Initially, the Coca-Cola Company used the ticker CCO, which was changed in 1923 to KO. Common stock was initially offered at $40 per share, with preferred stock sold at $100 per share. In 1920, the group reincorporated the business as a Delaware Corporation, putting its stock up for sale in its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Woodruff’s father) bought the company for $25 million. It all began in 1919 when a consortium of business people that was led by Ernest Woodruff (who was Robert W. The Coca-Cola Company has a stock market history that is almost as rich as its cultural legacy. At the end of 2016, Coca-Cola bought many of the former SABMiller’s Coca-Cola operations, and in August 2018, the company agreed to acquire Costa Coffee from Whitbread for £3.9bn. In 2015, the company took a minority stake ownership in Suja Life LLC, the cold-pressed juice manufacturer. Amongst the many brands the company had bought, are Minute Maid, Columbia Pictures (which was later sold to Sony for $3 billion), the Indian cola brand Thums Up, Barq’s, the Odwalla brand of fruit juices, smoothies, and bars, Fuze Beverage, Honest Tea, and Monster Beverage. The Coca-Cola company also boasts one of the most extensive distribution networks in the world, offering almost 400 different products to more than 200 countries and territories.Ĭoca-Cola has a long and rich history of acquisitions. With its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, Coca-Cola manufactures 4 of the top 10 most popular soft drinks in the world, as of November 2018: Coca-Cola (number one) along with Diet Coke (including Light and Zero), Fanta, and Sprite. The company’s red and white trademark is arguably the best-known of all corporate brand symbols in the world. Today, the Coca-Cola company is the leading manufacturer of soft drinks in the world, selling more than a billion servings of beverages each day. This was the start of the story of the Coca-Cola company. Pemberton’s testing and research led him to conclude that the medication he had developed was also able to relieve exhaustion and ease indigestion, while also being a refreshing drink.
He then added caffeine to the mixture and then marketed it as a remedy for headaches.
In 1886, Pemberton came up with a concoction that contained sugar, water, coca leaf extracts and kola nuts. Amongst his inventions in this field are several well-known products of the time, including Triplex liver pills, Queen hair dye and Gingerine. A decade later, he set up his chemical laboratory in Atlanta in order to get into the business of patent medicine. Dr John Stith Pemberton, the inventor of the world’s most famous soft drink, Coca-Cola, was originally from Columbus, Georgia, but moved to Atlanta in 1869.