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BUSINESS & FINANCE NEWS
Coke Zero Sugar has grown 14% by volume globally so far this year and unit sales of the company’s 7.5 oz “mini cans” increased 15%.TAYLOR WEIDMAN/BLOOMBERG NEWSnow stretching into a second
month, workers say they have
high hopes their time on the
picket lines will be rewarded.
“We’ve been out here for a
long time. Was it worth it?”
said Chad Fabbro, a financial
secretary at the UAW’s local in
Flint, Mich. “There are a lot of
pluses in this contract, but
people did expect more. Half
the membership is excited and
half is not.”
The rare decision to stay on
strike even after reaching a
tentative agreement will pro-
long the pain for both sides.
By the time final ballots are
in on Oct. 25, GM’s losses
could grow by an additional
$700 million roughly, surpass-
ing $2.5 billion since the strike
began, analysts estimate. The
average full-time worker will
have missed take-home pay of
about $6,000.
The strike also has dis-
rupted production at GM oper-
ations in Canada and Mexico.
On Friday, GM said it sus-
pended production of the
Chevrolet Blazer SUV in Mex-
ico because of strike-related
parts shortages.trade workers at GM initially
rejected the tentative deal,
even though production work-
ers approved it by a narrow
margin. Negotiators had to go
back to clarify some language
before the deal was fully ap-
proved.
Heading into contract talks,
the UAW leadership was al-
ready mired in a corruption
scandal that was eroding con-
fidence from some members.
Workers could also be upset
the union was unable to per-
suade GM to relocate produc-
tion to the U.S. from Mexico,
said Arthur Wheaton, a pro-
fessor of labor studies at Cor-
nell University.
In the days before the ten-
tative deal was reached, UAW
leaders publicly slammed GM,
claiming the company was re-
sistant to shifting more pro-
duction to the U.S. from for-
eign countries.
“It’s not a slam dunk,” Mr.
Wheaton said of ratification.
Many workers are still on
the fence, saying they will fo-
cus their attention on plant in-
vestments and job security
when they cast their votes.Still, Wall Street analysts
said the terms of the deal
shouldn’t significantly change
GM’s financial outlook. RBC
Capital pegged the cost in-
crease from the contract at
around $100 million annually,
along with a nearly $500 mil-
lion outlay for the signing bo-
nus.
“The financial implications
of the deal don’t look tooonerous for GM,” RBC Capital
analyst Joseph Spak wrote in
an investor note Friday.
Moody’s Investors Service said
the contract should allow GM
to shift more of its production
to trucks and sport-utility ve-
hicles, which carry healthy
profit margins.
Ratification isn’t assured,
analysts said. In 2015, skilledGM will proceed
with plans to close a
major assembly
plant in Ohio.UAW Local 1112 President Tim O’Hara, left, spoke with union members earlier this past week.REBECCA COOK/REUTERSEurope, the company is tweak-
ing the recipe for the U.S.
launch to make it taste more
like original Coke, he said.
In January Coke spent $5.
billion to buy British coffee-
shop chain Costa Coffee.
Coke also is eyeing the
competitive seltzer market.
The Atlanta-based company inwhat needs to be done to help
people moderate their sugar,”
Mr. Quincey said Friday in an
interview. Young adults who
previously didn’t drink soda
are now starting to do so, he
said, because of new offerings
such as Coke Zero Sugar,
which tastes more like original
Coca-Cola than Diet Coke
does.
The energy and coffee
drinks are also available in
sugarless versions.
Coke cleared a legal hurdle
earlier this year with Monster
Beverage Corp. to launch its
new energy drink in the U.S.
Monster, which counts Coca-
Cola as a distribution partner
and a significant shareholder,
had sought to block the sale of
Coke’s energy drink, citing a
noncompete agreement.
Mr. Quincey said he hopes
Coca-Cola Energy will appeal
to people who don’t currently
buy energy drinks: “People
who perhaps didn’t come into
the category because of the
flavor profile that tends to be
pretty strong.... It’s an easier
way into the category.”
After launching the drink in2017 bought a sparkling min-
eral water from Mexico called
Topo Chico.
Coca-Cola on Friday re-
ported higher quarterly profit
and sales, extending a recent
streak of growth after several
years of sluggish demand for
sugary drinks.
Organic revenue, a measure
of sales that excludes currency
swings, acquisitions and dives-
titures, increased 5% from the
same time a year ago. By that
measure, the company now
forecasts at least 5% growth
for the full year.
Coke reported a profit of
$2.59 billion, up from $1.
billion a year ago. Net revenue
rose about 8% to $9.5 billion.
Global unit case volume
grew 2% in the quarter. In
North America, unit case vol-
ume rose 1%, driven by a 3%
increase in Coca-Cola and dou-
ble-digit growth in Coke Zero
Sugar.
