I was reading through the recent KO earnings report and have a question about the company’s equity income mention, which I believe refers to its bottling investments.
In the income statement, there was a line reading “Equity Income (loss) - net” and then the number 538, meaning $538 million (I assume the lack of parentheses means it was positive and not a loss). In the cash-flow statement, there is a line reading “Equity (income) loss — net of dividends” and the number is printed as: (467), meaning $467 million.
Here’s my interpretation, and I would like to know if I am correct or not.
The equity method in the income statement is a non-cash (up to 467) number that is required by GAAP. Then, the cash-flow statement must take that 467 out to reflect a lack of cash from what is essentially a non-cash indication of value from the bottling investments. However, the bottling companies must pay out some dividends to KO itself which is obviously actually cash, so 538 minus 467 is the dividend payment (or, $71 million).
But…this makes no sense. KO would only make $71 million from its bottlers? That can’t be right. Unless there is something special about the relationship that means KO only gets a small amount of actual cash from the bottlers, I suppose.
Anyway…any accountants out there who might know, or any Foolish analysts? Thanks in advance…