Evian is one of the most recognised brands of bottled mineral water around the world. The brand is owned by the Danone Group, a French multinational corporation. While it's not possible to invest directly in Evian exclusively, shares of Danone provide exposure to the Evian revenue stream.

  • Evian is one of the most recognised brands of bottled mineral water around the world.
  • While it's not possible to invest directly in Evian exclusively, shares of Danone provide exposure to the Evian revenue stream.

Open a trading account. Whether you use a full service broker or, more likely, an online discount broker, you need a funded trading account to buy shares in companies. Most discount brokers allow for trading in over the counter stocks, but relatively few allow for order routing and direct investment in foreign stock exchanges.

Buy the ADR. Danone shares do not trade on U.S. exchanges, but the American Depositary Receipt (ADR) trades over the counter on a market known as the pink sheets. The ticker symbol for the Danone ADR is DANOY.PK. An ADR is not exactly a share in the foreign company, but a part ownership of an international institution's shares of the company. Each unit of the Danone ADR represents one-fifth of an actual Danone share.

Trade on the Euronext. Those with access to foreign stock markets can purchase shares of Danone directly on the NYSE Euronext Paris exchange under the ticker symbol BN. Danone also trades directly on the Swiss Stock Exchange, where the Evian brand originated, as CHF.

  • Those with access to foreign stock markets can purchase shares of Danone directly on the NYSE Euronext Paris exchange under the ticker symbol BN.
  • Danone also trades directly on the Swiss Stock Exchange, where the Evian brand originated, as CHF.

Buy an index fund. Danone is a component of France's CAC 40 and Dow Jones' Eurostoxx 50. Buying funds that follow these indices, such as FRC, the NETS CAC40 index fund trading on the New York Stock Exchange, provide indirect exposure. The correlation between the indices and Danone stock, however, varies.

TIP

While the Danone ADR is directly accessible to American investors, it is less liquid than the actual stock, so investors should take caution. Information on Danone shares appears under various codes in different sources. On Reuters it is listed as "BN.PA"; on Bloomberg as "BN FP" and on DataStream as "F:BSN." Some websites simply use "DA" to display the current share price.