That's about as close as one can get to a cold Pepsi in South Africa these days. The plant is empty. The equipment was crated up and shipped off to Russia four months ago after New Age Beverages collapsed in a war with rival Coke.

It wasn't supposed to end this way. Pepsi was reintroduced to South Africa in 1994 with great fanfare and political correctness. Backed by such prominent African American investors as Danny Glover, Whitney Houston and Shaquille O'Neal, New Age Beverages was managed by a former political prisoner in one of South Africa's first black-empowerment deals after Nelson Mandela's election as president.

The new venture was aimed at reestablishing Pepsi in a market it had abandoned a decade earlier when international companies pulled out of South Africa to pressure the white-minority government.

The failure of the American investment in the South African beverage business is a counterpoint to the rosy picture U.S. officials will portray as President Clinton visits Cape Town today on the fourth stop of his 12-day tour of Africa.

Clinton is expected to tout American investments in Africa as part of his administration's campaign to promote commercial and trade interests in a continent once regarded as a charity case.

``We are doing what we can to support and encourage American investment in South Africa of all kinds," said U.S. Ambassador to South Africa James Joseph.

Indeed, American investors have led the charge to return to South Africa after companies fled in the 1980s in response to a campaign for economic sanctions by antiapartheid groups.

Since 1991, when George Bush lifted most economic sanctions on South Africa, more than 200 American companies have invested in local manufacturers or distributors. American investments recently surpassed the pre-sanction levels, according to the Investor Responsibility Research Center in Washington.

More than 300 U.S. companies now have direct or indirect ties with South Africa, compared with 104 at the nadir of U.S. investment in 1991. Companies controlled by Americans employ about 86,000 South Africans, four times the 1991 level.

American companies have invested more than $6 billion in South African companies since Mandela was elected president in 1994. (British companies, which did not leave South Africa in droves as American companies did during apartheid, still represent the largest foreign investment here.)

``It has taken a lot less time to rebuild the U.S. presence than it did to take it apart," said Peter DeSimone, a managing director for the investor research center.

Many companies that withdrew during the apartheid era, such as Ford Motor Co., RJR Nabisco, Sara Lee Corp. and IBM, simply sold their brand names to South African companies, thus keeping a recognizable presence in the country. They are now buying back the rights and re-integrating the factories and distribution channels into their global networks.

Coke, for example, sold its bottling plants in South Africa and moved its syrup manufacturing operations into neighboring Swaziland, where it could supply the South African-owned distributors. Coca-Cola has since reinvested into the South African companies and last year pledged to invest $220 million more to expand into surrounding countries.

While Coke withdrew its direct investments, the company - through franchisees - actually expanded its market share under apartheid.

Pepsi now says its inability to reenter South Africa was caused by the insurmountable 80 percent market share Coke built up during those years. It says it was penalized for taking the correct moral position.

``We were hoping the marketplace would reward us for doing the right thing with the right people," said Pepsi-Cola spokesman Brad Shaw.

Only a few firms, including Pepsi, actually pulled out their brands altogether - and they have had a harder time reintegrating into South Africa's market. Eastman Kodak Co., for instance, has struggled to reestablish its products in a market that Japanese rival Fuji dominated during apartheid.

Only 64 firms of the 250 that left South Africa have returned, said DeSimone. Most of the companies that have invested here are new entrants, such as Nike, McDonald's and Compaq.

The largest U.S. investor so far is SBC Communications, formerly Southwestern Bell. The San Antonio company paid $757 million last year to share a 30 percent stake in Telkom, South Africa's state-owned telephone company. SBC sent over 50 executives, including the chief operating officer, to manage its investment.

Not all the U.S. companies had good experiences.

McDonald's and Toys R Us had to fight extended battles over trademark violations. During the sanctions era, some South African companies seemed to feel they weren't obligated to ask permission to borrow famous brand names. The cases were settled; Toys R Us, for example, simply bought out its South African imitator and brought its business up to their standards.

``The trademark problems are supposedly going away, and most companies say they've had good experiences in South Africa," said DeSimone.

Pepsi's venture, however, seemed star-crossed from the beginning.

Having pulled out in 1985, Pepsico announced its reinvestment at a news conference in New York in 1994 timed to coincide with Mandela's visit to the United States to drum up business.

A U.S. partnership called Egoli Beverages (the name means place of gold) initially invested $15 million for a 75 percent share in New Age Beverages - PepsiCo owned the other 25 percent. Egoli's partners included publisher and Washington-area Pepsi distributor Earl G. Graves, San Francisco financier Calvin Grigsby, Motown Record Co. Chairman Clarence Avant, and Los Angeles attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. as well as actor Glover, singer Houston and basketball star O'Neal.

The new chairman of the company, Khehla S. Mthembu, seemed to have the credentials for success in the new South Africa. Mthembu had been the managing director of South Africa's largest black-owned insurance company and had also been jailed in the 1970s for revolutionary activities.

There were early signs that something was amiss, however.

Whitney Houston gave a concert in Johannesburg to launch the new product - but sponsors discovered they couldn't sell Pepsi at the event because Coke had an exclusive contract at the stadium. Backers asked Mandela to endorse the product, but he declined.

Then job-seekers picketed the Germiston bottling plant, demanding work at Pepsi because it was a black-empowerment company. The protests turned violent, and one job-seeker was killed.

The bottler also failed to establish a secure supply for bottles and was forced to import bottles from Mexico, disrupting production.

According to the three firms liquidating the company, New Age's downfall was caused by mismanagement. Among the mistakes: The appointment of unskilled senior management, the failure to implement operational systems and financial controls, and uncontrolled expansion and capital expenditures. PepsiCo Inc., which owned 25 percent of New Age Beverages, exerted little control over operations from its headquarters in New York.

By early last year, it appeared there was no way to rescue the company. Its principal banker called in its loans; the company's total debt amounted to almost $100 million. Annual losses totaled more than $20 million. For all the expense, Pepsi had obtained only a 5 percent market share.

When New Age Beverage closed, 1,200 jobs were lost. The liquidators sold the equipment from the Johannesburg plant to a Russian brewery in Irkutsk.