SOFT drinks giant Britvic is to acquire Brazilian juice firm Bela Ischia for 218 million Brazilian reals (£54.5 million) as it forges ahead with international expansion.
It marks the latest deal for the Robinsons squash maker in the country - which it describes as the "world's largest concentrates market" - having snapped up another juice firm, Ebba, in 2015.
Britvic said: "The consolidation of liquid concentrates and ready-to-drink juice will allow Britvic to strengthen its competitive offer, in particular against the larger powders brands. The acquisition is highly synergistic, with the combined businesses expected to realise substantial cost savings.
"The strong first year in Brazil reinforces our confidence in Brazil as a market place for Britvic products."
The comments regarding Brazil are in stark contrast to those made about the UK market.
In November Britvic said it is ramping up cost-cutting plans as it warned 2017 would be another "challenging" year amid rising inflation from the Brexit-hit pound.
The soft drinks giant, which also bottles Pepsi in the UK, announced it will shave another £5m off its annual costs.
Boss Simon Litherland has said the vote to quit the EU and the sugary drinks tax from April 2018 have "created additional uncertainty".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here