Who owns Coca-Cola?

Because the Coca-Cola Company is a publicly traded company with shares available through the New York Stock Exchange, no one person or organization owns the company; the shareholders do. As of December 2014, institutional holdings make up 61.7 percent of all shareholders in Coca-Cola stock.

The top five institutional holders of Coca-Cola stock include Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Vanguard Group Inc., State Street Corp., Capital World Investors and FMR LLC.

Coca-Cola began as a patented medicine when invented by Colonel John Pemberton in the mid-1880's. It eventually gained favor as a soda fountain beverage that was soon being bottled for sale by the 1890's. The company first went public in 1919.