CIC Purchased 1.1% Stake in Diageo

BEIJING, Jul 21, 2009 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) -- DEO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- The China Investment Corporation (CIC), the country's sovereign wealth fund, has purchased a 1.1% stake in Diageo plc (LSE: DGE, NYSE: DEO), the largest multinational beer, wine and spirits company in the world, worth GBP 221 million or about USD 365 million, turning into the ninth investor of the UK-based company.
An analyst in the London beverage sector said that the share purchase showed that the Chinese investor believed that the wine company would play an essential role for the Chinese economic development in the future. Diageo predicted that China would catch up with the US to become an important market of the company by 2021.

Now, the Chinese wine and beverage market grows fastest among all nations in the world, and the market scale is expected to add 17.6 billion litres in the period from 2008 to 2014, according to Canadean, a global leader specializing in providing market research on the global beers, wine, spirits, and soft-drinks industries.

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