Earnings call transcript: Royal Unibrew Q1 2025 results miss expectations

Royal Unibrew reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2025, revealing earnings per share (EPS) of $2.50, falling short of the forecasted $2.76. The company’s revenue also missed expectations, coming in at 3.21 billion USD compared to the anticipated 3.38 billion USD. Following the announcement, Royal Unibrew’s stock price decreased by 2.3% in after-hours trading, closing at $531, down from its last close of $544. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company’s PEG ratio of 0.56 suggests the stock may be undervalued relative to its growth potential, despite the recent earnings miss.

Key Takeaways

• Royal Unibrew’s Q1 2025 EPS and revenue missed analyst forecasts.
• The company’s stock price declined 2.3% in after-hours trading.
• EBIT growth was recorded at 4%, with a 25% increase in EPS year-over-year.
• The company declared a dividend of DKK 15 per share.
• Royal Unibrew is expanding its product portfolio and operational capabilities.

Company Performance

Royal Unibrew demonstrated a mixed performance in Q1 2025. The company achieved a 4% growth in EBIT and a 25% increase in EPS compared to the previous year. While results fell short of analyst expectations, InvestingPro data shows the company maintains strong profitability with a 42.5% gross margin and 24% return on equity. The company’s strategic acquisitions and product innovations, such as the GIG brand in the Netherlands and the Minto brand in Finland, highlight its focus on growth and diversification amidst challenging market conditions. InvestingPro subscribers have access to 12 additional key insights about Royal Unibrew’s financial health and growth prospects.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 3.21 billion USD, below the forecast of 3.38 billion USD.
• Earnings per share: $2.50, missing the forecast of $2.76.
• Gross profit increased by DKK 42 million to DKK 1,284 million.
• Gross profit margin rose by 1.2 percentage points to 40%.
• Free cash flow was negative at -DKK 543 million, compared to -DKK 480 million in Q1 2024.
• Dividend declared: DKK 15 per share.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Royal Unibrew’s Q1 2025 earnings per share of $2.50 were below the forecasted $2.76, resulting in a negative surprise of approximately 9.4%. This miss, along with the revenue shortfall, suggests a challenging start to the year for the company. The magnitude of this miss is notable compared to previous quarters, where the company often met or exceeded expectations.

Market Reaction

Following the release of the earnings report, Royal Unibrew’s stock declined by 2.3% in after-hours trading. The stock’s performance remains within its 52-week range of $466 to $595. This decline reflects investor concerns over the earnings miss and its potential impact on future performance. According to InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock appears undervalued at current levels, with a beta of 0.49 indicating lower volatility compared to the market. The company’s strong Altman Z-Score of 5.78 suggests solid financial health despite short-term challenges. For detailed valuation metrics and comprehensive analysis, investors can access the exclusive Pro Research Report, available for over 1,400 stocks on InvestingPro.

Outlook & Guidance

Royal Unibrew maintains a positive outlook, expecting full-year net revenue growth of 5-7% and EBIT growth between 7-13%. The company projects an EBIT range of DKK 2,100-2,225 million and plans to invest 7% of net revenue in capital expenditures. The effective tax rate is expected to be around 22%, with a long-term target of 6-8% organic EBIT growth.

Executive Commentary

CEO Lars Jensen emphasized the company’s operational improvements, stating, "We continue to see positive developments in our EBIT margin underpinned by operational improvements." CFO Lars Westergaard highlighted the focus on efficiency, noting, "Operational efficiency is high on our agenda for this year." These statements underscore Royal Unibrew’s commitment to enhancing profitability and operational performance.

Risks and Challenges

• Market conditions: Consumer sentiment is becoming more cautious, which could impact sales.
• Supply chain disruptions: Potential bottlenecks could affect production and distribution.
• Competition: Increased competition in key markets may pressure margins.
• Economic factors: Macroeconomic pressures, such as inflation, could impact costs.
• Regulatory changes: New regulations in key markets could affect operations.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the impact of the Finnish strike and the timing of Easter on the company’s performance. Management also addressed strategies for expanding in the Netherlands and Italy and clarified initiatives to improve gross margins and operational efficiency.

Full transcript - Royal Unibrew A/S (RBREW) Q1 2025:

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: Good morning, everyone. My name is Lars Jensen, and I’m the CEO of Royal Unibrew. And with me today is our CFO, Lars Westergaard. I would like to welcome you to this webcast covering our trading statement for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. And after the presentation, we’ll be open on the line for your questions.

