P.M. BRIEFING : Perrier Selling Soft Drink Lines

France’s best-known sparkling water bottler, Source Perrier, said today it is selling three of its soft drinks brands to British foods group Cadbury Schweppes PLC for $74 million.

The sale of the Oasis, Bali and Atoll fruit drink brands will give Perrier capital gains of about $178 million on its 1990 accounts and make Schweppes the second largest soft drinks bottler in France after Coca-Cola.

This purchase will lift Schweppes’ share of the French soft drinks market to 16% from 6.3%, said Martine Prosichel, communications director at Schweppes France.

The sale will also offset Perrier’s losses caused by a contamination scare in February, when the discovery of traces of benzene in mineral water bottled at the Verges spring in southern France forced Perrier to withdraw supplies worldwide. Benzene is suspected of causing cancer.