Starbucks To Buy 10% Stake in SodaStream

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By JTA April 24, 2014

Starbucks is in advanced talks to buy 10 percent of Israeli home soda machine company SodaStream, an Israeli business daily reported.

Shares of SodaStream jumped more than 10 percent following the report Wednesday in Globes.

The newspaper said that an announcement of the purchase, at a company value of $1.1 billion, is expected “soon.”

Starbucks left the Israeli market about a decade ago, after Israeli customers indicated their preference for purchasing their coffee from other companies.

Neither company would comment in the media to the report.

SodaStream has been in the news in recent months following the signing of actress Scarlett Johansson as a spokeswoman for the company. Johansson resigned as a global ambassador for Oxfam over her position with the company, which operates a factory in the West Bank and employs both Jewish and Palestinian workers.

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