Coca-Cola explores restructuring for Costa Coffee after sale talks stall

Coca-Cola is taking another hard look at Costa Coffee, this time through a restructuring review that could shape everything from store count to brand direction. After failing to land a buyer last year, the Atlanta-based drinks giant has hired two restructuring firms to examine Costa’s operations, a sign that the coffee chain’s next phase may involve more than just waiting for a sale to reappear.

That scrutiny lands on a business Coca-Cola paid $4.9 billion for when it completed the Costa acquisition on January 3, 2019, following the announcement made on August 31, 2018. At the time, Costa operated in more than 30 countries and gave Coca-Cola a much bigger foothold in coffee. Nearly seven years later, the asset is still testing the company’s ability to make a café chain fit inside a global beverage portfolio built around soda, juice and other drinks.

The sale process never found enough traction. Coca-Cola had explored a cut-price exit at around $2 billion, but abandoned the plan in January 2026 after private equity bids came in below expectations. The names linked to the process included KKR, Bain Capital, TDR Capital and Centurium Capital, but none offered enough to force a deal. The result leaves Coca-Cola with a major coffee brand that has not delivered the return the company originally wanted, and with no easy path out.

For Costa, the biggest question is what restructuring means on the ground. The chain has about 2,700 UK outlets, and its position in the market has already been under pressure. In early 2026, Greggs overtook Costa to become the UK’s largest branded coffee chain by outlet count, with 2,737 sites compared with Costa’s 2,707. That shift matters because it shows how food-led competitors have been steadily eating into coffee shop territory, especially where customers now expect speed, value and convenience alongside a flat white.

Coca-Cola has already been simplifying how Costa sits inside the wider company. In December 2024, it said Costa and innocent Drinks would move under its Europe operating unit from January 1, 2025, with the aim of streamlining and simplifying the structure. Costa also raised pay for more than 16,000 baristas across 1,500 company-owned UK stores in February 2026, its seventh staff pay increase since 2021. In India, Costa and Devyani International said in May 2026 that they were “resetting” strategy after expansion stalled.

That mix of restructuring, investment and retrenchment points to the same unresolved problem: Coca-Cola still wants Costa to matter, but it has not yet settled on what kind of coffee business the brand should be.