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KO · Forward model · Braun case

The Braun case, 20 quarters out

Model as of

Each segment is projected from its own operating driver, rolled up into consolidated cash flow, and discounted back to a fair value per share. The assumptions below are editable — change them and every number on this page moves with them.

Six verticals on third-party (external) segment revenue. That choice is deliberate: third-party segment revenue sums to consolidated net operating revenues exactly, whereas total segment revenue would need a -$252M eliminations plug. Segment EBITDA margins are therefore struck on third-party revenue so that revenue times margin returns the right EBITDA dollars, and the check holds at the basis quarter - segment EBITDA of $5,178M less the $240M Corporate EBITDA drag is $4,938M, which is reported operating income of $4,672M plus $266M of depreciation and amortisation. History runs ten quarters, 2024 Q1 to 2026 Q2. Eight of those are the two complete calendar-year windows the seasonal factors are fitted on; the 2024 Q4 and 2025 Q4 points in every vertical are derived as full year less nine months and are flagged estimated. Twelve quarters do not exist and never will: Global Ventures was sunset on 1 January 2025 and only 2024 was recast, so the 2023 quarters survive only on the superseded six-segment basis. Two disclosed facts drive the near path and both are modelled explicitly. Coca-Cola's quarters end on a Friday while its year ends on 31 December, so 2026 Q1 carried six more days than 2025 Q1 and 2026 Q4 will carry six fewer than 2025 Q4; every seasonal factor here was fitted on revenue per day for that reason, which also means a fixed four-factor vector cannot track a day count that rotates year to year and about 1.5% of unmodelled quarterly error remains. And the African bottling operations, under definitive agreement to Coca-Cola HBC with closing expected by the end of 2026, are carried as a -74% level step on Bottling Investments dated to the second projected quarter, removing about $1,127M a quarter. Coca-Cola does not disclose that business's standalone revenue; that figure is the average of two independent derivations bounding it between $1.0bn and $1.4bn, it is assumed, and the bear and bull cases sit at the two ends of that range. What is deliberately absent: the IRS litigation, whose potential impact the company puts at $14.0bn with $6.0bn already on deposit and a $529M recorded estimate, is a contingency rather than an operating driver and is not modelled as a margin or growth effect anywhere in this spec. Free cash flow here is EBITDA less capital expenditure less tax on that difference, the engine's uniform definition; it carries no interest expense and no working capital, so it is not comparable with the company's approximately $12.4bn free cash flow guidance and should not be read against it. One tension is worth stating rather than tuning away. Every driver here is the segment's own 2024 Q2 to 2026 Q2 compound quarterly rate, not a guided quarter, so the base path puts 2026 Q3 at $13.39bn, up 7.5% year over year - ahead of what the company's own third-quarter considerations (about a point of currency tailwind against about a point of acquisitions-and-divestitures headwind, on top of organic growth) would imply. The two-year rate was kept because one guided quarter is a worse estimator of a five-year path than eight quarters of segment history; the gap is real and it is the first thing the 2026 Q3 print will test.

KO forward model
Horizon
Fair value per share $86.83 −1% against $87.83
Terminal-year revenue $56.71B last four projected quarters
Enterprise value $400.76B $63.02B explicit + $337.73B terminal

Henrique Braun's first full quarter as chief executive delivered 5% global unit case volume growth led by India, China, the United States and Brazil, with the FIFA World Cup activation contributing to 5% Trademark Coca-Cola volume growth and 8% Powerade volume growth. The case is that the marketing machine converts events into cases, and that concentrate-led growth - four points of concentrate against two of price and mix - is more durable than the pricing-led growth of the prior two years. The lift is put where the volume actually is, on Asia Pacific and Latin America, rather than spread evenly. What this case does not reach: the World Cup does not repeat in the second half, the company itself says concentrate shipments will lag volume by a further point in the third quarter, and none of it touches the day-count or African bottling arithmetic that shapes the fourth.

KO REVENUE MODEL

Latest: $15.16B (2031Q2E)

Period Value
2024Q1 $11.30B
2024Q2 $12.36B
2024Q3 $11.85B
2024Q4 $11.54B
2025Q1 $11.13B
2025Q2 $12.54B
2025Q3 $12.46B
2025Q4 $11.82B
2026Q1 $12.47B
2026Q2 $13.38B
2026Q3E $13.41B
2026Q4E $11.19B
2027Q1E $11.60B
2027Q2E $12.86B
2027Q3E $12.87B
2027Q4E $11.72B
2028Q1E $12.14B
2028Q2E $13.44B
2028Q3E $13.44B
2028Q4E $12.22B
2029Q1E $12.66B
2029Q2E $14.00B
2029Q3E $14.01B
2029Q4E $12.73B
2030Q1E $13.18B
2030Q2E $14.58B
2030Q3E $14.58B
2030Q4E $13.25B
2031Q1E $13.72B
2031Q2E $15.16B
Scenarios

Where each case comes from

Bear case — primary sources

The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Bear column is what happens if they are taken at face value.

Braun case — primary sources

The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Braun column is what happens if they are taken at face value.

Valuation

From cash flow to fair value

The published model, discounted at 8.0% a year with an exit multiple of 22.0x on EBITDA. The sliders above do not change this walk.

