Washington: US soft drink giant Coca-Cola on July 14 said that it will begin counting compensation stock options granted to employees, meeting a key demand by reformers amid a wave of corporate accounting scandals.

Beginning in October, the fair-market value of stock options handed out to company executives and other employees will be tallied as part of their compensation, the company said in a statement. Expected cost of the change would be about one cent per share this year, the company said.

Unlike salaries and benefits such as health insurance, companies usually do not count as expenses stock options given to employees.

"Management has concluded that stock options are a form of employee compensation expense and therefore it is appropriate that these costs be reflected in our financial results. I am pleased that our company's Board of Directors agrees," Coca- Cola chairman and chief executive Doug Daft said.

"Our management's determination to change to the preferred method of accounting for employee stock options ensures that our earnings will more clearly reflect economic reality when all compensation costs are recorded in the financial statements," he said.

The decision by the Atlanta, Georgia-based company, which ranks 99th on the Fortune 500 list of top US companies, is likely to give a boost to reformers amid controversies over corporate corruption that have shattered investor confidence in Wall Street and put the administration of President George W Bush, a former oil executive, on the defensive.

Bush last week proposed that stock markets require listed companies to receive shareholders' approval for all stock option plans in a package of measures to crack down on corporate crime. But other lawmakers in the US Congress have blocked a proposal by Senator John Mc Cain of Arizona to mandate that stock options be counted as compensation.