KO · Forward model · Bull case

The Bull case, 20 quarters out

Model as of 2026-08-27

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will: Global Ventures was sunset on 1 January 2025 and only 2024 was recast, so the 2023 quarters survive only on the superseded six-segment basis.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.

Where each case comes from

From cash flow to fair value

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.

The projected path

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.

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.