The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is a beverage retailer, manufacturer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in 1886. The Coca-Cola formula and brand was bought in 1889 by Asa Candler who incorporated The Coca-Cola Company in 1892. Besides its namesake Coca-Cola beverage, Coca-Cola currently offers more than 500 brands in over 200 countries or territories and serves 1.6 billion servings each day.[3]
The company operates a franchised distribution system dating from 1889 where The Coca-Cola Company only produces syrup concentrate which is then sold to various bottlers throughout the world who hold an exclusive territory. The Coca-Cola Company owns its anchor bottler in North America, Coca-Cola Refreshments.
The Coca-Cola Company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Its stock is listed on the NYSE and is part of DJIA, S&P 500 Index, the Russell 1000 Index and the Russell 1000 Growth Stock Index. Its current chairman and CEO is Muhtar Kent.
The Coca-Cola Company, incorporated in September 1919, is a non-alcoholic beverage company. The Company owns or licenses and markets more than 500 non-alcoholic beverage brands, primarily sparkling beverages but also a variety of still beverages such as waters, enhanced waters, juices and juice drinks, ready-to-drink teas and coffees, and energy and sports drinks. It also owns and markets non-alcoholic sparkling beverage brands, including Diet Coke, Fanta and Sprite. It manufactures, markets and sells, beverage concentrates, referred to as beverage bases, and syrups, including fountain syrups (the concentrate business or concentrate operations), and finished sparkling and still beverages (finished products business or finished products operations).It operates in six segments: Eurasia and Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America, Pacific, Bottling Investments and Corporate. On October 2, 2010, it acquired the North American business of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. (CCE).
In the concentrate operations, the Company generates net operating revenues by selling concentrates and syrups to authorized bottling and canning operations. its bottling partners either combine the concentrates with sweeteners (depending on the product), still water and/or sparkling water or combine the syrups with sparkling water to produce finished beverages. The finished beverages are packaged in authorized containers bearing its trademarks or trademarks licensed to it, such as cans and refillable and nonrefillable glass and plastic bottles and are then sold to retailers directly or, in some cases, through wholesalers or other bottlers. Outside the United States it also sells concentrates for fountain beverages to its bottling partners who are authorized to manufacture fountain syrups, which they sell to fountain retailers such as restaurants and convenience stores which use the fountain syrups to produce beverages for immediate consumption, or to fountain wholesalers who in turn sell and distribute the fountain syrups to fountain retailers.
The finished products operations consist of the production, sales and distribution operations managed by CCR and the Company-owned or controlled bottling and distribution operations. CCR is included in the North America operating segment, and the Company’s Company-owned or controlled bottling and distribution operations are included in its Bottling Investments operating segment. Its finished products operations generate net operating revenues by selling sparkling beverages and a variety of still beverages, such as juices and juice drinks, energy and sports drinks, ready-to-drink teas and coffees, and certain water products, to retailers or to distributors, wholesalers and bottling partners who distribute them to retailers. In addition, in the United States, it manufactures fountain syrups and sell them to fountain retailers such as restaurants and convenience stores who use the fountain syrups to produce beverages for immediate consumption or to authorized fountain wholesalers or bottling partners who resell the fountain syrups to fountain retailers.
The Company’s beverage products include Coca-Cola or Coke (that is, Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero and all their variations and line extensions, including Coca-Cola Light, Coke Zero, caffeine free Diet Coke and Cherry Coke); Fanta, and all its variations and line extensions (such as Fanta Orange, Fanta Zero Orange and Fanta Apple); Sprite includes Sprite, Diet Sprite, Sprite Zero and Sprite Light, and Simply includes Simply Orange, Simply Apple and Simply Grapefruit. During the year ended December 31, 2010, the Company introduced a variety of new brands, brand extensions and new beverage products, including Minute Maid juice and juice drinks (including Minute Maid Nimbu Fresh); Maaza Milky Delite, and Dogadan ready-to-drink tea in Turkey. In the Latin America group it launched del Valle Pulpy, a juice drink with real orange pulp, in Mexico; and Blak, an on-premise liquid coffee concentrate sold to customers through a dispenser, also in Mexico. In the North America group, it introduced to consumers in the United States glaceau vitaminwater zero, an extension of glaceau vitaminwater products with zero calories per serving; and Sokenbicha, a line of brewed unsweetened teas blended with natural botanicals, in Japan. n the Europe group, new launches included Coca-Cola Zero Caffeine-Free in France, the caffeine-free variant of the Coca-Cola Zero brand sold in Europe; and Bonaqua Lemon Lime in the Czech Republic. In the Pacific group, in China it launched Minute Maid 10 Score V, a juice drink fortified with vitamins, and, through BPW, launched Yuan Ye, a new jasmine flavor variant of its ready-to-drink tea beverage, and it extended the footprint of Minute Maid Pulpy, a juice drink with real bits of fruit pulp, with launches in Singapore and Malaysia.
Nestea products are distributed in the United States under a sublicense from a subsidiary of Nestle S.A., and in various other markets worldwide through Beverage Partners Worldwide (BPW), the Company's joint venture with Nestle S.A. In some markets, certain Nestea products are sparkling beverages. Dobriy juice products are manufactured, marketed and sold primarily in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus by Multon, a Russian juice business operated as a joint venture with Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company S.A. Certain products sold under this brand are sparkling beverages. The Company manufactures, markets and sells juices and juice drinks under the del Valle trademark through joint ventures with its bottling partners in Mexico and Brazil. The Schweppes brand is owned by the Company in some countries (excluding the United States, among others). In some markets, certain Schweppes products are still beverages.
The Company competes with PepsiCo, Inc., Nestle, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc., Groupe Danone, Kraft Foods Inc. and Unilever.
The years from the end of World War II to the early 1980s were years of extensive and rapid change. Although Woodruff stepped down officially in 1955, he still exerted a great amount of influence on the company over the coming years. There were a series of chairmen and presidents to follow before the next major figure, J. Paul Austin, took the helm in 1970; he was followed by Roberto Goizueta in 1981. In 1956, after 50 years with the D'Arcy Advertising Agency, the Coca-Cola Company turned its accounts over to McCann-Erickson and began enormous promotional campaigns. The decade of the 1950s was a time of the greatest European expansion for the company. During this decade Coca-Cola opened approximately 15 to 20 plants a year throughout the world.
The company also began to diversify extensively, beginning in 1960, when the Minute Maid Corporation, maker of fruit juices and Hi-C fruit drinks, was acquired by Coca-Cola. Four years later the Duncan Foods Corporation also merged with the company. In 1969 Coca-Cola acquired the Belmont Springs Water Company, Inc., which produced natural spring water and processed water for commercial and home use. The following year the company purchased Aqua-Chem, Inc., producers of desalting machines and other such equipment, and in 1977 Coca-Cola acquired the Taylor Wines Company and other wineries. These last two companies were sold later under Goizueta's leadership.
