Cadbury Schweppes is considering selling its U.S. beverages unit to private equity firms following strong interest from groups including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Bain Capital and Texas Pacific Group according to The Times of London.
Cadbury has been flooded with takeover approaches for the business since it said last week that it plans to seek a demerger after Nelson Peltz, the activist investor, bought 3% of the company, putting pressure on management to break itself up to create more value.
Lehman valued Americas Beverages between 6.1 billion pounds ($12 billion) and 8.1 billion ($16 billion) pounds and said the upper end of the valuation range would be more realistically achieved through a competitive auction resulting in a cash sale.