First, we will walk you through the business highlights of the quarter, our financial performance and our outlook for the rest of the year. Now please turn to Slide number three. We are pleased to report that our volume and net revenue for the first quarter were on par with Q1 twenty twenty four despite a full week of strike in Finland and the later timing of Easter, which shifted sales into the second quarter. Our Western Europe and International segments continued to perform strongly, maintaining the positive trends and momentum we saw in 2024. On the financial side, we delivered an EBIT growth of 4% and an earnings per share increase of 25%, with an EBIT margin expansion of 0.2 percentage points.

Given this good start to the year, we are reiterating our financial outlook for the full year of 2025. That said, the macroeconomic environment has become more uncertain since we published our annual report just two months ago. Geopolitical tensions, evolving trade policies and changes in consumer sentiments are adding a new layer of complexity, but we are well prepared due to our focus on cost and efficiencies. While Unibrew has limited direct exposure to The U. S.

In terms of imports and exports, we continue to monitor this closely and remain focused on maintaining flexibility and operational resilience. Now please turn to Slide four. Let’s now take a closer look at the performance across our geographical business segments. If we start with Northern Europe, volumes were down by 8%, which is mainly due to the later Easter and the sector wide strike in Finland. Net revenue declined by 6% to GBP 2,041,000,000.000, and overall consumer sentiment remained quite soft and particularly in the on trade channel, which you have heard us talking about for at least one point five years.

A clear assessment is that we are gaining slightly market share in Northern European segment as a whole, and that is measured on sales out, so not our sales in, but measured on sales out in Q1. And if we look at March and April together, to neutralize the Easter shifts between the quarters and shipping difference in Finland from the strike, we are right where we should be with growth on both top line and gross margin. In percentage, we grow more on gross margin than we do on revenue, which is due to the efficiency agenda and our price mix management. If we dive a bit more into the performance in some of the countries, the strike in Finland meant that production and logistics operation at our brewery were stopped during the March. The sectorial strike was preannounced but still had a significant impact both on sales and production in Q1.

We see that sales has recovered in April, but there has been an extra cost related to the production stop in Q1, which is always the case when we have strikes that last as long as a full week. The consumer sentiment in Finland remains quite challenged, impacting both on and off trade. On the positive side, we took over the local portfolio of alcohol brands from Panoriga, which is mainly the Minto brand at the March. It is still very early days, but I would say so far, the integration is going as planned and really well done both by the receiving organization and the Finnish organization. Results in Denmark were impacted by Easter timing and somewhat lower consumer sentiment.

We continue to perform well on market shares in Denmark, which in the first quarter is driven by soft drinks with both Pepsi and Faxai Condi. It’s driven by beer with Royal and energy drinks with Faxai Condi Booster. In Norway, the activity levels were as expected. We finalized the SAP integration in the first quarter, and we are now operating as planned. As you may have noticed, we announced the closure of the Borg Brewery in Sarsborg by the end of twenty twenty five.

This is not expected to impact the P and L for 2025 and is a part of the optimization of our production setup in Norway that was initiated with the closure of Creisensat a couple of years ago. In Western Europe, volumes grew by 15%, driven by the new activities in Belux and continued strong growth in Italy and France. Net revenue increased by 14% to $828,000,000. The Netherlands was flat compared to last year as the timing of Easter also in The Netherlands had a negative impact. In The Netherlands, we start to see the positive effects of our commercial agenda that was set after the summer last year on the back of the excise increase, which came in on the 01/01/2024.

The field sales force organization we have built in off trade is lifting sales and the quality of in store execution. We have also acquired GIG, a brand that was born as a hard seltzer, but by now is also in more traditional ready to drink variants. This is our first entry into the alcohol categories in The Netherlands. The integration of Belux is progressing as planned and sales the same, also in accordance with our expectations. In Italy, we see a shift towards branded business, so we have less private label and we have more Cheddar Strong Ale and Faxai.

And the LemonSolaAmongSola range is also performing very well in an otherwise flat market. France is continuously delivering an overall share gain in a total soft drink market as we are well positioned in growth categories with both RUNA and Crazy Tiger, and we are within that focusing on managing the SKU assortment towards a higher net revenue on a per data basis, which supports the profitability enhancement in Western Europe. Finally, in our International segment, we saw the strong trends from 2024 continue into ’twenty five. International delivered a 10% volume growth and a 9% revenue growth, with Africa continuing to outperform in the segment with a very strong growth. Overall, our sales outgrowth continued to be high single digits, and sales out is a number which is counted from our customers and out into the market, so our partners in the individual markets and out into the market.

