This hasn't been an easy year for the chief executives of certain high-profile Georgia companies as they went before their stockholders to answer for their deeds — or misdeeds, as the case may be — in 2004.

The chief executives of some of the best-known names in corporate America faced this challenge, including the CEOs of Georgia companies such as Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola.

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Veteran stock market gadfly Evelyn Y. Davis showed up at Delta's annual meeting to lobby for a change in the way stockholders vote for directors.

That, of course, was a minor issue for an airline whose high fuel, pension and labor costs threaten to put the Atlanta-based carrier into bankruptcy.

The message from Chief Executive Gerald Grinstein was that Delta is "headed in the right direction."

But high fuel costs have eaten up cost savings from Grinstein's turnaround plan.

Indeed, Grinstein has warned that trials remain, even after dodging the bankruptcy bullet that has struck other major airlines.

Grinstein praised workers for their performance during Delta's financial crisis, saying, "They have performed with extraordinary grace."

But many workers already were planning for disaster as the turmoil that hit the industry on Sept. 11, 2001, showed little evidence of ending quickly.

More than 100 pilots from Delta's regional carrier, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, picketed the meeting in protest of what they regard as the slow pace of labor negotiations.

"The relationship between the pilots and management is strained," said one. "We just want to get a fair contract."

Delta since has announced it renegotiated terms of key financing deals that had helped it avoid bankruptcy in 2004.

Delta's stock has traded between $8.17 (December 2004) and $2.46 (March 2005), and is down more than 45 percent so far this year.

Milestone for Isdell

Coca-Cola's annual stockholders meeting in Wilmington, Del., was a milestone for Neville Isdell — his first annual meeting since becoming chairman and chief executive.

Isdell, who had retired after a 35-year career before returning in 2004, reassured shareholders that Coca-Cola continued to look for ways to improve its business against the challenges faced in North America and Europe.

"I know what we still are, and I know what we are capable of being," said Isdell. "We still have the world's favorite brands. We still have the world's most extensive beverage distribution system."

Isdell's return was part of a reorganization involving mas—sive layoffs begun in 2000 under then-Chief Executive Doug Daft.

While observers agree Isdell has hardly dazzled Wall Street, he has hired new executives, moved some into different posts and tried to bring new products to the marketplace.

Coke shares have risen almost 7 percent in 2005, although the stock's high and low both occurred last year, $52.75 in June and $38.30 in October.

Unwelcome notoriety

The newcomer on Georgia's stage of corporate troubles is a company few had heard of: ChoicePoint, an Alpharetta firm whose business is collecting and selling pertinent information about just about everybody.

ChoicePoint didn't make headlines until 2005, but the underlying events occurred in late 2004. One or more identity thieves had fraudulently obtained personal information from ChoicePoint on some 145,000 people.

Derek Smith, chairman and chief executive, had the unenviable task of conducting the company's annual meeting in the wake of this and other troubling disclosures.

Some ChoicePoint shareholders didn't wait for explanations at the annual meeting; they sued the company. They and government regulators wanted to know why it took ChoicePoint more than four months to warn consumers about the scam.

Congress entered the fray, talking of imposing limits on ChoicePoint and other information brokers that collect personal data and sell them to businesses and governments for verification use.

Securities regulators also probed $21 million worth of stock sales by Smith and ChoicePoint President Doug Curling that began before the latest breach became public in February.

ChoicePoint stock has traded this year as high as $47.95 in February and as low as $36.35 in March.

Irritation at the Depot

At their annual meeting in Naples, Fla., Home Depot shareholders showed what really irritated them via the resolutions they approved and rejected.

In an expressive but nonbinding move, they OK'd a proposal calling on the Atlanta-based home improvement retailer to get their permission before giving lucrative "golden parachutes" to departing executives.

But they rejected another proposal asking the company to affirm its political neutrality — an issue that was important to perpetual gadfly Davis. She was perturbed by the contributions Home Depot directors made to President Bush's inauguration.

CEO Bob Nardelli was able to recount a record of solid growth for Home Depot in 2004, when it posted a profit of $5 billion on $73.1 billion in revenue.

But Home Depot's share price has yet to set a new high this year, and is down 6.8 percent. In 2004 the stock traded as high as $44.30 in November and as low as $32.39 in August.

Mirant value at issue

Mirant, an electric power broker spun off by Southern Co., is already in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. One of the big issues is how much the Atlanta company is worth.

Valuation hearings are being held in a federal bankruptcy court in Fort Worth, Texas, as a crucial step in Mirant's 23-month-old bankruptcy case.

At issue is how much, if anything, shareholders will get when the company leaves bankruptcy. Mirant has valued itself at about $9 billion, tops, which shareholders allege is too low by $3 billion.

Mirant is trying to get court approval for $2.35 billion in exit financing. That would be the largest financing since Federal-Mogul got a $1.433 billion exit financing commitment last October.