In addition to its diversification program, the Coca-Cola Company also expanded its product line. Fanta became available in the United States during 1960 and was followed by the introduction of Sprite (1961), TAB (1963), and Fresca (1966), along with diet versions of these drinks. One reason that Coca-Cola began to introduce new beverages during the 1960s was competition from Pepsi Cola, sold by PepsiCo, Inc. Pepsi's success also motivated the Coca-Cola Company to promote its beverage with the slogan "It's the Real Thing," a subtle, comparative form of advertising that the company had never before employed.
Things did not always run smoothly for Coca-Cola. When Coke was first introduced to France, the Communist party, as well as conservative vineyard owners, did what they could to get the product removed from the country. They were unsuccessful. Swiss breweries also felt threatened, and spread rumors about the caffeine content of the drink. More consequential was the Arab boycott in 1967 which significantly hindered the company's relations with Israel. In 1970 the company was involved in a scandal in the United States when an NBC documentary reported on the bad housing and working conditions of Minute Maid farm laborers in Florida. In response, the company established a program that improved the workers' situation. In 1977 it was discovered that Coca-Cola, for various reasons, had made $1.3 million in illegal payments over a period of six years, mostly to executives and government officials in foreign countries.
During the 1970s, under the direction of Chairman J. Paul Austin and President J. Lucian Smith, Coca-Cola was introduced in Russia as well as in China. To enter the Chinese market, the company sponsored five scholarships for Chinese students at the Harvard Business School, and supported China's soccer and table-tennis teams. The beverage also became available in Egypt in 1979, after an absence there of 12 years. Austin strongly believed in free trade and opposed boycotts. He felt that business, in terms of international relations, should be used to improve national economies, and could be a strong deterrent to war. Under Austin, Coca-Cola also started technological and educational programs in the Third World countries in which it conducted business, introducing clean water technology and sponsoring sports programs in countries too poor to provide these benefits for themselves.
Austin's emphasis was on foreign expansion. Furthermore, under Austin's management the company became more specialized. Where Woodruff was aware of all facets of the company, Austin would delegate authority to various departments. For instance, he would give general approval to an advertising scheme, but would not review it personally. Smith was responsible for the everyday operations of the company, and Austin would, among other things, set policies, negotiate with foreign countries, and direct the company's relations with the U.S. government.
1981-97: The Goizueta Era
Roberto Goizueta became chairman in 1981, replacing Austin. The Cuban immigrant immediately shook up what had become a risk-averse, tradition-obsessed, barely profitable company. Less than a year after becoming chairman, he made two controversial decisions. First, he acquired Columbia Pictures for about $750 million in 1982. Goizueta thought that the entertainment field had good growth prospects, and that it would benefit from Coca-Cola's expertise in market research. Secondly, without much consumer research, Goizueta introduced Diet Coke to the public, risking the well-guarded trademark that until then had stood only for the original formula. Something had to be done about the sluggish domestic sales of Coca-Cola and the intense competition presented by Pepsi. In 1950, Coke had outsold Pepsi by more than five to one, but by 1984 Pepsi had a 22.8 percent share of the market while Coke had a 21.6 percent share. Goizueta's second 1982 gamble paid off handsomely when Diet Coke went on to become the most successful consumer product launch of the 1980s, and eventually the number three soft drink in the entire world.
In 1985 Goizueta took another chance. Based on information gathered from blind taste tests, Goizueta decided to reformulate the 99-year-old drink in the hope of combating Pepsi's growing popularity. The change to New Coke was not enthusiastically greeted by the U.S. public. Apparently Goizueta did not take into account the public's emotional attachment to the name "Coca-Cola" and all that it stood for: stability, memories, and the idea of a "golden America." Within less than a year the company brought back the "old" Coke, calling it Coca-Cola Classic. New Coke was universally considered the biggest consumer product blunder of the 1980s, but it was also viewed in a longer term perspective as a positive thing, because of the massive amount of free publicity that the Coke brand received from the debacle.
In September 1987, Coca-Cola agreed to sell its entertainment business to TriStar Pictures, 30 percent of which was owned by Coca-Cola. In return, Coca-Cola's interest in TriStar was increased to 80 percent. Coca-Cola's holding in TriStar was gradually distributed as a special dividend to Coca-Cola shareholders until the company's interest was reduced to a minority, when TriStar changed its name to Columbia Pictures Entertainment and sought its own listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Although the company's flirtation with entertainment appeared to be ill-advised, Coca-Cola ended up with $1 billion in profits from its short-term venture.
In a 1984 article in the New York Times, Goizueta stated that he saw Coca-Cola's challenge as "continuing the growth in profits of highly successful main businesses, and [those] it may choose to enter, at a rate substantially in excess of inflation, in order to give shareholders an above average total return on their investment." Goizueta projected that by 1990 his new strategy would nearly double the company's net income to $1 billion. His prediction came true in 1988. Two years later revenues surpassed the $10 billion mark.
In the mid-1980s, Coca-Cola reentered the bottling business, which had long been dominated by family-operated independents. Coca-Cola began repurchasing interests in bottlers worldwide with a view toward providing those bottlers with financial and managerial strength, improving operating efficiencies, and promoting expansion into emerging international markets. The trend started domestically, when the parent company formed Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. through the acquisition and consolidation of two large bottlers in the South and West in 1986. The parent company acquired more than 30 bottlers worldwide from 1983 to 1993. By then, the market value of the company's publicly traded bottlers exceeded the company's book value by $1.5 billion.
Called "one of the world's most sophisticated and powerful marketing organizations," the company's schemes for the 1990s included the 1993 global launch of the "Always Coca-Cola" advertising theme. The new campaign was formulated by Creative Artists Agency, which took over much of the brand's business in 1992 from longtime agency McCann-Erickson Worldwide. In addition to the new campaign, a 32-page catalog of about 400 licensed garments, toys, and gift items featuring Coke slogans or advertising themes was released. The 1994 introduction of a PET plastic bottle in the brand's distinctive, contour shape resulted from corporate marketing research indicating that an overwhelming 84 percent of consumers would choose the trademarked bottle over a generic straight-walled bottle. But the company's primary challenge for the last decade of the 20th century came in the diet segment, where top-ranking Diet Coke was losing share to ready-to-drink teas, bottled waters, and other "New Age" beverages, which were perceived as healthier and more natural than traditional soft drinks. Coca-Cola fought back by introducing its own new alternative drinks, including POWERade (1990), the company's first sports drink, and the Fruitopia line (1994). In 1992 the company and Nestlé S.A. of Switzerland formed a 50-50 joint venture, Coca-Cola Nestlé, Refreshment Company, to produce ready-to-drink tea and coffee beverages under the Nestea and Nescafé, brand names. Also during this time, Coca-Cola purchased Barq's, a maker of root beer and other soft drinks.