Present value of free cash flow, 20 quarters$63.02B
Terminal-year revenue$56.71B
Terminal-year EBITDA$22.56B
Exit multiple, on EBITDA22.0x
Terminal value$496.24B
Discounted at 8.0% a year, terminal value becomes$337.73B
Share of enterprise value from the terminal84%
Enterprise value$400.76B
Net cash−$27.17B
Equity value$373.58B
Shares4.30B
Fair value per share$86.83
Against the deployed price of $87.83, as of −1%

At $90.08 and $27.17bn of net debt the enterprise is worth $414.7bn, which is 24.2 times trailing EBITDA once the $1,274M African bottling charge is added back, and 26.1 times without that adjustment. The 21.0x exit is three turns below the adjusted figure: a mature staple should not be assumed to hold a peak multiple five years out. PepsiCo's 12.5x is not the target - that is a business-model gap between a concentrate licensor and a consolidated snacks and bottling group, not a mispricing - and the answer here is more sensitive to this multiple than to any operating assumption in the spec.

Read the other way round: at $87.83 the market is paying 22.3x terminal-year EBITDA, holding every other assumption on this page fixed. That is the number to argue about.

Capital programmes

Capex outside the verticals

Each vertical's capex is a share of its own revenue, which is the right shape for capacity that scales with sales. These are not that: fixed-size programmes with their own schedule that spend whether or not any segment grows. They are added on top, and they are why free cash flow dips in the years below.

Corporate capital expenditure

2026 Q3 → 2031 Q2
Programme total$2.02B
Cash out$101M/qtr

The $101M of capital expenditure disclosed against the Corporate reconciling line in 2026 Q2, held flat across the horizon. It is carried here rather than inside a vertical because it belongs to none of them: as a percentage of the $37M of Corporate third-party revenue it would be 273%, an artefact of the denominator. This is not an invented programme - it is a disclosed quarterly outlay given a shape the engine can carry.

Quarter by quarter

The projected path

Quarter Europe, Middle East & AfricaLatin AmericaNorth AmericaAsia PacificBottling InvestmentsCorporate Revenue YoY EBITDA Capex FCF R40 PV of FCF
2026 Q3E $2.85B$1.87B$5.70B$1.43B$1.53B$37M $13.41B +8% $4.93B $424M $3.61B +35 $3.54B
2026 Q4E $2.52B$1.90B$5.17B$1.16B$397M$38M $11.19B −5% $4.41B $334M $3.27B +24 $3.14B
2027 Q1E $2.75B$1.93B$5.05B$1.45B$397M$38M $11.60B −7% $4.61B $333M $3.43B +23 $3.23B
2027 Q2E $3.20B$1.96B$5.70B$1.57B$397M$38M $12.86B −4% $5.08B $362M $3.78B +25 $3.50B
2027 Q3E $2.95B$1.98B$5.99B$1.51B$397M$38M $12.87B −4% $5.06B $368M $3.76B +25 $3.41B
2027 Q4E $2.61B$2.01B$5.43B$1.22B$397M$39M $11.72B +5% $4.63B $344M $3.44B +34 $3.06B
2028 Q1E $2.84B$2.04B$5.29B$1.52B$398M$39M $12.14B +5% $4.83B $343M $3.60B +34 $3.14B
2028 Q2E $3.31B$2.07B$5.97B$1.65B$398M$39M $13.44B +4% $5.32B $373M $3.96B +34 $3.40B
2028 Q3E $3.05B$2.10B$6.27B$1.59B$398M$39M $13.44B +4% $5.29B $379M $3.94B +34 $3.31B
2028 Q4E $2.69B$2.12B$5.68B$1.29B$399M$40M $12.22B +4% $4.85B $354M $3.60B +34 $2.97B
2029 Q1E $2.93B$2.15B$5.53B$1.61B$399M$40M $12.66B +4% $5.05B $352M $3.76B +34 $3.05B
2029 Q2E $3.41B$2.18B$6.23B$1.74B$399M$40M $14.00B +4% $5.55B $383M $4.14B +34 $3.29B
2029 Q3E $3.14B$2.20B$6.55B$1.67B$400M$40M $14.01B +4% $5.53B $389M $4.11B +34 $3.20B
2029 Q4E $2.77B$2.23B$5.93B$1.36B$400M$41M $12.73B +4% $5.06B $363M $3.76B +34 $2.87B
2030 Q1E $3.02B$2.26B$5.77B$1.69B$401M$41M $13.18B +4% $5.27B $362M $3.93B +34 $2.95B
2030 Q2E $3.52B$2.29B$6.50B$1.83B$401M$41M $14.58B +4% $5.79B $394M $4.32B +34 $3.18B
2030 Q3E $3.23B$2.32B$6.82B$1.76B$401M$41M $14.58B +4% $5.76B $400M $4.30B +34 $3.10B
2030 Q4E $2.86B$2.35B$6.18B$1.43B$402M$42M $13.25B +4% $5.27B $373M $3.92B +34 $2.78B
2031 Q1E $3.11B$2.37B$6.01B$1.78B$402M$42M $13.72B +4% $5.49B $371M $4.10B +34 $2.85B
2031 Q2E $3.62B$2.40B$6.77B$1.93B$403M$42M $15.16B +4% $6.03B $404M $4.51B +34 $3.07B

Every row is projected. A year-over-year change is shown only where the quarter it compares against exists — an em dash means there is no comparable quarter, not a flat year.

Track record

Model revisions

Assumptions are marked to reality as each quarter prints. Every change is appended here, with the fair value the model produced at the time, so the model's own history stays visible.

DateFair value thenNote
2026-08-27 $80.21 First published model, built from the verified 2026 Q2 research brief. Six third-party revenue lines - the five reportable segments plus the Corporate reconciling line - which sum to reported consolidated revenue in all ten historical quarters with no elimination plug. Day-normalised seasonality on EMEA, North America and Asia Pacific; the other three verticals left aseasonal on the evidence. The African bottling deconsolidation is a dated level step on Bottling Investments rather than a growth rate.