Coca-Cola renews push to slim operations

Washington

COCA-Cola Co will step up its bid to transform the company into a far leaner operation under incoming chief executive officer James Quincey after quarterly earnings missed estimates.

The soda giant vowed to cut costs by an additional US$800 million a year, adding to a plan to wring US$3 billion in savings. That will include 1,200 job cuts till 2018. The belt-tightening effort accompanies a move to spin off much of Coca-Cola's bottling operations, one of the company's biggest strategic changes in decades.