Goizueta died of lung cancer in October 1997, having revitalized and awakened what had been a sleeping giant. Goizueta had turned the company into one of the most admired companies in the world, racking up an impressive list of accomplishments during his 16-year tenure. Coca-Cola's share of the global soft drink market was approaching 50 percent, while in the United States Coke had increased its share to 42 percent, overtaking and far surpassing Pepsi's 31 percent. Revenues increased from $4.8 billion in 1981 to $18.55 billion in 1996; net income grew from $500 million to $3.49 billion over the same period. Perhaps Goizueta's most important--and influential--contribution to the storied history of Coca-Cola was his relentless focus on the company's shareholders. The numbers clearly showed that he delivered for his company's owners: return on equity increased from 20 percent to 60 percent, while the market value of the Coca-Cola Company made a tremendous increase, from $4.3 billion to $147 billion. Perhaps most telling, a $1,000 investment in Coca-Cola in 1981 was worth, assuming that dividends were reinvested, $62,000 by the time of Goizueta's death.
Challenging and Stormy Times in the Late 1990s
Goizueta's right-hand man, Douglas Ivester, was given the unenviable task of succeeding perhaps the most admired chief executive in the United States; Ivester's reign turned out to be both brief and stormy. Although Coca-Cola remained steadily profitable, it was beset by one problem after another in the late 1990s. Having restructured its worldwide bottling operations under Goizueta, the firm moved into a new phase of growth based on the acquisition of other companies' brands. Its already dominant market share and a sometimes arrogant and aggressive approach to acquisition led some countries, particularly in Europe, to take a hard line toward the company. In late 1997, for example, Coca-Cola announced it would acquire the Orangina brand in France from Paris-based Pernod Ricard for about $890 million. French authorities, who had fined Coca-Cola for anticompetitive practices earlier that year, blocked the purchase. In December 1998 Coca-Cola announced that it would purchase several soft drink brands--including Schweppes, Dr Pepper, Canada Dry, and Crush--outside the United States, France, and South Africa from Cadbury Schweppes plc for $1.85 billion. After encountering regulatory resistance in Europe, Australia, Mexico, and Canada, the two companies in July 1999 received regulatory approval for a new scaled-down deal valued at about $700 million, which included 155 countries but not the United States, Norway, Switzerland, and the member states of the European Union with the exception of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Greece. Later in 1999 separate agreements were reached that gave Coca-Cola the Schweppes brands in South Africa and New Zealand.
With nearly two-thirds of sales originating outside North America, Coca-Cola was hit particularly hard by the global economic crisis of the late 1990s, which moved from Asia to Russia to Latin America. In Russia, where the company had invested $750 million from 1991 through the end of the decade, sales fell about 60 percent from August 1998, when the value of the ruble crashed, to September 1999. Rather than retreating from the world stage, however, Ivester viewed the downturn as an opportunity to make additional foreign investments at bargain prices, essentially sacrificing the short term for potentially huge long-term gains. While the economic crisis was still wreaking havoc, Coca-Cola was faced with another crisis in June 1998 when several dozen Belgian schoolchildren became ill after drinking Coke that had been made with contaminated carbon dioxide. Soon, 14 million cases of Coca-Cola products were recalled in five European countries in the largest recall in company history, and France and Belgium placed a temporary ban on the company's products. The crisis, though short-lived, was a public relations disaster because company officials appeared to wait too long to take the situation seriously, admit that there had been a manufacturing error, and apologize to its customers. Meanwhile, around this same time, four current and former employees had filed a racial discrimination suit against the firm in the United States, a suit that was later granted class-action status.
Despite the seemingly endless string of challenges the company faced in the late 1990s, Coca-Cola was also moving forward with new initiatives. In February 1999 the company announced plans to launch its first bottled water brand in North America. Dasani was described as a "purified, non-carbonated water enhanced with minerals." In October 1999 the company announced that it would redesign the look of its Coca-Cola Classic brand in 2000 in an attempt to revitalize the flagship's stagnant sales. Labels would continue to feature the iconic contour bottle but with a cap popped off and soda fizzing out. In addition, the Coke Classic slogan "Always," which had been used since 1993, would be replaced with the tag line "Enjoy," which had been used on Coke bottles periodically for decades. The company also planned to increase the appearances of the eight-ounce contour bottle, in a particularly nostalgic move.
The renewed emphasis on this classic brand icon and the resurrection of the "Enjoy" slogan seemed to be a fitting way for a U.S.--if not global--institution to launch itself into the new millennium. But the company ended 1999 with the surprising news that the beleaguered Ivester would retire in early 2000 after just two and a half years at the helm--a tenure marked perhaps most tellingly by seven straight quarters of earnings declines. Taking over was Douglas N. Daft, a native Australian and 30-year Coke veteran who had headed the company's operating group covering the Middle and Far East and Africa; he was named president and chief operating officer in December 1999 before becoming chairman and CEO the following February.
Continuing Struggles in the Early 2000s
Daft's first year was a hectic one. In January 2000 the company announced a drastic restructuring based on a plan drafted by a Daft-led team. Coca-Cola said it would lay off about 6,000 employees, representing a slashing of the workforce by 20 percent--the largest cutbacks in Coke history. The cuts were later scaled back to about 5,200, but the company still took about $1.6 billion in one-time charges for a plan that aimed to save $300 million in operating costs per year. The restructuring, which centered on marketing, sales, and customer support jobs, was envisioned as a slashing of bureaucracy in an attempt to create a more decentralized company, one in which ideas could more readily bubble up from managers in the field rather than those at the Atlanta headquarters. In November 2000 Daft engineered a tentative deal to take over the Quaker Oats Company for $15.75 billion. This would have added to the Coke portfolio the Gatorade brand, which dominated the sports drink sector, a perennial Coke weakness, and would also have complemented the company's strategy of strengthening its lineup of noncarbonated beverages. But at the last minute, Coca-Cola's board pulled the plug on the deal, mainly concerned that the price was too high. The company's arch-rival PepsiCo quickly swooped in to complete a $13.4 billion acquisition of Quaker Oats. Also in November, Coca-Cola reached an agreement to settle the race-discrimination class-action lawsuit that had been brought against it. The company agreed to a $192.5 million settlement and also to have certain of its employment practices overseen by an outside task force. About 2,000 current and former African American employees were eligible for settlement awards.
Another of Daft's main objectives was pumping up an arid new product pipeline, but he garnered only mixed results. The company found moderate success with the 2001-debuting Diet Coke with Lemon, before making a much bigger splash with Vanilla Coke one year later. The latter received the firm's largest new product launch since the New Coke debacle. To supplement these meager advances--and particularly to try to capture a greater share of the noncarbonated beverage sector, which was growing at a much faster clip than the stagnant carbonated sector--Daft turned to partnerships as a potential source of renewed growth. In January 2001 an agreement was reached with Nestlé S.A. to form a joint venture called Beverage Partners Worldwide. Within a couple of years, this venture was marketing ready-to-drink tea (Nestea, Belté, Yang Guang, and several other brands) and coffee (Nescafé, Taster's Choice, and Georgia Club) products in the United States and about 45 other countries. Coca-Cola and the Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) agreed in March 2001 to create a $4 billion joint venture that would have joined Coke's Minute Maid brand and distribution network with P&G's snack and juice brands. However, Coca-Cola pulled out of the deal just a few months later, having decided to try to build the Minute Maid brand on its own. Then in July 2002 Coca-Cola and Groupe Danone formed a joint venture to produce, market, and distribute Danone's Dannon and Sparkletts bottled-water brands in the United States. In a separate deal, Coke took over the U.S. marketing, sales, and distribution of Danone's Evian water brand, the French firm's biggest seller.
