Discussion-activity: Planned PepsiCo purchase

December 4, 2000
Web posted at: 4:27 PM EST (2127 GMT)

RELATED SITES

Editor's note: If you are planning to use the news story that this lesson plan is based on for a homework assignment, please write the URL on the board and have your students copy it. CNNfyi.com updates the site in the early evening, so students may have difficulty finding it without the URL. You can find the lesson plan by going to the Subject Areas page and clicking PREVIOUS in the square for Today's Lesson Plan.

1. What company is PepsiCo going to purchase? What is the purchase price? How many shares of PepsiCo stock will current Quaker Oats shareholders receive? Is this fair? Explain your answer. How did the Quaker Oats Co. protect its stockholders from PepsiCo's falling stock prices? Who will be the chairman and CEO of the combined company's board? Of which company was he the previous chairman?

2. What are some other products that Quaker Oats manufactures? What is the fastest-growing product for Quaker Oats? With what company did Quaker Oats turn down a merger agreement at the 11th hour? What do you think "the 11th hour" means?

3. What beverage company did PepsiCo recently agree to purchase? What other noncarbonated drinks does PepsiCo manufacture?

4. Give students time to discover in groups, pairs or individually the products of Quaker Oats, PepsiCo and Coca- Cola. Have students present their information to the class.

5. Lead a class discussion about monopolies and conglomerates. Ask students: What effect do you think the Quaker Oats and PepsiCo merger will have? Do you think the companies will continue to expand? Explain your answer. Do you think this will have a positive effect on the U.S. economy? Why or why not? What is a conglomerate? Do you think that these are good or bad for consumers? Explain.

Pepsiworld
Quaker Oats
Coca-Cola Co.

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.