Before collaborating in the Orangina deal, Lion and Blackstone had teamed up with two another partners, Constellation Brands and Brown-Forman once time in the Allied Domecq, which hold some brands such as Beefeater gin and Stolichnaya vodka. Although at the end, that deal was abandoned; both two firms had leaved a good impression to the other. Blitzed, a senior managing director at the Blackstone Group’s London office said “We’d developed a rapport. We liked Lion, liked their deep knowledge of the consumer space.” While Ferrán, a member in Lion Capital could foresee the effort for Lion “It put us on the front page of the Financial Times and had us in the press for two months.[…] Although we …show more content…
The result quietly suited the expectation of the consortium and consisted with some issues and facts of Orangina:
• Business: The operation of Orangina at that time messed up because of the inconsistent with any specific strategic or operational perspective. In France, where both the corporate headquarters and the headquarters of French operations located, those located and ran separately. Moreover, the manager teams of country operations were not stable, which causes the problems in the operation, distribution and management of Orangina.
• Brands: Orangina was one of the most popular soft drink brands in Europe or Blackstone’s Ramsauer said that “These are iconic brands.” . Cadbury’s strategy, however, determined that soft drink industry was not their main target; therefore, the budget for Orangina was not enough for them to finance more in neither marketing campaigns nor innovations. During that time, in spite of the rapid growth in demand of diet soft drinks, the representative of Orangina in this area just covered a little proportion in the market