Nestlé confirms Blue Bottle buyer as coffee stands out as “star” performer

Nestlé is going up with the merchantability of the Blue Bottle Coffee concatenation concern arsenic it confirmed Chinese capitalist Centurium Capital arsenic the buyer.

Blue Bottle Coffee was the taxable of media speculation successful December suggesting Nestlé had hired advisors to measurement up options for the business, including a imaginable sale.

Further speculation past emerged successful March that private-equity steadfast Centurium Capital mightiness beryllium the suitor, which has present proved to beryllium the case.

Nestlé buried the confirmation announcement astatine the ft of its first-quarter results connection contiguous (23 April), saying briefly: “Nestlé has agreed the merchantability of Blue Bottle Coffee to Centurium Capital. The transaction is taxable to the customary conditions and is expected to adjacent during H1-26.”

The Swiss radical acquired a controlling involvement successful Blue Bottle successful 2017 successful a woody that valued the US concern astatine astir $700m. The concatenation runs astir 100 outlets crossed the US and Asia. It besides sells packaged java successful stores specified arsenic Target and Save Mart.

Just Drinks has asked Centurium Capital to corroborate the deal.

Nestlé did not enactment retired a afloat connection connected the transaction but CEO Philipp Navratil was asked for much details connected a follow-up results treatment with analysts contiguous arsenic java outperformed successful the opening 3 months of the year.

The woody is for the merchantability of the “whole business”, helium said, though Nestlé volition clasp immoderate parts of the business.

“We person Blue Bottle branded capsules connected Nespresso that are rather palmy and we mean to support that concern sold done Nestlé,” Navratil told analysts. “But each the cafes are evidently successful the perimeter of the sale.”

Nestlé delivered a affirmative acceptable of first-quarter numbers led by coffee, which was described contiguous arsenic the “star” performer. However, the radical results were overshadowed by a slowdown successful income linked to this year’s babe look recall.

Organic maturation came successful astatine 3.5%, easing from the 4% gait successful 4th 4 of fiscal 2025 arsenic the callback chiefly weighed connected income successful Europe and China.

Real interior maturation (RIG), which strips retired the effect of pricing from integrated growth, “was affirmative crossed each zones and categories”, Navratil said, adding that java “was the star, with recovering volumes and affirmative mix”.

Organic maturation successful the java part was 9.3% with RIG of 3.5%, outpacing the 1.2% for the radical based connected full income of SFr21.32bn ($27.1bn). Coffee delivered SFr6bn successful sales, lone trailing the SFr6.18bn for nutrient and snacks.

“We emotion this class due to the fact that it's a class that is resilient,” Navratil told analysts during today’s Q&A session.