Coca-Cola investor leaves board

COCA-COLA said billionaire investor Warren Buffett, the soft-drink maker’s largest shareholder, is to leave the board after 17 years.

Mr Buffett wants to spend more time managing Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola said.

Berkshire holds an 8.4% stake worth $8 billion (€6.72bn) and will continue as a shareholder. Mr Buffett joined the board in 1989 and his term expires on April 19.

Coca-Cola has been a poor investment for Mr Buffett for the past decade, with the stock now trading below where it ended in 1996.

The shares, which rose for 10 straight years after Mr Buffett began buying them in 1989, suffered as Coca-Cola failed to expand into non-carbonated drinks. Mr Buffett also led the board in rejecting the $14bn purchase of Gatorade.

Walter Todd, a money manager with Greenwood Capital Inc in Greenwood, South Carolina, which owns 275,000 shares of Coca-Cola among $1bn in assets, said: “Coke might have gotten Gatorade if Buffett wasn’t on the board. It was definitely a mistake. Maybe the biggest one in Coke’s history.”

Mr Buffett, who has been on the boards of the Washington Post Co, Gillette Co and Salomon Inc, is a member of the Coca-Cola’s influential executive board committee, which advises the CEO on strategy. He’s also on the audit and finance committees.

Mr Buffett in 2000 led Coca-Cola’s board to reject buying Gatorade’s parent company, Quaker Oats Co Rival PepsiCo later bought Gatorade and sales of the sports drink have soared 10% to 20% or more each year.