China's largest juice maker Huiyuan is still up for sale, despite the collapse of the Coca-Cola bid, an insider told the China Business News yesterday. But he gave no further details.

Huiyuan fruit juice is still up for sale in a Carrefour chain-supermarket in Beijing on March 18, 2009 despite the collapse of the Coca-Cola bid.

Production was in full swing when the reporter arrived at Huiyuan's headquarters in northeast Beijing. The company refused the request for an interview on the grounds that "the relevant staff" were not in the office. But the source said a high-level meeting had taken place the previous day.

Huiyuan President Zhu Xinli said last September that selling Huiyuan would be good for employees and consumers. He is not thought to have changed his mind, despite the Coca Cola setback.

Brand expert Li Zhiqi, said Zhu's determination made sense. He said the company was in a tight financial situation, having invested in the upstream industry, but taken a conservative stance in the downstream market, after it reached an agreement with Coca-Cola last year.

Huiyuan has been the object of at least three unsuccessful bids. Uni-President and Pepsi were notable previous bidders. Uni-President's 2005 bid was aborted due to Taiwan regulations that prevented local enterprises having more than 40 percent of their net assets tied up in the mainland. Luo Zhixian, general manager of Uni-President said recently that Huiyuan would have been a great investment objective.

For more details, please read the original news in Chinese at:

http://www.china-cbn.com/s/n/000004/20090324/000000110375.shtml

(China.org.cn March 24, 2009)