The Real Deal?

Instability at the top gives Coca-Cola cause for concern; while the US market picks up

Given the news of PepsiCo’s rise to the top over rival Coca-Cola we thought it an appropriate month to take a look at the stock performance of the Coca-Cola companies listed in our index.

The soft-drink producer has looked troubled for some time – many analysts date the troubles back to 1997 when Coke’s most successful chief executive, Roberto Goizueta, sadly passed away. Since then the company has gone through two successors and appointed a third in 2003. And how has the turbulence affected all the subsidiary bottlers and suppliers the world over?

All the Coca-Cola companies in the db index have seen a decrease in share price over the three month period (September  15, 2005 to December 15, 2005). The biggest decline was seen by Australian supplier Coca-Cola Amatil, down nearly 11% to AU$7.40, though Greek-based bottler Coca-Cola HBC fared much better with just a 1.5% decline in price over the same period.

For our graph this month we’ve  decided to take a final look  over last year and have compared the performance of the  European, US and Pacific markets against the world as a whole for 2004.

Cheeringly, there has been a gentle rise over the year, with all markets following a similar performance pattern, dipping slightly in the opening months but recovering around the half-way point. The Pacific markets were the worst performing, ending the year hovering at around the 110 point mark, while the US narrowly misses out on a gold star for performance over the year after seeing a dip in the final month of the year despite above-average results prior to December.