Coke shareholders approve executive pay, but by low margin
By Anjali Athavaley and Ross Kerber
NEW YORK/BOSTON, April 29 (Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co's shareholders on Wednesday approved the beverage maker's pay for top executives, but by a lower-than-average margin in the face of concerns by large proxy advisers.
Atlanta-based Coke said preliminary results from its annual shareholding meeting show that 80.4 percent of votes cast were in favor of its executive compensation, about 10 percentage points below the average for a company in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. While the vote is only advisory, it indicates shareholder sentiment, and the company faced an investor revolt over its executive pay last year.
"We have strong support from our shareowners, including a number of our largest, for the company's compensation programs, which are performance-based and consistent with shareowners' interests," Coke said in a statement.
"This outcome reflects support for the enhancements made in the past year to strengthen executive compensation as well as the direct engagement with shareowners."
Coke made changes to its equity plan last fall, adopting new guidelines that would be less heavily weighted toward stock options.
According to pay consulting firm Semler Brossy, among S&P 500 companies the average level of support for executive pay was 92 percent in 2014, and is running at a similar level so far this year among 65 companies that have held their advisory votes.
Semler Brossy Managing Director Todd Sirras called the result at Coke "a solid B," and said it is "hard to say" whether the figure will lead Coke to make more compensation changes.
Institutional Shareholder Services, which advises pension funds, mutual funds and other money managers, had recommended investors vote against the pay of the beverage company's top leaders, including Chairman and Chief Executive Muhtar Kent, who earned $25.2 million in 2014.
Another proxy adviser, Glass Lewis & Co, had recommended investors support the pay, but said in a report it is concerned that bonus limits at the company are too high.
Meanwhile, two large pension fund overseers, the California State Teachers' Retirement System and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which each hold less than 1 percent of Coke shares, voted against the pay detailed in Coke's proxy released in March, according to disclosures on their websites.
(Reporting by Anjali Athavaley; Editing by Richard Chang)
