Page 3 - Florida Sentinel 3-16-18

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Coca-Cola Beverages Florida COO Files Lawsuit Days After Being Fired
Reginald Goins, President and COO at Coca Cola Beverage Florida was fired on March 6th. Goins’ depar- ture was announced internally in December. According to reports, the company was entering a new phase of its corporate life.
Days after his termination, he filed a lawsuit in Hills- borough County against Troy Taylor and the company. Goins is alleging that he is owed at least $42.8 million.
In a 2016 interview, Taylor the chair and CEO of Coca-Cola Beverages Florida said owning a Coca-Cola Bottling franchise wasn’t an everyday transaction — “rarer than the sale of a major sports franchise.”
Less than four years ago, Taylor acquired the rights to the sales, manufacturing and distribution of Coke products for most of Florida, and founded Coca-Cola Beverages Florida, where he’s now chairman and CEO.
During the acquisition of the franchise, Taylor was paired-up with Goins, an 18-plus year veteran of the Coca-Cola system.
Goins became Coca-Cola Beverages Florida’s presi- dent and COO.
One of the largest concentrations of Coca-Cola em- ployees outside of Atlanta is in Tampa Bay.
Taylor’s ambition to become a Coke bottler took 20 years of patience.
Taylor and Goins met 7 years ago. Goins says that when he expressed an interest in becoming a bottler, he was told, “‘You can do it, but you need somebody with some money.’ I was matched with Troy.”
They say they hit it off immediately, Goins said.
Troy Taylor, left, and Reginald Goins in a 2016 interview.
The two began to put together a management and op- erations plan for a new franchise bottler.
In the course of pursuing a franchise, Taylor and Goins met numerous times with groups of Coca-Cola ex- ecutives to cement relationships and build confidence in their ability to operate and grow a bottler and market the company’s numerous products.
In February 2014, the company announced it would sell the franchise territory in central Florida to Taylor. The deal closed in May 2015, and Coca-Cola Beverages Florida began operations that month.
In April of 2016, Coca-Cola Beverages Florida ac- quired four production facilities in Florida — bottling plants in Hollywood, Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa.
By the end of 2017, the franchise controlled the pro-
duction, sales and distribution of Coca-Cola products — more than 750 beverages — in all of Florida east and south of the Tallahassee area. The company grossed more than $1 billion in revenue and employs more than 5,000 workers at 16 sales and distribution centers and four bottling plants throughout the state — making it the fifth-largest independent U. S. bottler and the third- largest privately held bottler in the U. S. That level of rev- enue will place it among the top 55 largest privately owned firms in Florida.
Goins, a Chicago native with a finance degree from Morehouse and an MBA from Prairie View A&M, worked at Coke for 12 years in various finance, planning, cus- tomer management and marketing roles before becom- ing vice president for sales operations in Ohio and Kentucky, where he managed all sales and operations for the region.
Taylor grew up in Lafayette, La., and earned a fi- nance and business law degree from Marshall University. He had worked in finance for a number of banks. His first taste of the Coke system, he says, was working on deals involving independent bottlers who later sold their fran- chises to Coca-Cola Enterprises.
After leaving banking, Taylor founded a private in- vestment and advisory firm in Houston and had worked as a consultant to Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Enterprises just before it sold its North America operations to Coca- Cola in 2010.
The Sentinel contacted the Coca-Cola company, but had not received a response at press time.
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