Sales of water, enhanced
water and sports drinks grew
2% in the quarter. Tea and cof-
fee volume grew 4%.
—Patrick Thomas
contributed to this article.Coca-Cola Co.’scarbonated
soft drinks are making a
comeback, especially with
younger drinkers.
The beverage giant over the
past few years has expanded
into coffee, tea, dairy and wa-
ter as consumers shifted away
from sugary sodas. But in the
latest quarter, CEO James
Quincey said, the company’s
sales rose in large part thanks
to variations on its namesake
cola—including some that con-
tain less sugar.
A diet version called Coke
Zero Sugar has grown 14% by
volume globally so far this
year, Mr. Quincey said. And
unit sales of the company’s 7.
oz “mini cans” have increased
15% this year in the U.S. Mean-
while, the company is rolling
out a coffee-flavored variant
called Coca-Cola Plus Coffee
and a new energy drink called
Coca-Cola Energy, available in
more than 25 countries and
expected to launch in the U.S.
in January.
“It’s a reflection of how
we’ve adapted our strategy toBYJENNIFERMALONEYSoda Comeback Lifts Sales at Coke
DrinkUp
Coca-Cola’s organic revenue,
change from previous year*Source: the company*Excludes currency fluctuations1002468%2015 ’16 ’17 ’18 ’3Q 2019
+5%Mark Hurd, who served as
chief executive of three U.S.
tech companies including soft-
ware-giantOracle Corp., died
Friday.
Mr. Hurd, who was 62 years
old, made his name as a
strong-willed leader who
helped revive the fortunes of
two companies, including
Hewlett Packard, where he
was CEO in the last decade.
But some of his other moves
courted controversy, and he
was pushed out of H-P after a
company investigation found
misconduct.
A college tennis player at
Baylor University, Mr. Hurd
cut his management teeth in
the sales and marketing ranks
at NCR Corp., previously
known as National Cash Regis-
ter Co. He was named presi-
dent in 2001 and CEO two
years later. At the time, NCR
was struggling, coming off a
year when it posted a loss of
$220 million. He quickly
moved to expand NCR’s reach
and cut costs.
Mr. Hurd said in an inter-
view he had to act quickly.
“Being a CEO is like being a
product: If you get out of the
gates poorly, it’s hard to re-
cover,” he said. “I’m only as
popular as my company’s last
quarterly results.”
He left to lead much larger
H-P in 2005. Four months af-
ter he joined H-P, he reorga-
nized the company and
pledged to eliminate about
10% of its global workforce.
Under Mr. Hurd, H-P over-
took Dell as the world’s largest
maker of PCs in 2006 by units.
That year, H-P also passedIn-
ternational Business Ma-
chines Corp.to become, at the
time, the world’s largest tech-
nology company by revenue.
But Mr. Hurd was out the
door as CEO in 2010 amid
claims of misconduct. The
computer maker’s board inves-
tigated his relationship with a
female contractor. Though the
board found Mr. Hurd didn’t
violate company’s policy re-
garding sexual-harassment, it
found he violated company
standards by submitting inac-
curate expense reports to con-
ceal the relationship.
Mr. Hurd said at the time
that there were “instances in
which I did not live up to the
standards and principles of
trust, respect and integrity”
that he had espoused. A
spokesman for Mr. Hurd said
later that there was nothing
untoward or improper about
Mr. Hurd’s relationship.
He quickly re-emerged at
database giant Oracle Corp.,
hired by the company’s co-
founder Larry Ellison as co-
president in 2010.
When Mr. Ellison became
executive chairman, Mr. Hurd
became CEO in 2014 alongside
Safra Catz. His death leaves
Ms. Catz as Oracle’s sole CEO.
Mr. Hurd oversaw Oracle’s
sales efforts at a time busi-
nesses were changing their
spending habits and shifting
more data storage to cloud-
computing—a booming field in
which Oracle had fallen behind
rivals. Mr. Hurd boosted the
sales staff in an effort to catch
up withAmazon.com Inc.and
Microsoft Corp., which domi-
nate market.
Mr. Hurd helped to push Or-
acle to more aggressively pur-
sue cloud-computing deals by
adding data centers, focusing
research spending on the new
market and buying companies
that could improve its offer-
ing.
On Sept. 11, Oracle said Mr.
Hurd was taking medical
leave. Oracle didn’t disclose
Mr. Hurd’s cause of death and
didn’t respond to a request for
comment.
