Coca-Cola’s CEO Refuses Bonus due to Company’s Bad Performance

The CEO of world's largest beverage company Coca-Cola, Muhtar Kent was offered a pay package of $18.1 million in the previous years after the company failed to meet its own growth targets. Kent, 60, has been working with the beverage company since 2008.

According to a filing made on Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the compensation is on par with the $18.2 million, which Kent received in 2013.

It is said that Kent's pay package might have been higher if Kent had accepted a $2.5 million cash performance bonus.

Kent said in a statement that he decided not to accept the bonus because the company has been planning to take some important decisions to improve its performance, and therefore there was a lot of work left to be done.

Coca-Cola, which is also famous for making Sprite, Powerade and Dasani has cited challenging economic conditions around the world for its sales struggles.

The company is dealing with an ongoing decline in soda consumption in North America. It has also to face competition from smaller players in the market.

In 2014, Coca-Cola's global unit case volume rose 1.5%, which was less than its target range of 3% to 4%. Operating income and earnings per share growth of the company also declined and fell short of its targets.

In order to boost its results, the company has said that it has decided to slash cost by $3 billion a year and will also be spending more money on marketing.

In the beginning of this year, the company said that it would cut up to 1,800 jobs as part of this effort. The company in total has approximately 130,000 employees across the world.

The company in last October announced that it was curtailing its pay plan for executives after shareholders including Warren Buffett called it excessive.