And now I will hand over to Lars, who will get into the details around the financial numbers.

Lars Westergaard, CFO, Royal Unibrew: Thank you, Lars, and good morning to all of you. Please turn to Slide number five. I will walk you through the financial highlights for the quarter. First, as a reminder, Q1 is seasonally a small quarter for us, usually contributing around 10% of our full year earnings and Easter moving into Q2 this year makes growth rates slightly difficult to interpret, we are in line with our internal plans. If we look at gross profit, it increased by 42,000,000 to CHF 1,284,000,000.000 in Q1 twenty twenty five, driven by better margin management, country mix and efficiency improvements.

The gross profit margin increased by 1.2 percentage points to 40 percentage. EBIT came out at $219,000,000, corresponding to a growth of 4%, and the EBIT margin expanded by 0.2 percentage points to 6.8. As we said when we released the annual report, operational efficiency is high on our agenda for this year, and we continue to optimize and manage our cost base tightly. This said, we continue to invest in sales and marketing to support our future growth. Net financial expenses for Q1 declined to million due to lower net interest bearing debt and lower interest rates.

Tax expenses were CHF37 million with an effective tax rate at the expected level of around 22%. As expected, Q1 was cash flow negative. This is normally in our industry as we build inventory for the peak season in the next quarters. Free cash flow was minus $543,000,000 compared to minus DKK $480,000,000 last year. The higher outflow reflects both higher investments and higher inventory levels ahead of the Easter sales, which, as you know, falls into Q2 this year.

Overall, a good and disciplined start to the year, in line with our expectations. I will also mention that yesterday, we had our ordinary AGM, and it was decided to pay out a dividend of DKK 15 per share. This means a cash outflow of around DKK $750,000,000 in Q2. Please turn to Slide six. The financial outlook for 2025, as stated in the annual report for 2024, is reiterated.

We expect net revenue growth in the range of 5% to 7%, including the contributions from the new activities in Benelux and the Minto transaction in Finland. EBIT growth is expected in the range of 7% to 13%, meaning that the reported EBIT is expected to be in the range of CHF 2,100,000.0 to CHF 2,225,000.000. I would like to emphasize that our financial guidance is based on absolute EBIT in Danish kroner, which means that any impact from foreign any impact from currency translation is included in the guidance, and we do not have a separate special items line in our report. Net financial expenses are anticipated to be around DKK $250,000,000, excluding currency related losses or gains. The effective tax rate is expected to be around 22%.

CapEx for 2025 is projected to be around 7% of net revenue. Please note that in our definition of CapEx includes repayment on leasing facilities, which represents around 1% of net revenue. Our main assumption includes stable demand in our markets and no major channel mix changes. As already mentioned, the level of uncertainty around macroeconomic developments is higher than only a couple of months ago, and we monitor activity levels closely across our markets. And the focus on efficiency remains very high on the agenda, so we can adjust when necessary.

And with that, I’ll turn the word back to you, Lars.

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: Thank you, Lars. And now please turn to Slide number seven. To summarize 2025 has started as expected despite facing some short term headwinds from the Sicterra strike in Finland and the later Easter timing. We continue to see positive developments in our EBIT margin underpinned by operational improvements, and we maintain committed to invest in our strong brands the strong brand portfolio that we have and in the growth particulars growth categories, in particular. We reiterate our full year outlook for 2025 despite an increasing uncertain macroeconomic environment.

Our financial performance across the group has been strong, and we are well positioned to deliver on our ambitious target for the year. We are now ready to answer your questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now take our first question from the line of Richard Wissergund from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead, Richard.

Richard Wissergund, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Yeah, good morning all. Thanks for the questions. Let me ask three questions, please. First of all, on The Nordics, could you comment perhaps a little bit on the competitive activity in the soft drinks segment? I have the impression it’s getting a little bit more competitive.

You’re still gaining market share, you say, so maybe some background on that. Second question is on The Netherlands. Lars, you mentioned a better commercial execution. So what are the two, three main initiatives that you carry out to improve the performance in The Netherlands? And then the last question is about maybe the gross margin performance in 2025.

Obviously, it’s a pretty decent start out to the year with 120 basis points gross margin improvement. You probably are relatively certain about the pricing, about the cost of goods sold trends. So do you expect so what do you expect in terms of gross margin improvement this year? Yes.

