Hedge fund Wintergreen Advisors has built up its holdings of Coca-Cola stock, and taken aim at the corporation’s governance and operations.
In a newly launched website—fixbigsoda.com—Wintergreen outlined a multi-point plan for improving shareholder returns. The proposal included “a laser-like focus on costs,” “no more attempts to buy growth,” separating the roles of chairman and CEO, improved disclosure, “a strong and independent board or directors,” and replacing the 2014 executive equity compensation plan.
The beverage giant announced its second quarter earnings July 22. Global sales volume grew 2% year-on-year for the first half of 2014, yet net revenue dropped 3% for the same period.
Wintergreen’s CEO David Winters jumped on these figures as further evidence for reforming aspects of the company.
“Coca-Cola’s lackluster second quarter earnings report underscores the need for urgent action,” Winters said. “If the current board of directors and management team are unwilling or unable to get Coca-Cola back on the path of profitable and organic growth that accrues to all shareholders, they should be replaced. Coca-Cola and its shareholders deserve nothing less.”
New Jersey-based Wintergreen contacted Coca-Cola’s largest institutional shareholders earlier this month to voice its concerns, according to the hedge fund. Of these ten mega-investors, Winters told ValueWalk that one has expressed interest in the plan, in addition to many smaller shareholders.
Coca-Cola’s largest institutional shareholders include Berkshire Hathaway, Vanguard, State Street, FMR, BlackRock, Northern Trust, Bank of New York Mellon, Yacktman Asset Management, and Capital Research Group.
Warren Buffett, whose firm Berkshire Hathaway owns roughly 400 million Coca-Cola shares, told has told CNBC that he privately disagreed with the company’s executive compensation plan.
“I don't really want to embarrass the Coca-Cola company,” Buffett said on May 5. “I was certainly looking to have them reexamine what they were doing.”
However much he agreed with Winters about excessive pay packets, in a CNBC interview Buffett dismissed the activist investor’s notion that Coca-Cola might be taken private.
“Absolutely no chance of that,” Buffett said.
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