<p>Billionaire investor Warren Buffett will not stand for re-election to The Coca-Cola Co.'s board of directors, the world's biggest soft drink company said Tuesday.</p><p>Buffett, who has been on the board since 1989 and is one of the company's biggest shareholders, told Coke he made his decision because of increased demands on his time resulting from acquisitions by his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.</p><p>He said Berkshire Hathaway intends to retain its holdings of Coca-Cola stock, which regulatory filings show amounted to more than 200 million shares, or about 8.3 percent of the company's outstanding shares, as of last year. The shares currently would be worth more than $8 billion.</p><p>Some shareholders have raised questions about Buffett sitting on the Coke board while some of the companies he owns do business with Coke.</p><p>The Atlanta-based company also said Tuesday that J. Pedro Reinhard has informed the company that he does not intend to seek another term on the board at the company's annual meeting April 19. Reinhard has been on the Coke board since 2003.</p><p>The company said it has no immediate plans to fill the two vacated board seats.</p><p>Coca-Cola shares rose 55 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $41.29 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange, where they have traded in a 52-week range of $39.36 to $45.26.</p><p>In 2003, McLane Co., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, paid Coke $103.9 million for fountain syrup and other products. Also in 2003, Coke gave McLane $11 million in agency commissions related to the sale of the company's products to customers, regulatory filings show.</p><p>Also, fast-food and ice cream chain Dairy Queen, another company Buffett owns, and its subsidiaries, paid Coke $2.2 million for fountain syrup and other products in 2003. Coke and its subsidiaries that year gave Dairy Queen and its subsidiaries $688,000 for promotional and marketing incentives for corporate and franchise stores.</p><p>Coke paid The Washington Post Co., in which Buffett holds a significant stake, $400,000 in 2003 for advertising fees.</p><p>Also Tuesday, Coca-Cola said it has been informed that several of its bottlers representing roughly 10 percent of its U.S. volume are suing to try to block a new delivery system that its largest bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises, wants to test for the Powerade sports drink.</p><p>A major Coca-Cola customer, which wasn't identified, approached the company and its bottlers last summer, saying it wanted to increase availability of Powerade in its stores and grow the brand faster by delivering the product to its stores through its own warehouses rather than through the bottler system.</p><p>The test of the proposal is being conducted only in CCE's territory, but some other bottlers have objected, Coke said.</p><p>"We are extremely disappointed that a few individuals are attempting to hijack those discussions," said Don Knauss, president of Coca-Cola North America.</p><p>The suit was filed by a group of roughly 50 Coca-Cola bottlers in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Mo. The bottlers said they will seek a preliminary injunction to stop CCE's Powerade warehouse delivery plans until the suit is resolved. A statement from the group also said that a similar suit is expected to be filed Tuesday in Jefferson County Circuit Court in Birmingham, Ala., by an additional group of bottlers bringing the total number of bottlers involved to nearly 60.</p><p>The bottlers argue that an agreement negotiated in 1994 between the bottlers and the company prohibits warehouse delivery of Powerade to major retailers.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cdc640)</p>
