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KO, Coca-Cola Co.

Beverages consumer brand

Coca-Cola sells branded nonalcoholic beverages — soft drinks, waters, juices and the like — to people the world over. It makes most of its money not by bottling the drinks itself but by selling concentrates and syrups to bottling partners, who add the water, package the product, and get it to the stores and outlets where people buy it; the rest comes from finished-product operations it runs directly.

We own or license and market numerous beverage brands, which we group into the following categories: Trademark Coca-Cola; sparkling flavors; water, sports, coffee and tea; juice, value-added dairy and plant-based beverages; and emerging beverages.

We own and market several of the world's largest nonalcoholic sparkling soft drink brands, including Coca-Cola, Sprite, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta and Diet Coke/Coca-Cola Light.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

KO · Coca-Cola Co.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$47.9B

+1.9% YoY · 8% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $49.3B 5-yr avg $44.5B

Gross margin 62% 5-yr avg 60%

Operating margin 29.3% 5-yr avg 25.3%

ROIC 18% 5-yr avg 16%

Owner-earnings margin 28% 5-yr avg 20%

Free cash flow margin 25% 5-yr avg 19%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is Concentrate operations (59%) and Finished product operations (41%).
What moves the needle: The test is whether the brands command a price the drinker will pay without flinching, or whether they are one cola among many moved on promotion and shelf space — the filing itself stresses how hard the industry competes and how much goes to placement and slotting to hold share. The concentrate model is the thing to weigh: sell the syrup and let the bottlers own the trucks and the plants, and the question is whether that keeps the capital required light and the returns high — so watch the margins and the return on capital, and watch the relationships with bottlers and large retailers on which the whole arrangement leans. Inputs depend on a limited set of suppliers, and the company carries debt rather than cash. The record below has the figures.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run in the teens (median 16%, above 15% in 6 of 10 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 21% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.

Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 2 lines, the largest Concentrate operations at 59%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Concentrate operations59%$28.5B
Finished product operations41%$19.5B

