Cobra Beer, the Indian-themed lager brand, is prepared to split its UK and Indian businesses and sell them to separate buyers as its founder, Lord Bilimoria, seeks $274m for the group.
British food producers increased prices by 7.4 per cent last year -- the biggest annual increase since the country's National Statistics office began tracking them 15 years ago -- due to big jumps in the cost of producing bread, butter, eggs, milk and meat. In Russia, prices went up so sharply -- milk rose by some 30 per cent and bread went up 22 per cent - that the government froze prices towards the end of the year.
Howard Schultz has returned as CEO of Starbucks with a mission: reinvigorating the "romance and theatre" of coffee-making that have been damaged in global expansion.