In March 2003 the company slashed another 1,000 jobs from the payroll, half of them at headquarters. Also that year, Coca-Cola was the recipient of more negative publicity when it was revealed that several midlevel employees had rigged a marketing test for Frozen Coke done three years earlier at Burger King restaurants in the Richmond, Virginia, area. The scandal led to the departure of the head of Coke's fountain division, and the company issued an apology to Burger King and its franchisees and offered to pay them $21 million. An early 2004 launch of the Dasani brand into the European market was aborted when bottles in Britain were found to contain elevated levels of bromate, a substance that can cause cancer after long-term exposure.
This latest product recall came as Coca-Cola was in the midst of yet another change at the top. In February 2004 Daft announced his intention to retire following a search for a new chief executive. After considering a number of outside candidates, the company hired a semi-outsider, E. Neville Isdell, in June 2004. An Irish citizen who had grown up in Africa, Isdell was a former senior executive at Coke who had led the company's push into a number of new markets around the globe in the 1980s and 1990s. He left the company in 1998 to become chairman of Coca-Cola Beverages, a major Coke bottler, and then retired in 2001. The new leader was faced with many of the same challenges that his predecessor struggled with little success to overcome: improving marketing, forging better relations with the company's bottlers, and satisfying consumer demand for more healthful beverage products, particularly of the noncarbonated variety.
Principal Subsidiaries: The Minute Maid Company.
Principal Divisions:Foodservice and Hospitality; North & West Africa; Southern & East Africa; East & South Asia; China; India; Southeast & West Asia; Philippines; Japan; South Pacific & Korea; Central Europe, Eurasia & Middle East; Central Europe & Russia; Italy & Alpine; Southeast Europe & Gulf; Germany & Nordic; Northwest Europe; Iberian; Brazil; Latin Center; Mexico; South Latin.
Principal Competitors: PepsiCo, Inc.; Nestlé S.A.; Cadbury Schweppes plc; Groupe Danone; Kraft Foods Inc.
OVERALL
Beta: 0.60
Market Cap (Mil.): $155,426.09
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 2,295.13
Annual Dividend: 1.88
Yield (%): 2.78
FINANCIALS
KO.N Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): 13.10 13.47 20.77
EPS (TTM): 69.95 -- --
ROI: 27.81 6.72 8.14
ROE: 42.33 11.06 14.59
Statistics:
Public Company
Incorporated: 1892
Employees: 49,000
Sales: $21.04 billion (2003)
Stock Exchanges: New York Boston Chicago National (NSX) Pacific Philadelphia
Ticker Symbol: KO
NAIC: 312111 Soft Drink Manufacturing; 311930 Flavoring Syrup and Concentrate Manufacturing; 311411 Frozen Fruit, Juice, and Vegetable Manufacturing; 311920 Coffee and Tea Manufacturing; 312112 Bottled Water Manufacturing
Key Dates:
1886: Pharmacist Dr. John Styth Pemberton concocts Coca-Cola, a mixture of sugar, water, caffeine, and extracts of the coca leaf and the kola nut.
1891: Asa G. Candler, a druggist, gains complete control of Pemberton's enterprise.
1892: Candler incorporates The Coca-Cola Company.
1899: The first bottling franchise is established.
1905: Coca-Cola syrup is completely free of cocaine.
1916: The unique, contour-shaped Coke bottle is introduced.
1919: Ernest Woodruff and an investor group buy the company for $25 million; the company goes public at $40 per share.
1923: Robert Winship Woodruff becomes president of the firm.
1943: Coca-Cola plants are set up near fighting fronts in North Africa and Europe, helping boost American GI spirits and introduce Coke to the world market.
1960: The Minute Maid Corporation is acquired.
1961: Sprite makes its debut.
1981: Roberto Goizueta becomes chairman.
1982: Columbia Pictures is acquired for $750 million; Diet Coke is introduced to the market.
1985: Coca-Cola is reformulated; New Coke is rejected by consumers, and the company brings back the original formula, calling it Coca-Cola Classic.
1987: Company sells its entertainment business to Tri-Star Pictures.
1990: Sales surpass the $10 billion mark for the first time.
1997: Douglas Ivester succeeds Goizueta as chairman and CEO.
1999: Company acquires the rights to sell Schweppes, Canada Dry, Dr Pepper, and Crush brands in 157 countries, not including the United States, Canada, Mexico, and most of Europe.
2000: New CEO Douglas N. Daft launches major restructuring involving job cuts of 5,200.
2002: Company launches Vanilla Coke.
2004: E. Neville Isdell is named chairman and CEO.
Name Age Since Current Position
Kent, Muhtar 58 2009 Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Fayard, Gary 58 2003 Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Reyes, Jose 58 2002 President - Latin America Group
Douglas, J. Alexander 49 2007 President - North America Group
Jordan S., Glenn 54 2007 President - Pacific Group
Reiniche, Dominique 55 2008 President - Europe Group
Bozer, Ahmet 50 2008 President - Eurasia and Africa Group
Cahillane, Steven 45 2010 President and Chief Executive Officer of Coca-Cola Refreshments
Cummings, Alexander 54 2008 Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer
Tripodi, Joseph 55 2009 Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer and Commercial Officer
Finan, Irial 53 2004 Executive Vice President, President - Bottling Investments and Supply Chain
Wollaert, Guy 51 2011 Senior Vice President, Chief Technical Officer
Kelly, Geoffrey 66 2005 Senior Vice President, General Counsel
Anderson, Harry 48 2009 Senior Vice President - Global Business and Technology Services
Wilson, Jerry 56 2009 Senior Vice President, Chief Customer and Commercial Officer
Eberly, Ceree 48 2010 Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer
Tuggle, Clyde 48 2009 Senior Vice President - Global Public Affairs and Communications
Allen, Herbert 71 1982 Director
Keough, Donald 84 2004 Director
Robinson, James 75 2008 Presiding Independent Director
Ueberroth, Peter 73 1986 Independent Director
Allen, Ronald 69 1991 Independent Director
McHenry, Donald 74 1981 Independent Director
Nunn, Samuel 72 1997 Independent Director
Williams, James 77 1979 Independent Director
Diller, Barry 69 2002 Independent Director
Lagomasino, Maria 61 2008 Independent Director
Herman, Alexis 63 2007 Independent Director
Wallenberg, Jacob 55 2008 Independent Director
Buffett, Howard 56 2011 Independent Director
Greenberg, Evan 56 2011 Independent Director
Address:
One Coca-Cola Plaza
Atlanta, Georgia 30313-2420
U.S.A.
