I Liked to Sell the World a Coke (Part 1): Neville Isdell
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Coca-Cola was losing the Philippines, where failure might have been the beginning of the end of our global business. By 1981, the nation was the world’s 10th-largest soft-drink market, but Pepsi had a 2-to-1 market share and the Coke bottler, owned by the Soriano family’s San Miguel Corp., warned that it could no longer sustain its losses unless Coke shared the burden.
John Hunter, head of Coca-Cola Philippines, hammered out an agreement with the Sorianos to buy 30 percent of the bottling operations for $30 million. At the time, it was Coke’s largest foreign investment.