????上周，在亞特蘭大召開的年度股東大會上，可口可樂公司（Coca-Cola）備受爭議的股權(quán)激勵計劃獲得了多數(shù)股東的同意。但這項批準(zhǔn)并非全心全意的支持。

????根據(jù)這項計劃，可口可樂公司的管理層如果實現(xiàn)具體的績效目標(biāo)，就可以獲得公司慷慨發(fā)放的股份。雖然有批評意見認(rèn)為這個計劃將嚴(yán)重稀釋當(dāng)前股東的持股，但它依然在公司年度大會上獲得了通過。

????沃倫?巴菲特的保險集團伯克希爾?哈撒韋（Berkshire Hathaway）是可口可樂最大的股東之一，持有超過9%的股份。巴菲特也認(rèn)為，股權(quán)激勵計劃有些過分，但他并沒有投反對票，而是選擇了棄權(quán)。

????其他更加堅定的股東則對這項計劃投了反對票，其中包括佛羅里達州管理委員會（Florida State Board of Administration）、對沖基金Wintergreen Advisers和安大略教師退休基金（Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan）等。自從3月7日這項計劃提上議事日程以來，Wintergreen Advisers便發(fā)起了一場反對它的代理人戰(zhàn)爭。加州州立教師退休系統(tǒng)（California State Teachers Retirement System ，CalSTRS）直到年度大會召開前的一天才突然改變態(tài)度，選擇支持該計劃。

????會議結(jié)束后不久，可口可樂公司就宣布了初步投票結(jié)果。結(jié)果顯示，“可口可樂公司2014年股權(quán)計劃”得到了“已投票數(shù)”83%的支持。但由于“已投票數(shù)”不包括巴菲特的投票和其他棄權(quán)股東，因此，這個數(shù)據(jù)看起來非?？梢?。同時，這項數(shù)據(jù)還嚴(yán)重高估了計劃獲得的支持票數(shù)。事實上，昨天晚些時候提交給美國證監(jiān)會（SEC）的正式投票結(jié)果顯示，僅有不到一半的流通股對這項計劃投了贊成票——準(zhǔn)確地說是49.77%，其他股東均投了反對票、棄權(quán)票或根本沒有投票。根據(jù)美國證監(jiān)會的文件，可口可樂公司共發(fā)行了44億股流通股。

????Wintergreen Advisers公司CEO戴維?溫特斯在一份新聞通稿中表示：

????可口可樂的計劃沒有獲得多數(shù)股東的支持，包括其最大的股東伯克希爾?哈撒韋。Wintergreen相信，沒有哪家公司會在未獲得多數(shù)股東支持的情況下執(zhí)行股權(quán)計劃，至少像可口可樂這樣偉大的公司絕對不會這么做。很顯然，可口可樂未能獲得執(zhí)行2014年股權(quán)計劃的股東授權(quán)，因此，我們呼吁可口可樂公司董事會撤銷或壓縮這項計劃。根據(jù)美國證監(jiān)會的文件，按照截至2月20日的現(xiàn)行股權(quán)計劃，可口可樂公司可發(fā)行超過6,600萬股股票。我們相信，現(xiàn)有方案足以使可口可樂公司在繼續(xù)發(fā)放股權(quán)激勵的同時，制定一個對股東更有利的新計劃。

????針對這種情況，合理的反應(yīng)必然是尋找一種對股東有利的方式，尤其是沒有獲得最大股東同意的情況下。

????可口可樂公司的計劃到底存在什么問題？

????之前，溫特斯就譴責(zé)這項計劃是將股東的價值轉(zhuǎn)移給管理層。從根本上而言，為了用股份獎勵高管和其他高級雇員，包括股票期權(quán)、業(yè)績股票或限制股等，公司必須保留一定數(shù)量的股份作為獎勵，而且，這么做需要獲得股東同意。就可口可樂而言，反對該計劃的股東認(rèn)為，可口可樂用于獎勵管理層的股票太多，從而會給股東造成損失——也就是所謂的“股權(quán)稀釋”。

????新計劃要求保留5億股，但可口可樂已經(jīng)發(fā)放了數(shù)億股，因此股權(quán)稀釋度還應(yīng)該包括這些股份。事實上，可口可樂在其代理書中便有一個計算稀釋度的公式。（其中僅有公式，但沒有答案。）由于目前針對稀釋度出現(xiàn)了各種各樣的數(shù)據(jù)，因此，筆者使用可口可樂的公式進行了計算，得出的數(shù)據(jù)是15.9%。換言之，公司超過六分之一的股份將被預(yù)留，用于獎勵管理層。