The company operates a franchised distribution system dating from 1889 where The Coca-Cola Company only produces syrup concentrate which is then sold to various bottlers throughout the world who hold an exclusive territory. The Coca-Cola Company owns its anchor bottler in North America, Coca-Cola Refreshments.
The Coca-Cola Company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Its stock is listed on the NYSE and is part of DJIA, S&P 500 Index, the Russell 1000 Index and the Russell 1000 Growth Stock Index. Its current chairman and CEO is Muhtar Kent.
The Coca-Cola Company, incorporated in September 1919, is a non-alcoholic beverage company. The Company owns or licenses and markets more than 500 non-alcoholic beverage brands, primarily sparkling beverages but also a variety of still beverages such as waters, enhanced waters, juices and juice drinks, ready-to-drink teas and coffees, and energy and sports drinks. It also owns and markets non-alcoholic sparkling beverage brands, including Diet Coke, Fanta and Sprite. It manufactures, markets and sells, beverage concentrates, referred to as beverage bases, and syrups, including fountain syrups (the concentrate business or concentrate operations), and finished sparkling and still beverages (finished products business or finished products operations).It operates in six segments: Eurasia and Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America, Pacific, Bottling Investments and Corporate. On October 2, 2010, it acquired the North American business of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. (CCE).
In the concentrate operations, the Company generates net operating revenues by selling concentrates and syrups to authorized bottling and canning operations. its bottling partners either combine the concentrates with sweeteners (depending on the product), still water and/or sparkling water or combine the syrups with sparkling water to produce finished beverages. The finished beverages are packaged in authorized containers bearing its trademarks or trademarks licensed to it, such as cans and refillable and nonrefillable glass and plastic bottles and are then sold to retailers directly or, in some cases, through wholesalers or other bottlers. Outside the United States it also sells concentrates for fountain beverages to its bottling partners who are authorized to manufacture fountain syrups, which they sell to fountain retailers such as restaurants and convenience stores which use the fountain syrups to produce beverages for immediate consumption, or to fountain wholesalers who in turn sell and distribute the fountain syrups to fountain retailers.
The finished products operations consist of the production, sales and distribution operations managed by CCR and the Company-owned or controlled bottling and distribution operations. CCR is included in the North America operating segment, and the Company’s Company-owned or controlled bottling and distribution operations are included in its Bottling Investments operating segment. Its finished products operations generate net operating revenues by selling sparkling beverages and a variety of still beverages, such as juices and juice drinks, energy and sports drinks, ready-to-drink teas and coffees, and certain water products, to retailers or to distributors, wholesalers and bottling partners who distribute them to retailers. In addition, in the United States, it manufactures fountain syrups and sell them to fountain retailers such as restaurants and convenience stores who use the fountain syrups to produce beverages for immediate consumption or to authorized fountain wholesalers or bottling partners who resell the fountain syrups to fountain retailers.
The Company’s beverage products include Coca-Cola or Coke (that is, Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero and all their variations and line extensions, including Coca-Cola Light, Coke Zero, caffeine free Diet Coke and Cherry Coke); Fanta, and all its variations and line extensions (such as Fanta Orange, Fanta Zero Orange and Fanta Apple); Sprite includes Sprite, Diet Sprite, Sprite Zero and Sprite Light, and Simply includes Simply Orange, Simply Apple and Simply Grapefruit. During the year ended December 31, 2010, the Company introduced a variety of new brands, brand extensions and new beverage products, including Minute Maid juice and juice drinks (including Minute Maid Nimbu Fresh); Maaza Milky Delite, and Dogadan ready-to-drink tea in Turkey. In the Latin America group it launched del Valle Pulpy, a juice drink with real orange pulp, in Mexico; and Blak, an on-premise liquid coffee concentrate sold to customers through a dispenser, also in Mexico. In the North America group, it introduced to consumers in the United States glaceau vitaminwater zero, an extension of glaceau vitaminwater products with zero calories per serving; and Sokenbicha, a line of brewed unsweetened teas blended with natural botanicals, in Japan. n the Europe group, new launches included Coca-Cola Zero Caffeine-Free in France, the caffeine-free variant of the Coca-Cola Zero brand sold in Europe; and Bonaqua Lemon Lime in the Czech Republic. In the Pacific group, in China it launched Minute Maid 10 Score V, a juice drink fortified with vitamins, and, through BPW, launched Yuan Ye, a new jasmine flavor variant of its ready-to-drink tea beverage, and it extended the footprint of Minute Maid Pulpy, a juice drink with real bits of fruit pulp, with launches in Singapore and Malaysia.
Nestea products are distributed in the United States under a sublicense from a subsidiary of Nestle S.A., and in various other markets worldwide through Beverage Partners Worldwide (BPW), the Company's joint venture with Nestle S.A. In some markets, certain Nestea products are sparkling beverages. Dobriy juice products are manufactured, marketed and sold primarily in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus by Multon, a Russian juice business operated as a joint venture with Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company S.A. Certain products sold under this brand are sparkling beverages. The Company manufactures, markets and sells juices and juice drinks under the del Valle trademark through joint ventures with its bottling partners in Mexico and Brazil. The Schweppes brand is owned by the Company in some countries (excluding the United States, among others). In some markets, certain Schweppes products are still beverages.
The Company competes with PepsiCo, Inc., Nestle, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc., Groupe Danone, Kraft Foods Inc. and Unilever.
The years from the end of World War II to the early 1980s were years of extensive and rapid change. Although Woodruff stepped down officially in 1955, he still exerted a great amount of influence on the company over the coming years. There were a series of chairmen and presidents to follow before the next major figure, J. Paul Austin, took the helm in 1970; he was followed by Roberto Goizueta in 1981. In 1956, after 50 years with the D'Arcy Advertising Agency, the Coca-Cola Company turned its accounts over to McCann-Erickson and began enormous promotional campaigns. The decade of the 1950s was a time of the greatest European expansion for the company. During this decade Coca-Cola opened approximately 15 to 20 plants a year throughout the world.
The company also began to diversify extensively, beginning in 1960, when the Minute Maid Corporation, maker of fruit juices and Hi-C fruit drinks, was acquired by Coca-Cola. Four years later the Duncan Foods Corporation also merged with the company. In 1969 Coca-Cola acquired the Belmont Springs Water Company, Inc., which produced natural spring water and processed water for commercial and home use. The following year the company purchased Aqua-Chem, Inc., producers of desalting machines and other such equipment, and in 1977 Coca-Cola acquired the Taylor Wines Company and other wineries. These last two companies were sold later under Goizueta's leadership.
