Bodyarmor Sale to Coca-Cola Will Give Kobe Bryant Property $400M – NBC10 Philadelphia

Coca-Cola announced Monday it had bought full control of sports-drink startup Bodyarmor for $5.6 billion, CNBC experiences, netting the property of late basketball legend Kobe Bryant an estimated $400 million on the sale.

The NBA star, who died in a tragic helicopter crash in January 2020, invested in Bodyarmor in 2014 for a ten% stake within the firm and joined its board of administrators. On the time, Bryant was the corporate’s third-largest shareholder.

“I put my pores and skin within the recreation,” Bryant told Forbes in 2014, after his hefty funding.

In a tribute to Bryant, Coke announced its buy at precisely 8:24 a.m. to commemorate the 2 jersey numbers the Los Angeles Lakers star wore throughout his NBA tenure. 

Coke initially purchased a 15% stake in Bodyarmor in 2018 and have become its second-largest shareholder. Monday’s transfer to buy the remaining 85% marks Coke’s largest acquisition within the firm’s historical past.

BodyArmor was co-founded in 2011 by Mike Repole, who simply 4 years earlier had offered his earlier firm, Glacéau, for $4.1 billion — additionally to Coke. Glacéau is the maker of SmartWater and VitaminWater.

The deal has been within the works since at the least February, based mostly on a pre-acquisition submitting with the Federal Commerce Fee, CNBC experiences.

Bryant’s property, which Forbes reported to be value as much as $600 million on the time of his loss of life and is now managed by his widow Vanessa Bryant, will see a roughly $400 million payoff from the deal, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Bryant confirmed enterprise prowess after his 2016 retirement from the NBA, with dealings in quite a lot of sectors that included “a media manufacturing firm and a enterprise capital fund to spend money on tech, media and information firms,” NBC News reported in 2020.