By geographyInternational60%United States40%

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMApr 2026
											Income statement
$41.9B	$36.2B	$34.3B	$37.3B	$33.0B	$38.7B	$43.0B	$45.8B	$47.1B	$47.9B	$49.3B	RevenueRevenue
61%	62%	62%	61%	59%	60%	58%	60%	61%	62%	62%	Gross marginGross mgn
37%	35%	32%	32%	29%	31%	30%	31%	31%	30%	30%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$8.7B	$7.8B	$9.2B	$10.1B	$9.0B	$10.3B	$10.9B	$11.3B	$10.0B	$13.8B	$14.5B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
20.7%	21.4%	26.7%	27.1%	27.3%	26.7%	25.4%	24.7%	21.2%	28.7%	29.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$6.5B	$1.2B	$6.4B	$8.9B	$7.7B	$9.8B	$9.5B	$10.7B	$10.6B	$13.1B	$13.7B	Net incomeNet inc.
20%	—	21%	17%	20%	21%	18%	17%	19%	18%	17%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$8.8B	$7.0B	$7.6B	$10.5B	$9.8B	$12.6B	$11.0B	$11.6B	$6.8B	$7.4B	$14.6B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1.8B	$1.3B	$1.1B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.3B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.0B	DepreciationDeprec.
$220M	$4.3B	($118M)	($15M)	$435M	$1.1B	($140M)	($497M)	($5.2B)	($7.0B)	($389M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$2.3B	$1.8B	$1.5B	$2.1B	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.9B	$2.1B	$2.1B	$2.1B	CapexCapex
5.4%	4.8%	4.5%	5.5%	3.6%	3.5%	3.5%	4.0%	4.4%	4.4%	4.2%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$7.0B	$5.8B	$6.5B	$9.1B	$8.7B	$11.3B	$9.5B	$10.5B	$5.7B	$6.4B	$13.6B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
16.7%	16.0%	19.1%	24.4%	26.3%	29.1%	22.2%	22.9%	12.2%	13.3%	27.6%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$6.5B	$5.3B	$6.1B	$8.4B	$8.7B	$11.3B	$9.5B	$9.7B	$4.7B	$5.3B	$12.6B	Free cash flowFCF
15.6%	14.6%	17.7%	22.6%	26.3%	29.1%	22.2%	21.3%	10.1%	11.0%	25.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$6.0B	$6.3B	$6.6B	$6.8B	$7.0B	$7.3B	$7.6B	$8.0B	$8.4B	$8.8B	$8.8B	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$3.7B	$3.7B	$1.9B	$1.1B	$118M	$111M	$1.4B	$2.3B	$1.8B	$746M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
15%	9%	19%	19%	13%	15%	17%	17%	14%	17%	18%	ROICROIC
28%	7%	38%	47%	40%	42%	40%	41%	43%	41%	41%	Return on equityROE
2%	−30%	−1%	11%	4%	11%	8%	11%	9%	13%	15%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$12.6B	$11.4B	$14.1B	$9.7B	$9.1B	$10.9B	$10.6B	$12.4B	$12.8B	$13.9B	$11.1B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$3.9B	$3.7B	$3.7B	$4.0B	$3.1B	$3.5B	$3.5B	$3.4B	$3.6B	$3.0B	$3.7B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$2.7B	$2.7B	$3.1B	$3.4B	$3.3B	$3.4B	$4.2B	$4.4B	$4.7B	$4.4B	$4.7B	InventoryInvent.
$2.7B	$2.3B	$2.7B	$3.8B	$3.5B	$4.6B	$5.3B	$5.6B	$5.5B	$5.6B	$14.4B	Accounts payablePayables
$3.8B	$4.0B	$4.0B	$3.5B	$2.9B	$2.3B	$2.4B	$2.2B	$2.8B	$1.8B	($6.0B)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$34.0B	$36.5B	$24.9B	$20.4B	$19.2B	$22.5B	$22.6B	$26.7B	$26.0B	$31.0B	$30.4B	Current assetsCur. assets
$26.5B	$27.2B	$28.8B	$27.0B	$14.6B	$19.9B	$19.7B	$23.6B	$25.2B	$21.3B	$22.4B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.3×	1.3×	0.9×	0.8×	1.3×	1.1×	1.1×	1.1×	1.0×	1.5×	1.4×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$10.6B	$13.6B	$14.1B	$16.8B	$17.5B	$19.4B	$18.8B	$18.4B	$18.1B	$15.5B	$15.4B	GoodwillGoodwill
$87.3B	$87.9B	$83.2B	$86.4B	$87.3B	$94.4B	$92.8B	$97.7B	$100.5B	$104.8B	$104.2B	Total assetsAssets
$33.2B	$34.5B	$30.4B	$31.8B	$40.6B	$39.5B	$36.8B	$37.5B	$43.0B	$43.9B	$43.6B	Total debtDebt
$20.6B	$23.1B	$16.3B	$22.1B	$31.5B	$28.5B	$26.2B	$25.1B	$30.2B	$30.1B	$32.5B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
11.8×	9.1×	9.6×	10.7×	6.3×	6.5×	12.4×	7.4×	6.0×	8.3×	8.8×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$23.1B	$17.1B	$17.0B	$19.0B	$19.3B	$23.0B	$24.1B	$25.9B	$24.9B	$32.2B	$33.6B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.6%	0.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.4%	0.9%	0.8%	0.6%	0.6%	0.6%	0.6%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
$10M	$375M	$138M	—	$14M	$7M	—	—	$6M	—	$6M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
4.37B	4.32B	4.30B	4.31B	4.32B	4.34B	4.35B	4.34B	4.32B	4.31B	4.31B	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$9.59	$8.37	$7.98	$8.64	$7.64	$8.91	$9.89	$10.54	$10.89	$11.12	$11.42	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.49	$0.29	$1.50	$2.07	$1.79	$2.25	$2.19	$2.47	$2.46	$3.04	$3.18	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.60	$1.34	$1.52	$2.11	$2.00	$2.59	$2.19	$2.41	$1.33	$1.47	$3.15	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.50	$1.22	$1.41	$1.95	$2.00	$2.59	$2.19	$2.25	$1.10	$1.23	$2.91	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.38	$1.46	$1.55	$1.59	$1.63	$1.67	$1.75	$1.83	$1.93	$2.04	$2.04	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.52	$0.40	$0.36	$0.48	$0.27	$0.31	$0.34	$0.43	$0.48	$0.49	$0.48	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$5.28	$3.95	$3.95	$4.40	$4.46	$5.30	$5.54	$5.98	$5.75	$7.46	$7.80	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+1.7%/yr	+7.8%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−0.9%/yr	−6.0%/yr
EPS	+8.2%/yr	+11.1%/yr
Dividends / share	+4.4%/yr	+4.5%/yr
Capital spending / share	−0.6%/yr	+12.5%/yr
Book value / share	+3.9%/yr	+10.8%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

4.3Bpeak FY2016

ROIC

17%low FY2017

Gross margin

62%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

4.7×peak FY2024

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$6.4Bowner earningsvs.$13.1Bnet incomelow FY2024

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business earned $6.4B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $1.1B it takes just to hold its position. It put $1.1B more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $5.3B.

Reported net income$13.1B

Owner earnings$6.4B · 13% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$13.1B	$10.6B	$10.7B	$9.5B	$9.8B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1.1B	+$1.1B	+$1.1B	+$1.3B	+$1.5B
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$279M	+$286M	+$254M	+$356M	+$337M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$7.0B	−$5.2B	−$497M	−$140M	+$1.1B
Cash from operations	$7.4B	$6.8B	$11.6B	$11.0B	$12.6B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$1.1B	−$1.1B	−$1.1B	−$1.5B	−$1.4B
Owner earnings	$6.4B	$5.7B	$10.5B	$9.5B	$11.3B
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$1.1B	−$989M	−$724M	—	—
Free cash flow	$5.3B	$4.7B	$9.7B	$9.5B	$11.3B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	13%	12%	23%	22%	29%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $1.1B, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $1.1B of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $279M), owner earnings is nearer $6.1B.