In addition to its diversification program, the Coca-Cola Company also expanded its product line. Fanta became available in the United States during 1960 and was followed by the introduction of Sprite (1961), TAB (1963), and Fresca (1966), along with diet versions of these drinks. One reason that Coca-Cola began to introduce new beverages during the 1960s was competition from Pepsi Cola, sold by PepsiCo, Inc. Pepsi's success also motivated the Coca-Cola Company to promote its beverage with the slogan "It's the Real Thing," a subtle, comparative form of advertising that the company had never before employed.
Things did not always run smoothly for Coca-Cola. When Coke was first introduced to France, the Communist party, as well as conservative vineyard owners, did what they could to get the product removed from the country. They were unsuccessful. Swiss breweries also felt threatened, and spread rumors about the caffeine content of the drink. More consequential was the Arab boycott in 1967 which significantly hindered the company's relations with Israel. In 1970 the company was involved in a scandal in the United States when an NBC documentary reported on the bad housing and working conditions of Minute Maid farm laborers in Florida. In response, the company established a program that improved the workers' situation. In 1977 it was discovered that Coca-Cola, for various reasons, had made $1.3 million in illegal payments over a period of six years, mostly to executives and government officials in foreign countries.
During the 1970s, under the direction of Chairman J. Paul Austin and President J. Lucian Smith, Coca-Cola was introduced in Russia as well as in China. To enter the Chinese market, the company sponsored five scholarships for Chinese students at the Harvard Business School, and supported China's soccer and table-tennis teams. The beverage also became available in Egypt in 1979, after an absence there of 12 years. Austin strongly believed in free trade and opposed boycotts. He felt that business, in terms of international relations, should be used to improve national economies, and could be a strong deterrent to war. Under Austin, Coca-Cola also started technological and educational programs in the Third World countries in which it conducted business, introducing clean water technology and sponsoring sports programs in countries too poor to provide these benefits for themselves.
Austin's emphasis was on foreign expansion. Furthermore, under Austin's management the company became more specialized. Where Woodruff was aware of all facets of the company, Austin would delegate authority to various departments. For instance, he would give general approval to an advertising scheme, but would not review it personally. Smith was responsible for the everyday operations of the company, and Austin would, among other things, set policies, negotiate with foreign countries, and direct the company's relations with the U.S. government.
1981-97: The Goizueta Era
Roberto Goizueta became chairman in 1981, replacing Austin. The Cuban immigrant immediately shook up what had become a risk-averse, tradition-obsessed, barely profitable company. Less than a year after becoming chairman, he made two controversial decisions. First, he acquired Columbia Pictures for about $750 million in 1982. Goizueta thought that the entertainment field had good growth prospects, and that it would benefit from Coca-Cola's expertise in market research. Secondly, without much consumer research, Goizueta introduced Diet Coke to the public, risking the well-guarded trademark that until then had stood only for the original formula. Something had to be done about the sluggish domestic sales of Coca-Cola and the intense competition presented by Pepsi. In 1950, Coke had outsold Pepsi by more than five to one, but by 1984 Pepsi had a 22.8 percent share of the market while Coke had a 21.6 percent share. Goizueta's second 1982 gamble paid off handsomely when Diet Coke went on to become the most successful consumer product launch of the 1980s, and eventually the number three soft drink in the entire world.
In 1985 Goizueta took another chance. Based on information gathered from blind taste tests, Goizueta decided to reformulate the 99-year-old drink in the hope of combating Pepsi's growing popularity. The change to New Coke was not enthusiastically greeted by the U.S. public. Apparently Goizueta did not take into account the public's emotional attachment to the name "Coca-Cola" and all that it stood for: stability, memories, and the idea of a "golden America." Within less than a year the company brought back the "old" Coke, calling it Coca-Cola Classic. New Coke was universally considered the biggest consumer product blunder of the 1980s, but it was also viewed in a longer term perspective as a positive thing, because of the massive amount of free publicity that the Coke brand received from the debacle.
In September 1987, Coca-Cola agreed to sell its entertainment business to TriStar Pictures, 30 percent of which was owned by Coca-Cola. In return, Coca-Cola's interest in TriStar was increased to 80 percent. Coca-Cola's holding in TriStar was gradually distributed as a special dividend to Coca-Cola shareholders until the company's interest was reduced to a minority, when TriStar changed its name to Columbia Pictures Entertainment and sought its own listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Although the company's flirtation with entertainment appeared to be ill-advised, Coca-Cola ended up with $1 billion in profits from its short-term venture.
In a 1984 article in the New York Times, Goizueta stated that he saw Coca-Cola's challenge as "continuing the growth in profits of highly successful main businesses, and [those] it may choose to enter, at a rate substantially in excess of inflation, in order to give shareholders an above average total return on their investment." Goizueta projected that by 1990 his new strategy would nearly double the company's net income to $1 billion. His prediction came true in 1988. Two years later revenues surpassed the $10 billion mark.
In the mid-1980s, Coca-Cola reentered the bottling business, which had long been dominated by family-operated independents. Coca-Cola began repurchasing interests in bottlers worldwide with a view toward providing those bottlers with financial and managerial strength, improving operating efficiencies, and promoting expansion into emerging international markets. The trend started domestically, when the parent company formed Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. through the acquisition and consolidation of two large bottlers in the South and West in 1986. The parent company acquired more than 30 bottlers worldwide from 1983 to 1993. By then, the market value of the company's publicly traded bottlers exceeded the company's book value by $1.5 billion.
Called "one of the world's most sophisticated and powerful marketing organizations," the company's schemes for the 1990s included the 1993 global launch of the "Always Coca-Cola" advertising theme. The new campaign was formulated by Creative Artists Agency, which took over much of the brand's business in 1992 from longtime agency McCann-Erickson Worldwide. In addition to the new campaign, a 32-page catalog of about 400 licensed garments, toys, and gift items featuring Coke slogans or advertising themes was released. The 1994 introduction of a PET plastic bottle in the brand's distinctive, contour shape resulted from corporate marketing research indicating that an overwhelming 84 percent of consumers would choose the trademarked bottle over a generic straight-walled bottle. But the company's primary challenge for the last decade of the 20th century came in the diet segment, where top-ranking Diet Coke was losing share to ready-to-drink teas, bottled waters, and other "New Age" beverages, which were perceived as healthier and more natural than traditional soft drinks. Coca-Cola fought back by introducing its own new alternative drinks, including POWERade (1990), the company's first sports drink, and the Fruitopia line (1994). In 1992 the company and Nestlé S.A. of Switzerland formed a 50-50 joint venture, Coca-Cola Nestlé, Refreshment Company, to produce ready-to-drink tea and coffee beverages under the Nestea and Nescafé, brand names. Also during this time, Coca-Cola purchased Barq's, a maker of root beer and other soft drinks.
