BENGALURU:

Hindustan Coca-Cola Holdings, India’s largest Coca-Cola bottler, has filed for an initial public offering consisting entirely of a stake sale by its majority shareholder, with no fresh money going to the company, draft papers showed.

The proposed IPO will see majority shareholder Hindustan Coca-Cola Overseas Holdings offer up to 997.5 million shares for sale, reducing its holding to about 45% from 60%. Jubilant Beverages, which owns the remaining 40%, is not selling shares. No price band was disclosed.

The IPO adds to a string of multinational companies turning to Indian equity markets to monetise their investments, rather than raise new capital.

The company’s revenue fell 9.4% to 115.49 billion Indian rupees ($1.23 billion) in the year to March 2026. It attributed the decline to the transfer of territories to other Coca-Cola bottlers under its refranchising programme.

The company bottles Coca-Cola brands including Thums Up, Sprite and Maaza across 10 Indian states and four federal territories, mainly in southern and western India. It was reported in July that Coca-Cola had appointed JPMorgan and Citi for a planned 2027 listing. The draft prospectus names six banks managing the offer.

Ministry disputes high ethanol claims

Separately, India’s petroleum ministry on Saturday rejected a report by authorities in the southern state of Karnataka that some petrol pumps there sold fuel with more ethanol than the 20% limit, saying its own tests showed supplies met national standards.

Four in five petrol pumps surveyed in Karnataka were selling fuel blended with ethanol content above the permitted 20% limit, a minister in the opposition-ruled state government said on Friday.

The findings had raised fresh concerns about fuel quality as India expands the use of E20 fuel, a petrol blend consisting of 20% ethanol, as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s drive to reduce crude imports, lower emissions and support domestic ethanol producers.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi called the matter “petrol theft” and urged Modi to disclose actual ethanol levels and act against companies that over-blend.

The petroleum ministry questioned how the state government drew and tested its samples. It added that state-run fuel retailers Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum had also disputed the findings and had sought independent testing of Karnataka’s samples.