iraqi licence holder, Baghdad Soft Drinks, to replace the authentic Pepsi concentrate it had used with fakes smuggled from eastern Europe. Matters were not helped when Saddam Hussein's son Uday bought 10% of the company. But Baghdad Soft Drinks says Pepsi is rebuilding, with bottling operations in the capital and southern Iraq.

In the west, Coke and Pepsi have been targeted as US symbols. Entrepreneurs have produced alternatives such as Mecca-Cola and Muslim Up. But in Iraq, hostility to the US is expressed more directly in attacks on US troops; Sunni Arab insurgent sympathisers have no problem drinking and serving Pepsi.

[haymon]

Ahhh.... Peoples loyalties are strong. Chevy, Ford, Pepsi, Coke, Pacer car...... what was that last one? Did anybody like the Pacer?  (Look it up, old car in the 70's ).

Thanks T.E. for the info.

Maybe I by hotel stock for now.  Keep my USA Coke stock..