Coke CEO Hospitalized for Tumor Treatment

Coca-Cola Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Roberto Goizueta was hospitalized for a small malignant lung tumor, the company said Monday.

Goizueta, 65, felt unusually tired after a recent business trip to Europe and checked into Emory University hospital in Atlanta for tests that revealed the tumor, the company said. Goizueta is expected to receive radiation treatment and will be back at his desk next week, the company said.

Goizueta’s illness is expected to have little impact on the company’s business, analysts said. Coke said the illness isn’t serious enough to promote Coca-Cola President and Chief Operating Officer Douglas Ivester to interim chief executive.

“They have a very deep management bench across the board,” Sanford Bernstein & Co. analyst Bill Pecoriello said.

Shares of the Atlanta-based company dropped 75 cents to close at $59.13 on the New York Stock Exchange. The announcement was made after U.S. trading in Coke stock had closed.

Goizueta, a native of Cuba, was named CEO of the Atlanta-based company in 1981. Under his leadership, the company’s stock market value increased to more than $146 billion from $5 billion. Goizueta is known as a mild-mannered and demanding executive. He has smoked cigarettes for years.

“The doctors are optimistic,” said Randy Donaldson. “We expect Roberto to be back at his desk next week.”

A Yale University graduate, Goizueta joined the beverage company after he read a newspaper advertisement for a bilingual chemist in 1954 in Cuba. He escaped Castro-led Cuba in 1960.

Goizueta formed ties with Coke’s longtime leader Robert Woodruff and was named vice chairman in 1979 and president in May 1980. Ten months later, Goizueta was tapped to run the beverage company.

In April 1994, Coca-Cola’s board asked Goizueta to stay indefinitely, past the company’s usual retirement age of 65.