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AJC reporter Russell Grantham is tracking what Georgia’s major public companies pay their top executives. Look for periodic news and trend stories in the weeks ahead, as well as up-to-date statistics, as Grantham pores through this year’s corporate proxy statements.
Coca-Cola Chief Executive Muhtar Kent got a 5 percent raise last year that boosted his pay to $30.5 million, as modest growth in the company’s global sales volumes and profits equated with bigger cash and stock awards.
Kent has been the highest-paid executive at a publicly-held Georgia company in recent years; he was paid $29.1 million in 2011, ranking him among the three dozen highest-paid CEOs in the nation.
The 60-year-old CEO’s pay raise largely tracked Coca-Cola’s performance last year; profits rose 5 percent to $9.0 billion, while shareholders saw a 6.5 percent total return. The company’s sales rose 3.2 percent, to $48 billion.
Kent’s pay included a salary of nearly $1.6 million and a $6.0 million bonus, according to a proxy statement Coca-Cola filed Friday. He also got $13.1 million in stock-related awards and $963,816 in perks such as personal use of a company jet, a chauffeured car, home security system, bodyguards and financial and tax advice.
The company estimated that the value of Kent’s future pension benefits also went up by almost $8.9 million last year, which was reported as part of his pay in Friday’s filing. To learn more, print and digital subscribers can read the full story about the Coke executive’s compensation in Saturday’s AJC.
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