Coca Cola 2004 Annual Report Download - page 15

ITEM 2. PROPERTIES
Our worldwide headquarters is located on a 35-acre office complex in Atlanta, Georgia. The complex
includes the approximately 621,000 square foot headquarters building, the approximately 870,000 square foot
Coca-Cola North America building and the approximately 264,000 square foot Coca-Cola Plaza building. The
complex also includes several other buildings, including the technical and engineering facilities, the learning
center and the reception center. Our Company leases approximately 250,000 square feet of office space at 10
Glenlake Parkway, Atlanta, Georgia, which we currently sublease to third parties. In addition, we lease
approximately 174,000 square feet of office space at Northridge Business Park, Dunwoody, Georgia. The North
America operating segment owns and occupies an office building located in Houston, Texas that contains
approximately 330,000 square feet. The Company has facilities for administrative operations, manufacturing,
processing, packaging, packing, storage and warehousing throughout the United States.
As of December 31, 2004, our Company owned and operated 33 principal beverage concentrate and/or
syrup manufacturing plants located throughout the world. In addition, we own, hold a majority interest in or
otherwise consolidate under applicable accounting rules 36 operations with 83 principal beverage bottling and
canning plants located outside the United States. CCDA owns four production facilities and leases one
production facility in the United States.
Our North America operating segment operates 9 noncarbonated beverage production facilities, in addition
to the CCDA facilities, located throughout the United States and Canada. It also utilizes a system of contract
packers to produce and/or distribute certain products where appropriate. In addition, the Company owns a
facility that manufactures juice concentrates for foodservice use.
We own or lease additional real estate, including a Company-owned office and retail building at 711 Fifth
Avenue in New York, New York and approximately 315,000 square feet of Company-owned office and technical
space in Brussels, Belgium. Additional owned or leased real estate located throughout the world is used by the
Company as office space; for bottling operations, warehouse or retail operations; or, in the case of some owned
property, is leased to others.
Management believes that our Company’s facilities for the production of our products are suitable and
adequate, that they are being appropriately utilized in line with past experience and that they have sufficient
production capacity for their present intended purposes. The extent of utilization of such facilities varies based
upon seasonal demand for our products. It is not possible to measure with any degree of certainty or uniformity
the productive capacity and extent of utilization of these facilities. However, management believes that
additional production can be obtained at the existing facilities by adding personnel and capital equipment and,
at some facilities, by adding shifts of personnel or expanding the facilities. We continuously review our
anticipated requirements for facilities and, on the basis of that review, may from time to time acquire additional
facilities and/or dispose of existing facilities.
ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
On October 27, 2000, a class action lawsuit (Carpenters Health & Welfare Fund of Philadelphia & Vicinity v.
The Coca-Cola Company, et al.) was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of
Georgia alleging that the Company, M. Douglas Ivester, Jack L. Stahl and James E. Chestnut violated antifraud
provisions of the federal securities laws by making misrepresentations or material omissions relating to the
Company’s financial condition and prospects in late 1999 and early 2000. A second, largely identical lawsuit
(Gaetan LaValla v. The Coca-Cola Company, et al.) was filed in the same court on November 9, 2000. The
complaints allege that the Company and the individual named officers: (1) forced certain Coca-Cola system
bottlers to accept ‘‘excessive, unwanted and unneeded’’ sales of concentrate during the third and fourth quarters
of 1999, thus creating a misleading sense of improvement in our Company’s performance in those quarters;
(2) failed to write down the value of impaired assets in Russia, Japan and elsewhere on a timely basis, again
resulting in the presentation of misleading interim financial results in the third and fourth quarters of 1999; and
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