Greece's biggest company flees, bottler CCH to Switzerland

[hack89]

Source: Reuters

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's biggest company, Coca Cola Hellenic, is leaving the country, the drinks bottler said on Thursday as its move to Switzerland and a London listing for its shares dealt a blow to the crippled Greek economy.

The immediate material impact on Greece is limited - its Greek plants stay open and CCH said the small portion of it activity that the world's second-ranked Coke bottler has in Greece will be unaffected. But analysts quickly saw it as bad news for a nation struggling to compete inside the euro zone.

One analyst said CCH, which rose to the top of corporate rankings as the values of Greek banks collapsed, was out to rid its share price of such risks associated with Greece; the country is mired in recession and facing mass discontent as its leaders slash budgets to meet international creditors' terms for loans intended to keep Athens inside Europe's single currency.

"This is a healthy company that does not want to suffer from Greece's high country risk," said the analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/greeces-biggest-company-flees-bottler-cch-switzerland-171320730--sector.html

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If talk of Greece leaving the Euro grows, you will see more of this. Stability is what business craves and it is in short supply in Greece.

[Vincardog]

1. This is a "healthy" company that does not want to pay its' fare share. "instability" my ass.

[hack89]

2. 95 percent of their business is outside of Greece

Last edited Thu Oct 11, 2012, 05:24 PM - Edit history (1)

what do you think would happen to a company if Greece left the Euro? It would be a disaster.

[angstlessk]

3. Britan seems to do well in the Eurozone..and NOT beholding the the Euro...

[hack89]

6. Britain is not an economic train wreck on the verge of insolvency. nt

[AndyTiedye]

4. Switzerland Isn't In the Eurozone

The Swiss Franc is worth US$1.07 now.

[hack89]

5. You are right - my bad. nt

[DavidDvorkin]

7. Capitalists are such patriots.

[Earth_First]

8. With such a colorful past of fucking over locals; this move by Coca Cola surprises me not... n/t

[hack89]

9. Coca Cola only owns 23% of the company

it looks more like Greek owners fleeing an uncertain business climate.

[socialist_n_TN]

10. Take it over and let the workers run it.........

With only worker's salaries to pay and no profit to worry about, it would seem they should be able to offer the "market" a pretty good deal. Better than the company that left.

[hack89]

13. I am sure the Greek tax collectors might have something to say about that.

unless those workers are willing to forgo government benefits and services?

btw - what about all those other overhead costs of running a business? Gas, electricity, transportation, IT infrastructure? How do you fund capital improvements to expand the business?

[FrodosPet]

17. Government Grants

If the rich pricks paid a socially responsible 75% on everything they make over $1,000,000 and 90% of everything over $10,000,000 then they would be able to offer generous grants and loans to assist state owned and employee owned enterprises, while funding food, shelter, health care, child care, education and supplies, clothing, public transportation, and communications services for everyone, so individuals will have very little need for money.

Under such a system, people will no longer be trapped in their jobs. They will be free to seek spiritually and socially productive work as artists, philosophers, musicians, etc. as opposed to scrubbing toilets, mopping floors, waiting tables, etc.

[hack89]

20. Inverted pyramids tip over

if your entire revenue scheme is dependent on the financial success of a very few people then bad things happen when those people decide not to play anymore.

How hard would it be for a wealthy person to limit his income to $999,999? Or $9,999,999? Or decide to move to another country? What if he is socially responsible but makes a bad business decision and goes bankrupt?

We learned this lesson in NY city. NYC structured their tax systems to tax high income earners on Wall Street - NYC has a city income tax. It worked fine until the financial crisis when all of a sudden NYC had a huge hole blown in their budget when Wall Street laid off thousands.

All you would do is make the state more dependent on wealthy people - do you want to hand that control of your life over to them?

[socialist_n_TN]

18. What goverment benefits would the workers forgo?..........

I thought the whole idea of austerity was to slash any government benefits to nothing in order to pay for the interest on the debt.

As to the other overhead costs, I'm sure a way could be found. A socialist government would provide low to no cost loans to those workers so they could undercut the cut-and-run "patriots" of the capitalist class and gain market share. And just because it would be non-profit doesn't mean you couldn't have surplus value in order to fund expanding the business. In fact, if it were needed, it wouldn't BE "surplus" value. It would be PART of that overhead.

[hack89]

19. The services that tax revenues pay for?

I think you need to look at the actual bailout details.

[fujiyama]

11. Let's face Greece is just a fucking mess

People can blame Coke all they want, but the reality is Greece is fucked its people are fucked for the near and likely the long term future. Corruption is endemic, people want insane and ridiculous benefits but don't want to pay the taxes required to support such a cushy safety net.

Greece is not Germany or even France for that matter. It has no major imports to speak of (other than tourism) and large numbers of the people for years worked (very little) for a bloated and inefficient public sector.

This was a disaster in the making for a while. And now the fascist police are turning a blind eye while their neo Nazi Golden Dawn party members are attacking immigrants. Yeah, sure, it's the immigrants' fault your country is an economic basket case.

Sorry, I'm not feeling much sympathy for them. They'll suck on austerity whether they like it or not.

[fasttense]

12. But, but, Greece has cheap labor, austerity, reduced welfare support, cheap hungry people

I thought austerity was suppose to make corporations want to stay and exploit the cheap, cheap, hungry labor? Greece lowered minimum wage, took away college, health care, food and welfare programs to encourage those lazy workers to work even harder...or starve.

And yet corporations are still leaving. Go figure. I guess austerity isn't all it's cracked up to be.

[hack89]

14. Government spending and government debt is the Greek problem

along with rampant tax evasion.

The Greek government reduced college, health care, food and welfare programs because they can't pay for them - they haven't been able to pay for them for almost a decade. It has nothing to do with lazy workers - it has everything to do with a dishonest and dysfunctional government.

[bemildred]

15. Yeah, they all ought to be moving to Greece, everything is just perfect for business. nt

[AngryAmish]

16. This was done because of currency risk

Sooner or later Greece is leaving the Euro. When that happens all of your Euro denominated assets get turned overnight in Drachmas (and then devalued by an order of magnitude or so).

By "leaving" Greece it protects the assets of the company - which it's directors have a fiduciary duty to do so. The jobs stay in Greece.

You know who did this: the politicians who ran the country into the ground. Greece should never have been in the Euro. The people of Greece seem to like the way Greece has been run for the past few decades. Let them continue to run it so. But they should not expect other people to foot the bill.