Friday, October 18, 2019

Atlanta, Georgia-Based Coca-Cola's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase Was a Modest 2.0% Per Year During the Past Five Years. What a Breath of Fresh Air to See a Large US Corp and Its Board of Directors Which Don't Practice Grade Inflation in Their Evaluation of Top-Tier Executives.

The fourth Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate debate was held on October 15, 2019 at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, a Columbus suburb.  It was good to see a significant improvement in the quality and relevance of the questions asked by the hosts, particularly the major focus on the key economic issues.  Nearly all of the 12 candidates performed well but two of them stuck out as exceptional ..... Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar ..... who both substantially stepped up their insightful assertiveness.  

Amy gave the single most relevant phrase when she asserted that so much of what Elizabeth Warren is proposing are "Pipe Dreams" and have no chance of getting enacted.  Independents and even reasonable Republicans, who will be deciding the 2020 Presidential general election, have zero interest in these fiscally irresponsible "Pipe Dreams".  This is not going to unify the country, which is what the country is desperately seeking in the next President.

The fifth Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate debate will be held on November 20, 2019 in the Atlanta, Georgia area.  Let's hope MSNBC does a much better job this time.  Last time it couldn't control the candidates and also it pretty much ignored the key economic issues.

So far in my research of large US Corps I have shown that their Top-Tier Executives have been rewarded continually with just enormous annual increases in pay and employee benefits, mostly stock equity compensation, to the extent that the key issue to US citizens should be the huge and continuing Income Inequality Expansion which is at the core of many critical problems the US faces.

While increasing the US federal minimum wage will help here, there is a much broader and critical problem that needs to be solved.  The annual percentage increase in the pay and employee benefits of Company non-executive employees are minuscule in relation to that of Company executive employees and this has been going on for decades.  When Corporate CEOs and CFOs primarily view non-executive employees as Costs rather than as People, this is what happens.  And neither political party has had the courage to take on US Corps here.

So I now will be doing research and making posts on the annual pay and employee benefits percentage increases that the Top-Tier Executives of large Georgia Companies were rewarded with in the past five years.  

The first Georgia Company I am addressing here is Coca-Cola.

From annual compensation information contained in Company Proxy Statement filings with the US SEC, the chart below shows Coca-Cola's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of the two consecutive full years of employment for the past five years.
  
Coca-Cola's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase was a modest 2.0% per year during the past five years.


FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE FYE
Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec Dec
Coca-Cola 2018 2017 2017 2016 2016 2015 2015 2014 2014 2013
Top-Tier Total Total Total Total Total Total Total Total Total Total
Executive Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp Comp
$ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s $ 000s
Quincey CEO     16,701     10,582     10,582       8,704       8,704       6,847  N/A   N/A 
Waller CFO       5,947       6,444       6,444       7,019       7,019       5,732       5,732       3,879  N/A   N/A 
Kent Chairman       9,849     14,792     14,792     17,552     17,552     14,591     14,591     25,224     25,224     20,381
Smith President Europe, Middle East& Africa       4,995       4,382  N/A   N/A 
de Quinto Former Chief Marketing Officer       6,588       7,635  N/A   N/A     
Douglas President North America       4,774       5,833       5,833       7,470       7,470       8,027  N/A   N/A 
Finan President Bottling Investments Group       6,019       6,779       6,779       9,195       9,195       8,237  N/A   N/A 
Fayard Former CFO  N/A   N/A 
Bozer President Coca-Cola International       9,072       6,372
Totals     37,492     36,200     49,199     53,522     45,887     43,835     36,988     45,367     34,296     26,753
Annual % Change 3.6% -8.1% 4.7% -18.5% 28.2%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change 2.0%