????許多可口可樂股東認(rèn)為，公司的股權(quán)激勵計劃是在轉(zhuǎn)移所有權(quán)，因此他們選擇反對或棄權(quán)。兩家代理投票咨詢公司ISS和Glass Lewis（由安大略教師退休基金部分擁有）都沒有通知客戶投反對票，但許多股東依然選擇了反對該計劃。

????可口可樂公司給出了各種復(fù)雜的理由，來緩和這個數(shù)據(jù)帶來的影響，但無論怎么解釋，這家公司可能將有多達16%的股份只能被用于管理層。

????截至本文發(fā)稿前，可口可樂公司仍未應(yīng)要求對此發(fā)表評論。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

????Although Coca-Cola's (KO) controversial equity compensation plan was apparently approved by a majority of shareholders at the company's annual meeting in Atlanta this week, it appears to be a half-hearted approval.

????Under the plan, Coke's managers are to be paid generously with company shares if they achieve specific performance goals. Critics have said the plan would dilute the holdings of current shareholders too much, but it still passed at Coke's annual meeting.

????Warren Buffett's insurance conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) is one of the largest owners of Coke's stock, with a little over 9% of the company's shares. Buffett thought the compensation plan was excessive too, but instead of voting against it he, rather ineffectively, abstained.

????Other shareholders with stronger stomachs did vote against the plan, including the Florida State Board of Administration, Wintergreen Advisers -- which has been waging a proxy war against the plan since it was first proposed on March 7 -- and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. CalSTRS, the California State Teachers Retirement System, reversed its vote and approved the plan only days before the annual meeting.

????Coke's preliminary voting results, released shortly after the meeting, indicate that the "Coca-Cola Company 2014 Equity Plan," as it is officially called, was approved by 83% of the "votes cast." Since the "votes cast" excluded Buffett's votes, as well as any other abstentions, this figure looks questionable. It significantly overestimates the level of approval. In fact, the official vote count filed with the SEC late yesterday showed that less than half of the outstanding shares voted for the plan -- 49.77%, to be precise, with the rest opposing, abstaining, or simply not voting. Coke has 4.4 billion shares outstanding, according to SEC filings.

????In a release, David Winters, CEO of Wintergreen Advisers, LLC, said:

????Coca-Cola's plan failed to attract support from a majority of shareholders, including its largest shareholder, Berkshire Hathaway. Wintergreen believes that no company should implement an equity plan without the support of a majority of its shareholders, least of all a great company like Coca-Cola. It is clear to us that Coca-Cola failed to earn a shareholder mandate to fully implement the 2014 equity plan and we call on Coca-Cola's Board of Directors to withdraw or scale back the plan. According to SEC filings, Coca-Cola had more than 66 million shares available for issuance under existing equity plans as of February 20th, which we believe would allow it to continue to issue stock awards while developing a more shareholder friendly plan.

????A reasonable response to this would certainly seem the shareholder-friendly way forward, especially since the company's largest single shareholder disapproved.

????But what was the problem with the plan?

????Winters had earlier denounced the plan as a transfer of value from shareholders to management. Basically, in order to reward executives and other senior employees with stock -- stock options, performance shares, or restricted stock -- companies must reserve a certain number of shares to use as rewards, and they need to gain stockholder approval in order to do this. In Coke's case, the shareholders who voted against the plan felt Coke would be taking too many shares to give to management, and that shareholders would lose out as a result -- a process called "dilution."

????The new plan called for 500 million shares to be reserved, but there were already hundreds of millions of shares committed, so the dilution level had also to include those shares. Indeed, Coke included a handy formula for calculating dilution in its proxy. (It included the formula, but not the answer.) There have been as many figures for dilution thrown around, so using Coke's formula I performed my own calculation and came up with a figure of 15.9%. In other words, more than a sixth of the firm's stock will be set aside to reward management.

????Many Coke shareholders felt the company's compensation plan was a transfer of ownership, and they voted against it, or abstained. Neither of the two major proxy advisory firms -- ISS and Glass Lewis (which is partly owned by Ontario Teachers') -- told their clients to vote against the plan, but many did anyway.

????Coke has offered a lot of complicated reasons to mitigate this figure, but however you slice it, 16% of the company's shares could be used for management and for nothing else.

????Coca-Cola did not respond to a request for comment in time for this story's publication.