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: If I take the two first ones, I think overall, when we look at The Nordics, we are not really detecting a lot of change. The market is, from a volume point of view, when you correct for the Easter in the first quarter, it is, I would say, as expected from a total volume point of view. We continuously see that the no low territory, no low sugar territory is gaining share, and this is what we are benefiting from. So when you look at our portfolio, which is also embedded in the growth category framework that we have, this is where we have a stronger position from a portfolio point of view than competition. And there’s also been a lot of questions the last few weeks in terms of do we see any effects of a reduction of Pepsi sales on the back of consumers, in particular, in Denmark reacting, being anti American in some of their purchases.

We still gained share for Pepsi. Then you can discuss, could we have gained more. But our conclusion is that this is actually not something that we see fully visible. I think what is important in The Nordics, given our wide portfolio, That is that we, on one hand side, make sure that we cater for individualism, that that’s a high focus on single serve smaller containers, where you would see the I would say the from a wealth point of view, from an income point of view, from middle class and upwards, they are not changing their consumption patterns significantly. And then you see the income group that is below that, those are the ones that are harvesting or finding more looking for more opportunities and buying cheaper.

So on one hand side, you need to cater for, call it, the wealthy part of more wealthy part of the society. But on one hand side, you cannot forget about some of our core consumers, and that’s a discussion around more affordability. So you do see a two step approach in terms of how to manage. And that also leads to in some of the countries that you see deeper promotions or you see a higher intensity of promotion and thereby an average pricing on a per liter basis that has been not been trending upwards. And that is also why that we, I will say, one point five year by now or so, is keeping such a high focus on harvesting efficiencies so that we do not lose profitability as we are trying to massage our assortment towards catering for both of these.

And I would say the market share picture is very consistent. So no change in any trends that we have detected. When it comes to The Netherlands, We see, I would say, will highlight three things that I think in particular is helping us. I think what we are super happy about is that we have a Dutch business, which from a revenue point of view, is at the same level as last year, but that is actually negatively impacted by an Easter phasing. So the underlying is our assessment right now is that underlying, we are growing now the business in The Netherlands, which is something that we haven’t seen in that business for many, many, many years.

So that’s a very positive thing for us by now. The three things that I would highlight here is that the field sales organization in off trade is now working. We have proof of concept in terms of delivering value added to the stores, but it also converts into a better sales and quality of sales for ourselves. And we are looking forward to ramp that up over the coming years. It’s still a fairly small organization compared to the big markets in The Nordics.

We are point number two I would raise here is that we are well positioned when it comes to growth categories. So we have acquired a business with a very high focus on healthier proposition, less sugar, and those are also the categories that are driving the business in The Netherlands. So being positioned in the right categories is super important, and that is working well for us. And then I think the third one I would call out is focus. So the conversation that we have had with the Dutch team and the way that they have built the plans on ’25 is to do less is more.

So focus on a few things that matters instead of focus on multiple things where the individual initiatives doesn’t move the needle. And this is I would say, it’s a common thing for us in Royal Unibrew that is to try to emphasize on all of these three. At the end of the day, have a very strong field force, have strong brands in the hands and then ultimately, make sure that you do not get defocused on things that doesn’t really move the needle. So it’s the Royal Unibrew model, I would say, that we start to see working in The Netherlands.

Lars Westergaard, CFO, Royal Unibrew: If we turn to the gross margin questions, there are two elements that I would like to call out. One is, of course, that the growth framework we have is driving our portfolio towards products with better margins. And we are trying to push the higher margin products more. So there’s a mix component in the margin development. And then, of course, there is a substantial effect from efficiencies where we are trying to take complexity out of our production footprint, and that is giving us some savings.

So those are the two things that improves our gross margin in the first quarter.

Philip Spain, Analyst, JPMorgan: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Soren Samso from SEB. Please go ahead, Soren. Saarin, your line is open. Please ask your question.

Soren Samso, Analyst, SEB: Saarin from SEB here. So first, I have a question on Finland and if you can try to give an impact of the Easter impact on the strike in Finland in Q1 and if you expect to regain that fully in Q2, I would say. Then talk about the partnership agreement in Belgium, Luxembourg, that is how is that ramping up in Q1? And also, is the market share on PIPCs developing in The Netherlands? Those are my questions.

