Reports said China's Luckin Coffee has acquired the U.S. specialty coffee chain Blue Bottle Coffee.
On the 4th (local time), Chinese outlets including Jiemian News and Wandian reported that Centurium Capital, an investor and operator of Luckin Coffee, signed a deal to acquire Blue Bottle's global stores from Nestlé. The purchase price was reported to be under $400 million (about 580 billion won).
According to the reports, Luckin Coffee won operational control in the bidding to acquire Blue Bottle Coffee and signed a transaction with Nestlé, Blue Bottle's largest shareholder.
Nestlé acquired 68% equity of Blue Bottle in 2017 for $425 million (about 623.3 billion won). Nestlé plans to keep only Blue Bottle's coffee machine and capsule businesses.
Jiemian News called the acquisition "symbolically meaningful in the coffee market," explaining, "one side is a global brand in specialty coffee, and the other is a Chinese brand that has stood out on the back of a solid supply chain system and scale."
It added that this is "an important turning point that will determine Blue Bottle's fate in the Chinese and global markets," noting that Blue Bottle, which entered mainland China in 2022, had grown slowly.
According to Bloomberg News, Centurium has also been reviewing Coca-Cola's Costa Coffee and Japan's "% Arabica" as potential acquisition targets in addition to Blue Bottle.
Founded in 2017, China's Luckin Coffee was delisted from the U.S. Nasdaq in 2020 over an accounting fraud scandal. However, it rapidly expanded stores centered on mainland China and in 2023 overtook Starbucks to become China's largest coffee corporations.