Coca-Cola Company (The) (KO)

Coca-Cola owns the brand and the concentrate while franchising bottling and distribution — which is why its margin exceeds a typical beverage maker's.

The company makes concentrate and sells it to bottlers, who fill, package and distribute the drink. The capital-intensive part of the chain is thus placed outside, while Coca-Cola keeps the formula, the marketing and the retail relationships. That yields high profitability and modest investment needs.

The portfolio long ago moved beyond carbonated soft drinks: water, juice, sports and energy drinks, coffee and tea. The reason is falling sugar consumption in developed markets — growth now comes from other categories and from emerging markets where consumption per person remains low.

Revenue is heavily international, so exchange rates are a permanent feature of the accounts; in strong-dollar years reported figures look worse than local-currency ones. Regulatory risks centre on sugar taxes and labelling rules. Coca-Cola has raised its dividend for more than half a century.