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: Yes. So when it comes to Finland, as I said in the comments in the beginning, and that goes for the whole of Nordics, but it also goes for Finland. So when we look at the numbers here, two invoicing days before we close, when you put March and April together, which we always do because of this Easter thing, we are exactly where we want to be, and we are delivering growth in the territory, more on the profitability side than on the top line side because of what Lars also talked about, our relentless focus on efficiencies. So that’s the situation when we look at Finland. And I would say that it is a clear view that when you look at the share of profit pool in Finland, and we are, in particular, strong in above mainstream in Finland, we have no indication that we have had any loss of profitability share of the market.

Belux is ramping up. It’s a bit of a turnaround, and the team has embraced that. And I’ll tell you the customers have embraced our attitudes towards how to win in the market. But this is a it’s a project with a longer time horizon, I would say. The deals with the retailers have been closed kind of like a month or one point five months ago or so, and then that is what we are implementing.

And then I would emphasize that on one of the things that is also working well in Belux is that we are executing the Snacks business as well. So we do all the selling on the beverage side of things, and then we are executing the Snacks for PepsiCo, and that piece is also working well. So that’s where we are on Belux right now. Pepsi shares in The Netherlands is flattish, I would say, at this moment of time, but the quality of sales is better. And remember, in the Dutch market, you have a lot of these buy one, get one for free, which the retailers find as the most effective promotion tool.

But it also it obviously comes at a far lower profitability. So one of the things to work on, and we have been working on in the Dutch market, is to strike the right balance between promotions, the depth of promotions, the number of promotions, the price points on shelf, which we obviously not do decide, but the retailers decide. But to get all of that mix together to drive profitable growth, you can drive an awful lot of growth if you just do these one plus one, but it doesn’t really help anybody at the end of the day. So the trick here is to find the exact model to do so, and we are getting closer, I would say, to a model that is enhancing both.

Soren Samso, Analyst, SEB: Okay. So it seems like you’re focusing more on profitability, which is good. But then in Norway, if you can comment a little bit on your volume development. I know Q1, again, is a small quarter, but still, it would be nice to know how it’s tracking And also the same for profitability, what is happening there and what should we expect for the rest of the year?

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: Norway is also, when we look at where we our own plan, and remember that we have this SAP implementation that moves a bit of volume because you push volume in before that you have a card over date and you need to catch it up and so on from a stability point of view when the system is up and running. So when you compare the plan that we have made and where we are with the Norwegian business, we are on plan. When you look at the market in Norway, it is still, as we have also called out Finland, this is a much larger market for us and with a much higher share in on trade. But the on trade business in Norway is, as we have talked about it the last quarters, is under pressure. The Norwegian kroner is not helping the average Norwegian consumer, and we have seen a slightly further devaluation of the Norwegian kroner over the last month.

So when we look at our performance in market, it is as expected. When you look at our shares, they are as expected. We are gaining in a lot of momentum in the broader RTD hard seltzer categories, And beer is flattish in a slightly declining beer market. And wine in the monopoly is, I would say, closely on par with last year if you take the Easter effect out of that. And then again, it gets a lot of pluses and minuses on it.

And when it comes to the journey towards being on a 10% return on invested capital in Norway, we are on track. And obviously, the closure of Sarpsborg is going to help us on that journey.

Soren Samso, Analyst, SEB: Okay, thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Thomas Lin Peterson from Nordea. Please go ahead, Thomas.

Thomas Lin Peterson, Analyst, Nordea: Hi, everyone. Good morning. A few questions also from my side. So Lars and Lars, could you please comment a little bit on the current trading you’re writing here that you’re seeing increasing macroeconomic uncertainty? And I guess that’s specifically related here to April.

So are you seeing anything in terms of consumer sentiment change in April? That would be first question. Then the second question is about the positive pricemix in Northern Europe. I think I recorded 2.5% pricemix. How much of this is price?

How much is mix? And sort of how can we extrapolate this development to the rest of the year? And then also a question regarding your capacity. I think you are expanding, particularly in Italy. So any comment on that would also be helpful.

Yes.

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: Consumer sentiment, if we start with that one. I think if you look at everything that is published in all our major countries, it points in one direction, and that is the consumers are more concerned. They still have a lot of money to spend, but they don’t spend them because of this uncertainty to the same extent. When we look at beverage in general, it is a very, very resilient category. So if you look at the totality of the categories where we work, beer, soft drink, energy drinks, waters, whatever, you put it all together, the amount of liters that is being sold, it’s the same.

So there’s two things that we are continuously working on irrespective of the consumer sentiment. And that is to be in the categories that grow. That is just probably the most fundamental thing that you need to work on. And then the other one is what I talked about, about this mix between having focus on affordability. So this is about container sizes at the right prices, the right promotion pressure, the right promotion intensity so that you make sure that you cater for the consumers that are very focused on that without diluting your overall profitability.

