Starbucks Corp plans to open more than 3,000 new shops in the Americas in the next five years, an increase of more than 20 percent, as it pushes a growth strategy that relies on tea and juice as much as coffee, the world's largest coffee chain said on Wednesday.The company is done with acquisitions for the time being, after a spate of deals that added juice seller Evolution Fresh and Bay Bread LLC's La Boulange Bakery for $30 million and $100 million, respectively. The company has also agreed to purchase tea store chain Teavana Holdings Inc for $620 million."We're pretty full up at this time in terms of our resources and capabilities," Chief Executive Howard Schultz said at Starbucks' investor conference in New York on Wednesday. "At this moment in time we have enough to handle."Food long has been a weak link at Starbucks, which plans to roll out La Boulange pastries and other goodies to 2,500 of its company-operated U.S. shops by the end of next year. Starbucks also expects to have Evolution fresh juices in more than 5,000 U.S. stores by the end of 2013.
Teavana Holdings, Inc. (Teavana) is a specialty retailer of loose-leaf teas, authentic artisanal teawares and other tea-related merchandise. Shares of TEA traded higher by 7.0% or $1.008/share to $15.41. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $9.75 and as high as $26.03. On average, 854848 shares of TEA exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 2751566.
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