Goizueta died of lung cancer in October 1997, having revitalized and awakened what had been a sleeping giant. Goizueta had turned the company into one of the most admired companies in the world, racking up an impressive list of accomplishments during his 16-year tenure. Coca-Cola's share of the global soft drink market was approaching 50 percent, while in the United States Coke had increased its share to 42 percent, overtaking and far surpassing Pepsi's 31 percent. Revenues increased from $4.8 billion in 1981 to $18.55 billion in 1996; net income grew from $500 million to $3.49 billion over the same period. Perhaps Goizueta's most important--and influential--contribution to the storied history of Coca-Cola was his relentless focus on the company's shareholders. The numbers clearly showed that he delivered for his company's owners: return on equity increased from 20 percent to 60 percent, while the market value of the Coca-Cola Company made a tremendous increase, from $4.3 billion to $147 billion. Perhaps most telling, a $1,000 investment in Coca-Cola in 1981 was worth, assuming that dividends were reinvested, $62,000 by the time of Goizueta's death.
Challenging and Stormy Times in the Late 1990s
Goizueta's right-hand man, Douglas Ivester, was given the unenviable task of succeeding perhaps the most admired chief executive in the United States; Ivester's reign turned out to be both brief and stormy. Although Coca-Cola remained steadily profitable, it was beset by one problem after another in the late 1990s. Having restructured its worldwide bottling operations under Goizueta, the firm moved into a new phase of growth based on the acquisition of other companies' brands. Its already dominant market share and a sometimes arrogant and aggressive approach to acquisition led some countries, particularly in Europe, to take a hard line toward the company. In late 1997, for example, Coca-Cola announced it would acquire the Orangina brand in France from Paris-based Pernod Ricard for about $890 million. French authorities, who had fined Coca-Cola for anticompetitive practices earlier that year, blocked the purchase. In December 1998 Coca-Cola announced that it would purchase several soft drink brands--including Schweppes, Dr Pepper, Canada Dry, and Crush--outside the United States, France, and South Africa from Cadbury Schweppes plc for $1.85 billion. After encountering regulatory resistance in Europe, Australia, Mexico, and Canada, the two companies in July 1999 received regulatory approval for a new scaled-down deal valued at about $700 million, which included 155 countries but not the United States, Norway, Switzerland, and the member states of the European Union with the exception of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Greece. Later in 1999 separate agreements were reached that gave Coca-Cola the Schweppes brands in South Africa and New Zealand.
With nearly two-thirds of sales originating outside North America, Coca-Cola was hit particularly hard by the global economic crisis of the late 1990s, which moved from Asia to Russia to Latin America. In Russia, where the company had invested $750 million from 1991 through the end of the decade, sales fell about 60 percent from August 1998, when the value of the ruble crashed, to September 1999. Rather than retreating from the world stage, however, Ivester viewed the downturn as an opportunity to make additional foreign investments at bargain prices, essentially sacrificing the short term for potentially huge long-term gains. While the economic crisis was still wreaking havoc, Coca-Cola was faced with another crisis in June 1998 when several dozen Belgian schoolchildren became ill after drinking Coke that had been made with contaminated carbon dioxide. Soon, 14 million cases of Coca-Cola products were recalled in five European countries in the largest recall in company history, and France and Belgium placed a temporary ban on the company's products. The crisis, though short-lived, was a public relations disaster because company officials appeared to wait too long to take the situation seriously, admit that there had been a manufacturing error, and apologize to its customers. Meanwhile, around this same time, four current and former employees had filed a racial discrimination suit against the firm in the United States, a suit that was later granted class-action status.
Despite the seemingly endless string of challenges the company faced in the late 1990s, Coca-Cola was also moving forward with new initiatives. In February 1999 the company announced plans to launch its first bottled water brand in North America. Dasani was described as a "purified, non-carbonated water enhanced with minerals." In October 1999 the company announced that it would redesign the look of its Coca-Cola Classic brand in 2000 in an attempt to revitalize the flagship's stagnant sales. Labels would continue to feature the iconic contour bottle but with a cap popped off and soda fizzing out. In addition, the Coke Classic slogan "Always," which had been used since 1993, would be replaced with the tag line "Enjoy," which had been used on Coke bottles periodically for decades. The company also planned to increase the appearances of the eight-ounce contour bottle, in a particularly nostalgic move.
The renewed emphasis on this classic brand icon and the resurrection of the "Enjoy" slogan seemed to be a fitting way for a U.S.--if not global--institution to launch itself into the new millennium. But the company ended 1999 with the surprising news that the beleaguered Ivester would retire in early 2000 after just two and a half years at the helm--a tenure marked perhaps most tellingly by seven straight quarters of earnings declines. Taking over was Douglas N. Daft, a native Australian and 30-year Coke veteran who had headed the company's operating group covering the Middle and Far East and Africa; he was named president and chief operating officer in December 1999 before becoming chairman and CEO the following February.
Continuing Struggles in the Early 2000s
Daft's first year was a hectic one. In January 2000 the company announced a drastic restructuring based on a plan drafted by a Daft-led team. Coca-Cola said it would lay off about 6,000 employees, representing a slashing of the workforce by 20 percent--the largest cutbacks in Coke history. The cuts were later scaled back to about 5,200, but the company still took about $1.6 billion in one-time charges for a plan that aimed to save $300 million in operating costs per year. The restructuring, which centered on marketing, sales, and customer support jobs, was envisioned as a slashing of bureaucracy in an attempt to create a more decentralized company, one in which ideas could more readily bubble up from managers in the field rather than those at the Atlanta headquarters. In November 2000 Daft engineered a tentative deal to take over the Quaker Oats Company for $15.75 billion. This would have added to the Coke portfolio the Gatorade brand, which dominated the sports drink sector, a perennial Coke weakness, and would also have complemented the company's strategy of strengthening its lineup of noncarbonated beverages. But at the last minute, Coca-Cola's board pulled the plug on the deal, mainly concerned that the price was too high. The company's arch-rival PepsiCo quickly swooped in to complete a $13.4 billion acquisition of Quaker Oats. Also in November, Coca-Cola reached an agreement to settle the race-discrimination class-action lawsuit that had been brought against it. The company agreed to a $192.5 million settlement and also to have certain of its employment practices overseen by an outside task force. About 2,000 current and former African American employees were eligible for settlement awards.
Another of Daft's main objectives was pumping up an arid new product pipeline, but he garnered only mixed results. The company found moderate success with the 2001-debuting Diet Coke with Lemon, before making a much bigger splash with Vanilla Coke one year later. The latter received the firm's largest new product launch since the New Coke debacle. To supplement these meager advances--and particularly to try to capture a greater share of the noncarbonated beverage sector, which was growing at a much faster clip than the stagnant carbonated sector--Daft turned to partnerships as a potential source of renewed growth. In January 2001 an agreement was reached with Nestlé S.A. to form a joint venture called Beverage Partners Worldwide. Within a couple of years, this venture was marketing ready-to-drink tea (Nestea, Belté, Yang Guang, and several other brands) and coffee (Nescafé, Taster's Choice, and Georgia Club) products in the United States and about 45 other countries. Coca-Cola and the Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) agreed in March 2001 to create a $4 billion joint venture that would have joined Coke's Minute Maid brand and distribution network with P&G's snack and juice brands. However, Coca-Cola pulled out of the deal just a few months later, having decided to try to build the Minute Maid brand on its own. Then in July 2002 Coca-Cola and Groupe Danone formed a joint venture to produce, market, and distribute Danone's Dannon and Sparkletts bottled-water brands in the United States. In a separate deal, Coke took over the U.S. marketing, sales, and distribution of Danone's Evian water brand, the French firm's biggest seller.
