Chevalier iTech pays $205m for coffee chain

Wong Ka-chun
The Standard Hong Kong

Pacific Coffee Company - the locally-bred upstart that has given Starbucks a run for its money for the three years since the global coffee giant's arrival here - is being sold to Chevalier iTech Holdings (CiT), a listed computer trading company, for HK$205 million.

CiT said it is acquiring Pacific Coffee to diversify its business and broaden its income stream as turnover from existing businesses has deteriorated in recent years.

It was Pacific Coffee that was in Hong Kong first, opening its first outlet in 1993. Like Starbucks, Pacific Coffee features roomy sofas and a wide variety of Seattle-inspired coffee products although Pacific Coffee's chief executive and founder, Tom Neir, has chosen to focus on what in an interview with The Standard in 2004 he called ``highly educated, typically higher income people.'' That ``executive set'' targeted by Pacific Coffee keeps many of its outlets hidden away in office towers.

Nonetheless, both companies have pushed a traditionally tea-drinking city well along towards a coffee culture.

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