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 8.3×

Comfortable

Operating income $13.8B ÷ interest expense $1.7B

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $30.1B · 2.2× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $10.3B + ST investments $3.6B − debt $43.9B

What this means
Netting $13.9B of cash and short-term investments against $43.9B of debt leaves $30.1B owed, about 2.2× a year's operating profit (3.2× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? -1d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 23 + DIO 88 − DPO 112 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 15%

High through the cycle

10-yr median, range 9%–19%; 17% latest = NOPAT $11.3B ÷ invested capital $65.8B

Industry peers: median 9%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 17% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 19%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 12%–29%; latest $6.4B = operating cash $7.4B − maintenance capex $1.1B

Industry peers: median 10%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 13% of revenue this year, a 19% median across 10 years. It chose to put $1.1B more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $5.3B — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $279M of SBC) leaves $6.1B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 0.57×

Thinly cash-backed

Cash from ops $7.4B ÷ net income $13.1B

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 150%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $9.5B ÷ Owner Earnings $6.4B

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $6.4B of Owner Earnings, $9.5B (150%) went back to shareholders, $8.8B dividends, $746M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $279M stock comp, the real buyback was about $467M. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 2.01×

Expanding

Capex $2.1B ÷ depreciation $1.1B

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 4 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $47.9B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.46×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $43.9B vs $9.8B WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +142%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $2.67/share (latest year $3.05), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $7.48/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 6 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 23% → 25% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing claims pricing power in its strongest form — price raised, volume held — yet the margin here has not widened to match. The claim leads the record; weigh them together.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 23% early, 25% lately, median 25%.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 24%

What this means
Every extra dollar the business reinvested came back at a high incremental return — the lens GBM read for a moat that reinvests rather than merely harvests. The record and the 10-K are where you check whether the rate holds.
Owner earnings growth −1%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 1% a year over the record.
Worst year 2016 · 20.7% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −0.1%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Apr 3, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$30.4B

Cash & short-term investments$11.1B
Receivables$3.7B
Inventory$4.7B
Other current assets$10.9B

Current liabilities$22.4B

Debt due within a year$1.4B
Accounts payable$14.4B
Other current liabilities$6.6B

Current ratio1.36×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.15×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.50×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$8.0Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$1.4B due · $11.1B cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Apr 3, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+12.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.1× → 1.4×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$17.9Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$38.2B$1.7B of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$1.8B

'27$4.8B

'28$2.9B

'29$3.0B

'30$3.4B

Bars scaled to the largest single year.

Due in the next 12 months$1.8Bthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$6.6Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$4.8Bin 2027the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Due over the next five years$15.9Bthe near slice; the balance sheet carries $43.9B of debt in all

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Apr 3, 2026$11.1B

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$6.4B

Together, against $1.8B due next year9.6×

Cash on hand as of Apr 3, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $17.4B against the $1.8B due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 9.6 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $93.2B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$17.7B · 19%
Dividends$72.9B · 78%
Buybacks$16.9B · 18%

Returned to owners$89.7B
112% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $72.9B as dividends and $16.9B as buybacks.
Source of funding−$14.2B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $14.2B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $33.2B to $43.6B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $16.9B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count−1.2%
The diluted count fell from 4367M to 4314M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$2.04/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 4% a year. It was never cut over the span.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	James Quincey	$24.9M	$60.5M	$11.3B
2022	James Quincey	$22.8M	$54.5M	$9.5B
2023	James Quincey	$24.7M	$19.3M	$10.5B
2024	James Quincey	$28.0M	$40.6M	$5.7B
2025	James Quincey	$31.2M	$61.6M	$6.4B

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$279M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 2% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Coca-Cola Co. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

1 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 5 came back clean.

Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?9 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 9 of the last 10 years, $3.0B in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

Peers, Beverages

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
PEPPepsiCo Inc.	$93.9B	55%	14.2%	18%	11%
ADMArcher-Daniels-Midland Company	$80.3B	7%	3.5%	8%	-2%
BGBunge Limited	$70.3B	6%	3.7%	14%	-1%
TSNTyson Foods Inc.	$54.4B	12%	7.2%	10%	4%
KOCoca-Cola Co.	$47.9B	61%	26.0%	16%	21%
MDLZMondelez International Inc.	$38.5B	39%	13.9%	7%	10%
KDPKeurig Dr Pepper Inc.	$16.6B	55%	21.3%	5%	18%
STZConstellation Brands Inc.	$9.1B	50%	29.9%	9%	25%
Group median	—	45%	14.1%	9%	10%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Coca-Cola Co. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Coca-Cola Co. earns about $9.9B on its 20.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 13.3% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($9.9B) Net of stock comp (−$272M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($13.6B)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−13%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−2%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow $12.6B on 4302M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-28; net debt $32.5B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($2.1B) runs well above depreciation ($1.0B), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $13.6B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh KO against another business →

The owners of KO: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Coca-Cola Co. (KO), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/KO, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← KNX its page in the Manual KODK →

Industry order: ← KDP the Beverages chapter KOF →