Coca-Cola's Upside Potential Evident

Coca-Cola's move to buy bottler Coca-Cola Enterprises was questioned by some investors, but the action of Coke's share since then shows that someone out there is feeling bullish about the move.
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NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) --

Coca-Cola's

(KO) - Get Report

move to buy bottler

Coca-Cola Enterprises

(CCE)

(CCE) was questioned by some investors, but the action of Coke's share since then indicates that someone out there is feeling bullish about the move.

The most notable bull? Coca-Cola director Herbert Allen, who through his investment company Allen & Co., has purchased 152,080 shares of Coke for about $52.95 a share on March 1, according to

Barron's.

That's about $8.1 million worth of Coke stock.

Allen made the move while Coke shares were experiencing downward pressure from the acquisition announcement. After the move, Allen had in possession about 9 million shares of the company, or less than 1% of Coke's outstanding shares, according to

Barron's.

Some in the investment community would consider this a hopeful sign that Coke's decision could pay off in the long-run, despite all the doubt surrounding the deal, and that Allen was wise to buy while share prices were still under pressure.

On Feb. 25, Coke announced that it was buying CCE's North American bottling business for more than $12 billion. Meanwhile, CCE had agreed in principle to buy Coke's bottling operations in Norway and Sweden and to obtain the right to buy its German bottler.

"The deal should help fix Coke's North American business in the long term, but it slows its growth profile with higher exposure to North America," J.P. Morgan analyst John Faucher wrote in a note to investors.

Rival

Pepsi

(PEP) - Get Report

, meanwhile, announced the completion of mergers with bottlers

Pepsi Bottling Group

and

PepsiAmericas

on Feb. 26, which many believe helped set off the recent chain of events at Coke.

Many in the investment community believe that

Dr Pepper Snapple

(DPS)

will emerge the biggest winner amid the so-called "

soda wars

," as the other two look for rights to distribute Dr Pepper products in the territories where they are currently distributed by the acquired bottlers.

All the soda war counterparts made advances during Friday's trading session.

Coke has added 0.4% at $54.70 and Pepsi has inched up 0.4% to $64.40. Dr Pepper Snapple has risen 1.1% to $32.30, and CCE has risen 0.5% to $26.

-- Reported by Andrea Tse in New York

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