Coca-Cola boss says downturn is opportunity to boost investment, writes CIARÁN HANCOCK, Business Affairs Correspondent

Last Friday, Muhtar Kent, the chairman and chief executive of the Coca-Cola Company and one of the world’s most influential business leaders, made a whistle-stop tour to Ireland to open a new flavourings factory in Wexford.

There wasn’t much fanfare but the event, which was attended by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, was nonetheless hugely significant for Ireland. Not just because it represented a $300 million investment by arguably the world’s most recognisable consumer brand, or that it has created 65 jobs initially, rising to more than 100 over time. It was more a statement of confidence in the battered Irish economy.

This investment was announced in November 2008 – after the collapse of Lehman Brothers which sent the global financial sector into a tail spin. It was also weeks after the calamitous bank guarantee here at a time when the economy was entering recession and Anglo Irish Bank was hurtling towards State ownership.

In an exclusive interview with The Irish Timeslast Friday, Kent acknowledges our economic difficulties but insists that he never hesitated about the investment.

“No, that didn’t even occur to us,” he says. “We bought that land before the crisis, 17 hectares. Many companies around the world would have said ‘okay let’s put it on hold. We’ll look at it after the crisis. Now is not the time to part with $300 million. We have some other facilities that we can expand a little bit with much less capital’. What’s unique to Coca-Cola is that we’ve taken the crisis and used it to our benefit by actually increasing our investments with our bottling partners around the world.”

Kent adds that it was a statement of faith in the future of Ireland by the soft drinks giant.

“We are investing because we believe in the future of this business. There is a huge amount of years ahead of growth here.”

Coca-Cola’s association with Ireland dates back to 1952 – coincidentally the year that Kent was born. It has invested more than $1 billion here since then and currently employs about 2,000 workers producing concentrate and flavours, in sales and marketing, and in a number of back office roles.

At the lunch in White’s Hotel last week to celebrate the opening of the Wexford plant, Kent announced that Coca-Cola would be expanding its global shared services business in Drogheda, Co Louth, having invested in new offices there. This will involve the creation of 100 jobs, of which about 40 have already been filled.

“We’re growing our employment in Ireland proudly,” he says. This isn’t the kind of Irish-American blarney that some multinational bosses might indulge in when talking about their investments here. While born in the US, Mr Kent has Turkish roots.

This is about taking care of business. Coca-Cola has spent $60 billion on various investments since 2006. It currently has multibillion-dollar investment programmes for Mexico, Brazil, China and Russia. So the Irish investment, while significant locally, is actually small in the context of its global spending.

Kent last year set Coca-Cola a target of doubling its business by 2020. These investments are designed to feed the monster – it achieved net profit in 2010 of $11.8 billion on operating revenues of $35.1 billion.

The Wexford plant will provide flavours to Coca-Cola’s bottling plants around the world. It will be a key cog in the wheel.

“Because our brands are healthy and growing, we need a facility like Wexford to achieve our 2020 vision,” Kent explains.

But it’s not all good news with Coca-Cola in the Republic. The company closed a bottling plant in Dublin a few years ago in favour of a more modern facility in Northern Ireland. Around the same time as it announced its Wexford investment in 2008, it was closing a concentrate plant in Drogheda. This left a sour taste in the mouths of those being laid off and generated some bad press for the company.

Mr Kent was philosophical about this last week. “It was the right business decision,” he said. “You’ve got to evolve. You close out one facility that is a very small facility and keep two concentrate facilities going.

“When you look at the total number of people employed now, as a result of this expansion in our global shared services, it’s over 200 so you’re back to numbers that are equal or beyond what were the number in that facility previously.”

Six quarters into its plan to achieve in a decade what it took 125 years to accomplish, Kent said it is “on track right now” to double the size of the business by 2020.

“It’s only the beginning of the journey but I’d rather be on track and ahead rather than be behind in the middle of a very challenging macro environment.

“We had no idea we would be entering into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”

Talk of a double dip recession in the US and Europe doesn’t trouble him.

“All it means to me if it happens is that the recovery is going to take a little longer,” he said. “I do know there’s going to be a recovery, I do know that there will be a 800 to one billion strong new middle class coming to the world in the next 10 years. There’s going to be 800 million emigrating to cities in the next 10 years.

“That’s going to lead to more on-the-go [consumption] and more urban lifestyles as opposed to agrarian lifestyles. That’s going to lead to more demand and I want to be there to capture most of that for non-alcoholic beverages.”

Coca-Cola is not everyone’s favourite. It is sometimes classified with the likes of McDonald’s and Starbucks as nasty capitalists forcing largely unhealthy products on an unwitting public. It has 500 brands in its portfolio and interacts with consumers 1.7 billion times a day.

When asked about the future of the classic Coca-Cola, which health experts argue is loaded with sugar, Kent leans forward on the leather sofa and becomes highly animated.

“We should get away from this notion that for something to be healthy, it should not have calories,” he said. “There is choice and everyone needs to be aware of the amount of energy they are consuming. There could be a day when you could eat a lot of rice, a lot of potatoes, drink a Coca-Cola, drink a Fanta no problem at all. “As long as you’re going to walk that day, ride a bike that day, spend a little energy. If you sit in front of the TV all day and keep on consuming, you need to be aware what’s going to happen.”

“But we shouldn’t put the blame on sugar, or ice cream, or Coca-Cola or a single product. Moderation, awareness, choice. Those three words are critical to solving this global non-communicable disease syndrome in the world.”

As it happens, Kent looks in rude good health. He is 59 and 3½ years into the job. Does he want to be around in 2020 to see if his plan to double the business comes to fruition?

“I’ll work as long as I’m having fun, as long as I’m smiling and as long as my board thinks I’m making the right decisions. I love this business.”

His biggest challenge, he says, is to avoid complacency. “That’s what almost brought us to our knees back in the late 1990s. But arrogance is another challenge and what keeps me awake at the moment.”

TOP OF THE POP: THE MAN AT THE HELM OF COCA-COLA

MUHTAR KENT was born in the United States in 1952 but spent most of his childhood living in Asia, as his father was a Turkish diplomat.

He went to university in Hull, an unglamorous city in the north of England.

"I went to a boarding school in the south of Turkey and I had a chemistry teacher from Hull," he explained. "He indoctrinated me into Hull and it was preferable for my parents . . . was closer [to home] and it was much more affordable than in the US."

Kent furthered his studies in London before moving to New York, where he went to live with a bachelor uncle to seek work.

He answered a newspaper ad for Coca-Cola and has spent all bar six years of his working life with the company, in various roles and locations around the world.

Married with two adult children, Kent lives in Atlanta, Georgia and has a holiday home on the coast in Turkey. "I am an American citizen of Turkish heritage," is how he describes himself. He "loves" collecting antiquities and getting out on the sea in a boat.

He describes leading Coca-Cola – a company with 15 brands valued at $1 billion or more – as "humbling". "You can be in a village in Ethiopia and you say you work for Coca-Cola and you never have to say any more."