Mr. Hurd was born in New
York City in 1957 and married
his wife Paula, who also
worked at NCR, in 1990. They
have two daughters.BYROBERTWALL
ANDASAFITCH
Oracle Co-CEO
Mark Hurd
Diesat
United Auto Workers lead-
ers, who earlier this past week
voted to extend a more than
monthlong strike atGeneral
MotorsCo., now face a critical
task: selling a new labor deal
to rank-and-file members with
high expectations.
The proposed contract
struck by UAW and GM negoti-
ators on Wednesday includes
some significant gains, includ-
ing better wages, longer-term
job security for temporary
workers and a record $11,
signing bonus if the deal is
ratified.
But GM will proceed with
closing three now-idled U.S.
plants, including a major as-
sembly operation in Lords-
town, Ohio, and it made no
commitment to relocate Mex-
ico production to the U.S.—a
change the UAW had pressed
for during talks.
During a meeting in Detroit
on Thursday, nearly 200
union-hall leaders from across
the country spent six hours
studying the details of the 351-
page agreement, according to
people who attended the
meeting.
Many of the local union of-
ficials were upset the UAW
couldn’t prevent the closure of
the Lordstown plant, and
some were concerned the
$7.7 billion in new investment
GM committed to U.S. facto-
ries would fall short in secur-
ing future work, these people
said. There also was much dis-
cussion about whether the
agreement provided enough
safeguards for temporary
workers, they said.
The attention to detail in
the six-hour meeting under-
scored the tough sell that lies
ahead for factory-level union
officials in pitching the agree-
ment to the UAW’s more than
46,000 GM workers. Voting on
the new four-year labor pact
begins Saturday at dozens of
GM facilities and is expected
to wrap up about a week later.
A majority must approve the
dealforittogointoeffect.
With the nationwide strike
BYMIKECOLIAS
ANDNORANAUGHTON
Union Faces Tough Sell on GM Deal
with the matter have said.
The News Corp arrange-
ment would allow headlines
from properties in its Dow
Jones unit, including the Jour-
nal, Barron’s, MarketWatch,
Financial News and Mansion
Global, as well as the New
York Post, to appear in the
Facebook news section, linking
to the publications’ sites.
For nonsubscribers, links to
Journal stories that are behind
the site’s paywall would trig-
ger a prompt for the reader to
sign up.
Certain headlines appearing
in Facebook’s news section
will be curated by editors,
while others will be selected
by the company’s algorithm,
people familiar with the mat-
ter said. The “Top News” sec-
tion will feature about 10
headlines selected by human
editors. Subsections such as
sports or entertainment and a
“suggested for you” section
will be selected by algorithm.
The feed won’t include any ad-
vertising, the people said.
Themovetopayfornews
comes as the big tech plat-
forms have come under grow-
ing legal and regulatory scru-
tiny.AlphabetInc.’s Google
has resisted paying publishers
but recently announced
changes to how it ranks sto-
ries on its news page to better
promote original content, an-
other long-running complaint
from publishers.
News Corp Executive Chair-
man Rupert Murdoch and
BuzzFeed Chief Executive Jo-
nah Peretti have both called
on Facebook and Google to
pay organizations that provide
quality news.
“Facebook deserves credit
for recognizing the principle
of journalistic provenance,”
News Corp Chief Executive
Robert Thomson said Friday.
“Mark Zuckerberg seems per-
sonally and professionally
committed to ensuring that
high-quality journalism has a
viable, valued future.”News Corpreached a deal
to letFacebookInc. feature
headlines from The Wall
Street Journal and other Dow
Jones media properties, as
well as the New York Post, in
the social-media giant’s news
section, the companies said.
Other publications that
have agreed to participate in-
clude the Washington Post,
BuzzFeed News and Business
Insider, people familiar with
the matter said. The New York
Times has been in talks with
Facebook, but a spokeswoman
for the paper declined to com-
ment on whether it had
reached a deal.
The deal, for which News
Corp will be paid a licensing
fee, presented some obstacles
due to the Journal’s digital
subscription business model,
people familiar with the mat-
ter said. Now that the issue
has been settled, the way is
cleared for the product to
launch as early as the end of
the month. Financial terms
weren’t disclosed.
The licensing fees Face-
book is offering range from
the hundreds of thousands of
dollars per year for smaller
publishers to a few million
for bigger ones, and substan-
tially higher than that for the
very largest outlets, accord-
ing to people familiar with
the matter.
“People want to see high-
quality news on Facebook,”
said Mark Zuckerberg, the
company’s chief executive.
“I’m excited we’ll have the op-
portunity to include award-
winning journalism from The
Wall Street Journal [and other
U.S. News Corp properties] in
our news tab.”
Facebook has sought to in-
clude news from about 200
different publications, al-
though it is offering to pay
only about a quarter of the
news organizations that will
be involved, people familiarBYLUKASI.ALPERTJournal Publisher
Reaches Deal to Put
News on Facebook