The upcoming initial public offering of Hindustan Coca-Cola escalates the intense business rivalry between the Bhartia and Jaipuria families across India's beverage bottling and quick service restaurant sectors.

The upcoming initial public offering of Hindustan Coca-Cola escalates the intense business rivalry between the Bhartia and Jaipuria families across India's beverage bottling and quick service restaurant sectors.

The upcoming initial public offering of Hindustan Coca-Cola escalates the intense business rivalry between the Bhartia and Jaipuria families across India's beverage bottling and quick service restaurant sectors.

With Hindustan Coca-Cola Holdings filing its DRHP papers for an initial public offering earlier this month, the rivalry between two prominent Delhi-based families—the Bhartias and the Jaipurias—will get one more layer.

Hindustan Coca-Cola is the wholly owned subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Company. The American beverage giant has over 55 manufacturing and bottling units across India. These include Hindustan Coca-Cola and several regional franchise bottlers. Hindustan Coca-Cola is the biggest of them all.

In 2025, the holding pattern of Hindustan Coca-Cola changed when the Bhartia family completed their acquisition of a 40 per cent stake in the company with an investment of $1.5 billion. The rest of the 60 per cent shareholding lay in the hands of Coca-Cola.

That will now change with the IPO, which is expected in 2027. The IPO consists of a 100 per cent offer for sale. This means no fresh shares will be on offer, but instead Coca-Cola will be diluting its stake. Its shareholding will go down to 45 per cent from the present 60 per cent. The Bhartia family will continue holding its 40 per cent.

Once it's listed, Hindustan Coca-Cola will get into direct competition with Varun Beverages, the bottling giant controlled by the Jaipuria family.

Varun Beverages is the second-largest bottler for PepsiCo, the arch rival of Coca-Cola, outside the US. It's listed on the Indian stock exchanges and was valued at about $16 billion.

So effectively, the Coke vs Pepsi war that has played out internationally for decades will become a Jaipuria vs Bhartia battle in India.

This is not the only battlefront between the two families.

While the Jaipuria family may have an upper hand in the cola war—Varun Beverages has a topline of ₹21,685 crore in 2025 versus Hindustan Coca-Cola's ₹11,549 crore—the tables turn when it comes to their rivalry in the quick service restaurant segment.

The Bhartia family, through their listed entity Jubilant FoodWorks, has the India franchisee for popular brands such as Domino's Pizza, Popeyes and Dunkin Donuts. On the other hand, the Jaipurias hold the franchisee for Pizza Hut, KFC and Costa Coffee. These brands are held under the umbrella of Devyani International, a listed company.

Pizza Hut comes under the US major Yum! Brands, which had two franchisees in India—Devyani and the other was Sapphire Foods. In January this year, the Jaipuria family merged their Devyani with Sapphire, creating an even bigger giant.

Though Devyani now has a larger footprint, its revenue trails that of Jubilant, whose massive success is largely due to Domino's Pizza's dominance in its segment. While the gap between their top line is not much, it's the bottom line where Jubilant outperforms Devyani and thus commands a higher market value.

In short, while Bhartia leads Jaipuria in the QSR industry, it's the other way around in the cola wars. Once Hindustan Coca-Cola is listed, investors will have more granular details on the company, and that will make the rivalry even sharper.

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