International Beverages Tashkent becomes the owner of 100% of the shares in the joint venture Urban Retail, with the Committee for the Development of Competition and Protection of Consumer Rights of Uzbekistan approving the deal.
The analysis conducted by a special commission of the committee found that this deal was a corporate structural reorganization (the companies have one founder) and did not have a direct impact on the competition.
International Beverages Tashkent is the manufacturer of soft drinks under Pepsi, 7UP, Mirinda, Mountain Dew, Adrenaline Rush and Lipton brands.
The founders of both assets are Holten Enterprise Holdings Ltd (99.9%) and Holten Group Corp (0.1%).
These companies (99% and 1%) also own Urban Retail, which is engaged in the wholesale of soft drinks, food and non-food products through a chain of supermarkets under the Baraka Market brand.
In 2019, the government put its stake in International Beverages Tashkent up for sale, and in 2022, the Anti-Trust Committee approved the purchase of a 99.9% stake by the Emirati company Holten Enterprise Holdings. That same year, it acquired a stake in Urban Retail.
IBT is among the top 10 taxpayers among private companies in Uzbekistan. In 2024, it paid 342.8 billion soums in taxes, ranking 9th. Turnover for 11 months of last year topped 3.24 trillion soums. For comparison: the manufacturer Coca Cola paid 634.2 billion soums, and the turnover for the specified period reached 6.15 trillion soums.
