Coke shares fall on associate write-down

Fri 18 Jul 2008
LONDON (ShareCast) - Shares in Coca Cola (NYSE: KO - news) fell sharply after a write-down on North American assets at its largest bottler hit second quarter profits.

Net income fell to 61 cents a share, or $1.42bn, from 79 cents a share ($1.85bn) over the same period a year ago.

Coca Cola Enterprises, in which Coca Cola has a 35% share, was forced to take a $5.3bn impairment charge due to declining sales. Excluding its share of Coca Cola Enterprises impairment charge, net income rose to $1.01 a share.

Growth outside North America helped mitigate the effects of the more difficult environment there.

"Our results were once again led by our international operations, which delivered 5 percent unit case volume growth, and we maintained volume in North America despite significant challenges," Muhtar Kent said.

"Latin America continues to be a key contributor to our results, along with solid performance in many of our emerging markets including China, Turkey, India, Eastern Europe, Southern Eurasia, North and West Africa and the Middle East."

Source:http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/080717/214/i3da2.html