Here we have Coca-Cola's balance sheet from their latest annual report, which is for the financial year ended 31st of December 2023.

Before we look at the contents in detail, let's take note of a few important things.

Firstly, we can see that two years of data are given the most recent year ended, 31st of December 2023, and the prior year 2022. In the column in the far right, this enables us to see how things have changed from one year to the next.

Also, note the currency, which is US dollars, as well as the unit of measurement up at the top, which is millions.

Now we have the top half of the balance sheet showing the total assets that Coca-Cola has and the bottom half of the balance sheet that shows where Coca-Cola got the money from to invest in all of those assets. I.e., the liabilities and equity. As this is a balance sheet, the total assets must equal the total liabilities and equity, and we can see that it does. Coca-Cola has total assets of $97.7 billion that are funded by liabilities and equity of the same amount.

As we can see, the assets are separated into current or short term assets with non-current assets appearing below that. The same is true of liabilities.

There are lots of items on this balance sheet that you should not expect yourself to understand at this stage, but let's pick out a few key items. Firstly, we see that Coca-Cola has $9.4 billion of cash as at 31st of December, 2023.

They have also taken some of their excess cash and invested this in short term investments. Also in current assets, they have trade accounts receivable that represent customers that Coca-Cola have sold products to say wholesalers and distributors or retailers themselves that have not yet paid and so owe Coca-Cola this money. They also have inventories, which represents the raw materials, ingredients for their drinks, packaging materials, and finished drinks ready to be sold. These items are all under current assets as Coca-Cola expects to get the benefit from these within the next 12 months.

Moving on to non-current assets below this we see that Coca-Cola has around $9 billion of property, plant and equipment. This represents the land buildings, machinery and equipment that Coca-Cola uses to make its products and run its business. Moving on to the liabilities and equity side of the balance sheet.

Under current liabilities, accounts payable and accrued expenses include money that Coca-Cola owes its suppliers for raw materials they have bought but not yet paid for. For example, water ingredients, energy and packaging. These are due to be paid within the next 12 months and so are classified as current Coca-Cola also owes taxes and has some short-term debt. Underneath current liabilities, we can see that Coca-Cola has $35.5 billion of long-term debt money that it owes to banks and bond investors for money Coca-Cola has borrowed. This does not need to be repaid within the next 12 months from the balance sheet date, and so is classified as non-current.

Without getting bogged down in the detail of the equity section, we can see that shareholders have effectively invested $25.9 billion in Coca-Cola, or put another way that $25.9 billion of Coca-Cola's assets belongs to the shareholders of the Coca-Cola company. This is made up of money. Investors gave Coca-Cola when Coca-Cola issued new shares to the market, shown by the common stock and capital surplus and profits that Coca-Cola has made over the years that have been kept inside the business and reinvested rather than being paid out to shareholders as dividends. This is reflected in the reinvested earnings line, also called retained earnings.

So even though you might not understand every line item on the balance sheet at this stage, you should hopefully have a good idea of what the balance sheet shows us and some of the key elements. It takes a snapshot as at the financial year end, which in this case for Coca-Cola is 31st of December 2023, and shows us that Coca-Cola had $97.7 billion of assets as at that date, and these assets have been funded with liabilities and equity totaling that amount.