Coke Hasn't Sat Back During the Global Crisis: CEO
Coca-Cola has been able to navigate a weak global economy for the past four years and continue to grow, CEO Muhtar Kent said in a CNBC interview Tuesday.
“We haven’t wasted the crisis, that’s the key,” the Coke executive told "Closing Bell."
“We’ve been able to invest in our brands. That’s why they’re healthier and more relevant today than in all our history.”
Indeed, Coca-Cola topped Interbrand’s list of the best 100 brands. Jez Frampton, Interbrand’s CEO, told CNBC earlier on Tuesday, beating out Apple , IBM and Google . The list is compiled together by measuring how “important is this brand to the earnings power of the company.”
“Coca-Cola has a 100-year history of consistently delivering great products and relevant brands to consumers,” Frampton said.
Kent said that "In today's world, if you're a brand that's 126 years young, you have to ensure that you take that wonderful heritage and fuse it with what is needed today and what is expected by consumers and stay relevant."
That focus has helped Coca-Cola grow every quarter for the last three or four years in a row, Kent noted.
Looking at the global economy, while the Europe remains mired in a long recovery, “the U.S. is going to lead the world out of this stalemate,” Kent said. And Coke has invested $10 billion in its brand in the U.S. over the past three years, he added.
(Read More: Companies with 15-Plus Years of Dividend Growth.)
Coke, rival to PepsiCo , is also not looking at major acquisitions, but Kent said that the company is open to small bolt-on acquisitions such as its recent acquisition of Vitaminwater in the U.S.
