Coke CEO’S pay dips only 2%

One-time payouts were ‘appropriate,’ board committee asserts.

Atlanta-based Coca-cola Co.’s financial results have taken a dive during the pandemic. But CEO James Quincey, whose compensation is normally tightly tied to Coke’s financial performance, saw only a slight dip in his pay last year.

Quincey’s total compensation was $18.38 million in 2020, a drop of less than 2% from a year earlier, according to filings the company made Thursday.

Last year, the company cut about 2,200 employee positions around the globe as Coke sped up plans for a reorganization that involved both voluntary separations and layoffs.

As the pandemic cut into business at restaurants and public venues, Coke’s revenue and profits sank, and it suffered its steepest annual decline in the volume of drinks sold since the 1940s.

The results meant that Quincey didn’t meet the criteria to earn one incentive that garnered him more than $5 million a year earlier.

But he and other top executives were awarded special onetime payments equal to 30% of annual target bonus amounts. A Coke board of director’s committee said the payouts were “appropriate based on improved performance trends in the second half of the year, the resilience of leaders in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, and strategic efforts” to reorganize.

Many other Coke employees, including most of those in metro Atlanta, also were awarded onetime bonuses for performance tied to the pandemic. They received 50% of target amounts, according to a notice obtained by The Atlanta Journal-constitution.