Buffett says abstained from voting on Coca-Cola's compensation plan - CNBC

(Reuters) - Warren Buffett, chairman of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway (NYS:BRK.A), on Wednesday said he thinks Coca-Cola's (NYS:KO) controversial equity compensation plan was excessive, but that Berkshire Hathaway abstained in the shareholders vote.

Earlier on Wednesday, Coca-Cola said 83 percent of shareholders approved the plan. Critics, most notably activist investor David Winters, said the plan would dilute the holdings of current shareholders too much.

As of December 31, Berkshire owned 400 million shares of the company, just over 9 percent of the shares outstanding.

Buffett, in an interview with CNBC, said he and partner Charlie Munger did not want to vote against the plan because he didn't want to show disapproval of management, and said he has enormous respect for Coca-Cola's chief executive, Muhtar Kent.

Buffett said he has no intention of selling any Coca-Cola shares.

Buffett acknowledged that activist investors are getting stronger and said, "CEOs are terrified" of them.

He denied he had "soured" on his enormous investment in IBM (NYS:IBM), and said Berkshire bought some more shares this year, although the purchases didn't come after IBM's most recent earnings report. He said he would not "rule out" future IBM stocks buys.

Buffett was in New York with an anonymous bidder who paid $1,000,100 (596,007.15 pounds) to win last year's "Power Lunch" auction benefiting San Francisco's Glide Foundation.

(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Leslie Adler)