In March 2003 the company slashed another 1,000 jobs from the payroll, half of them at headquarters. Also that year, Coca-Cola was the recipient of more negative publicity when it was revealed that several midlevel employees had rigged a marketing test for Frozen Coke done three years earlier at Burger King restaurants in the Richmond, Virginia, area. The scandal led to the departure of the head of Coke's fountain division, and the company issued an apology to Burger King and its franchisees and offered to pay them $21 million. An early 2004 launch of the Dasani brand into the European market was aborted when bottles in Britain were found to contain elevated levels of bromate, a substance that can cause cancer after long-term exposure.
This latest product recall came as Coca-Cola was in the midst of yet another change at the top. In February 2004 Daft announced his intention to retire following a search for a new chief executive. After considering a number of outside candidates, the company hired a semi-outsider, E. Neville Isdell, in June 2004. An Irish citizen who had grown up in Africa, Isdell was a former senior executive at Coke who had led the company's push into a number of new markets around the globe in the 1980s and 1990s. He left the company in 1998 to become chairman of Coca-Cola Beverages, a major Coke bottler, and then retired in 2001. The new leader was faced with many of the same challenges that his predecessor struggled with little success to overcome: improving marketing, forging better relations with the company's bottlers, and satisfying consumer demand for more healthful beverage products, particularly of the noncarbonated variety.
Principal Subsidiaries: The Minute Maid Company.
Principal Divisions:Foodservice and Hospitality; North & West Africa; Southern & East Africa; East & South Asia; China; India; Southeast & West Asia; Philippines; Japan; South Pacific & Korea; Central Europe, Eurasia & Middle East; Central Europe & Russia; Italy & Alpine; Southeast Europe & Gulf; Germany & Nordic; Northwest Europe; Iberian; Brazil; Latin Center; Mexico; South Latin.
Principal Competitors: PepsiCo, Inc.; Nestlé S.A.; Cadbury Schweppes plc; Groupe Danone; Kraft Foods Inc.
OVERALL
Beta: 0.60
Market Cap (Mil.): $155,426.09
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 2,295.13
Annual Dividend: 1.88
Yield (%): 2.78
FINANCIALS
KO.N Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): 13.10 13.47 20.77
EPS (TTM): 69.95 -- --
ROI: 27.81 6.72 8.14
ROE: 42.33 11.06 14.59
Statistics:
Public Company
Incorporated: 1892
Employees: 49,000
Sales: $21.04 billion (2003)
Stock Exchanges: New York Boston Chicago National (NSX) Pacific Philadelphia
Ticker Symbol: KO
NAIC: 312111 Soft Drink Manufacturing; 311930 Flavoring Syrup and Concentrate Manufacturing; 311411 Frozen Fruit, Juice, and Vegetable Manufacturing; 311920 Coffee and Tea Manufacturing; 312112 Bottled Water Manufacturing
Key Dates:
1886: Pharmacist Dr. John Styth Pemberton concocts Coca-Cola, a mixture of sugar, water, caffeine, and extracts of the coca leaf and the kola nut.
1891: Asa G. Candler, a druggist, gains complete control of Pemberton's enterprise.
1892: Candler incorporates The Coca-Cola Company.
1899: The first bottling franchise is established.
1905: Coca-Cola syrup is completely free of cocaine.
1916: The unique, contour-shaped Coke bottle is introduced.
1919: Ernest Woodruff and an investor group buy the company for $25 million; the company goes public at $40 per share.
1923: Robert Winship Woodruff becomes president of the firm.
1943: Coca-Cola plants are set up near fighting fronts in North Africa and Europe, helping boost American GI spirits and introduce Coke to the world market.
1960: The Minute Maid Corporation is acquired.
1961: Sprite makes its debut.
1981: Roberto Goizueta becomes chairman.
1982: Columbia Pictures is acquired for $750 million; Diet Coke is introduced to the market.
1985: Coca-Cola is reformulated; New Coke is rejected by consumers, and the company brings back the original formula, calling it Coca-Cola Classic.
1987: Company sells its entertainment business to Tri-Star Pictures.
1990: Sales surpass the $10 billion mark for the first time.
1997: Douglas Ivester succeeds Goizueta as chairman and CEO.
1999: Company acquires the rights to sell Schweppes, Canada Dry, Dr Pepper, and Crush brands in 157 countries, not including the United States, Canada, Mexico, and most of Europe.
2000: New CEO Douglas N. Daft launches major restructuring involving job cuts of 5,200.
2002: Company launches Vanilla Coke.
2004: E. Neville Isdell is named chairman and CEO.
Name Age Since Current Position
Kent, Muhtar 58 2009 Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Fayard, Gary 58 2003 Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Reyes, Jose 58 2002 President - Latin America Group
Douglas, J. Alexander 49 2007 President - North America Group
Jordan S., Glenn 54 2007 President - Pacific Group
Reiniche, Dominique 55 2008 President - Europe Group
Bozer, Ahmet 50 2008 President - Eurasia and Africa Group
Cahillane, Steven 45 2010 President and Chief Executive Officer of Coca-Cola Refreshments
Cummings, Alexander 54 2008 Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer
Tripodi, Joseph 55 2009 Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer and Commercial Officer
Finan, Irial 53 2004 Executive Vice President, President - Bottling Investments and Supply Chain
Wollaert, Guy 51 2011 Senior Vice President, Chief Technical Officer
Kelly, Geoffrey 66 2005 Senior Vice President, General Counsel
Anderson, Harry 48 2009 Senior Vice President - Global Business and Technology Services
Wilson, Jerry 56 2009 Senior Vice President, Chief Customer and Commercial Officer
Eberly, Ceree 48 2010 Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer
Tuggle, Clyde 48 2009 Senior Vice President - Global Public Affairs and Communications
Allen, Herbert 71 1982 Director
Keough, Donald 84 2004 Director
Robinson, James 75 2008 Presiding Independent Director
Ueberroth, Peter 73 1986 Independent Director
Allen, Ronald 69 1991 Independent Director
McHenry, Donald 74 1981 Independent Director
Nunn, Samuel 72 1997 Independent Director
Williams, James 77 1979 Independent Director
Diller, Barry 69 2002 Independent Director
Lagomasino, Maria 61 2008 Independent Director
Herman, Alexis 63 2007 Independent Director
Wallenberg, Jacob 55 2008 Independent Director
Buffett, Howard 56 2011 Independent Director
Greenberg, Evan 56 2011 Independent Director
Address:
One Coca-Cola Plaza
Atlanta, Georgia 30313-2420
U.S.A.