What is the strategic rationale for the transaction?
Our 2020 Vision calls for decisive and timely action to continuously improve and evolve our global system to best serve our customers and consumers everywhere. Consistent with this Vision, we are focusing our resources to accelerate growth and to deliver significant long-term value to our shareholders. Let’s remember that North America is fundamentally unique – from the terms of the bottler agreements, dis-contiguous franchise territories and separation of both fountain and finished goods production. The structure of our North American business has remained essentially the same since CCE was founded in 1986. During this time, fundamental industry forces have dramatically altered the consumer, customer and competitive landscape. Accordingly, we need an evolved North America business model to best serve our customers and consumers that is right for the next era of winning for the Coca-Cola system. Importantly, today we are acting from a position of strength and we believe this new struct