Now that is a very difficult exercise. So without having the efficiency agenda at the same time, it wouldn’t work. But with the efficiency agenda at the same time, we believe that we can retain the profitability over time. So those are the two things that we are generally working on when it comes to consumer sentiment. But people are generally going less out.

They’re spending less money when they go out. But it’s our job to massage that and make sure that we deliver on the profitability, which is what we expect to do for ’25. And now I’ve tried to talk about March and April together because that is the way that we look at it because it is really difficult to separate the cold and the hot water here. But if you look at our April, it is a very, very strong month compared to last year. So yes, it is closing the gap and a bit more to that.

So we are delivering growth when you’re looking at the two months in combination. Price mix, I think you need to be a bit careful on that, also in particular because that you have the Easter effect and you also have the strike effect in Finland. So generally, we have a higher net revenue per hectoliter in the Finnish business than we have in The Baltics, as an example, and so on and so forth. So I would say, don’t extrapolate from a relatively small quarter. I think you need to rely on the guidance that we have given in February in terms of how we see the components of driving our profitability and top line for 2025.

Lars Westergaard, CFO, Royal Unibrew: And in terms of capacity, a number of the CapEx projects we have done in the last couple of years is starting to come online. So some of the investments we are doing in Italy is starting to help capacity in Italy. We have canning lines coming in place in both Italy, Holland, a PET line in Denmark. So capacity for 2025 looks to be adequate so that we will not lose any sales in this year due to capacity. So all good on the capacity front.

Thomas Lin Peterson, Analyst, Nordea: Great. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Philip Spain from JPMorgan. Please ask your question, Philip.

Philip Spain, Analyst, JPMorgan: Hi, good morning. Thanks very much for taking my questions. I had two, please. The first one was just on and I appreciate some of the one offs in the first quarter, particularly in Northern Europe around the strike and Easter timing. But I suppose the what gives you the confidence in being able to reaccelerate through the rest of the nine months of the year to be able to deliver on that top line guide?

What are what’s kind of given you that strong conviction? And then my second question is just on maybe trying to break down headline pricing versus the promo. So in terms of your negotiations so far this year, how did they go? Did you see any disruptions from retailers in terms of the level of pricing you were able to get through? And do you expect promo to be higher year on year given some of the comments you made earlier around us?

Thanks very much.

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: Yes. I think the conviction on, call it conviction or what, but if you look at our growth attitude, if you look at the Nielsen numbers, IRA data, whoever is the source of information on our sales out progression in all of our major markets, And when we then look at our own data and that we can see that reflected in our own data, then it supports that we have a good underlying momentum in our business that can deliver on the outlook guidance that we have given. There’s a few, I would say, categories, there’s a few brands where we are excelling. And obviously, when we have things that works well, we are trying to fuel that even more. We have highlighted a few in the comments we gave early on.

Crazy Tiger, Lurina is doing well in France, Cheddar’s in Italy, Le Mansolo in Italy. We see our Faxecondi brand together with Pepsi in Denmark is doing an excellent job and so on and so forth. So we as our beer share of our total business is relatively small, we have an exposure in our assortment that is much more towards the categories that the consumers are actually asking for right now, so less calories, less sugar, there’s more moderation, so less alcohol. And we are well positioned just from a portfolio point of view, we are fairly well positioned for that piece. So that is what gives us the conviction.

And I would say it’s a very broad question that you ask about prime price promo and so on and so forth because every market is different, every customer is different, and customers are different as they have different priorities. Sometimes you have customers that wants to cater more for sharp prices. At other times, they want to cater more for the shopping experience. So what we generally do is that we listen well to the strategies that the customers have, wherever they are and how big or how small they are. And then we are trying to cater for, I would say, a total offer with our portfolio so that the customer can achieve what they want to achieve.

And within that, obviously, trying to maximize our earnings opportunities as well. So that’s about striking a balance on a win win basis. I don’t foresee that promo levels will go up on an overall basis. They are already fairly high on an off trade basis. In some categories, we see that promo shares are already in the 85% level.

So it’s very, very difficult to get that up, and we don’t want to get it up necessarily. So this is more about discussion if you want to go high, low. And what is low is at a discount of twenty, twenty five, 30 or like in Holland, One plus one. So how is all of that put together? That is where the art sits in when it comes to the retail side of our business.

And this is where we historically, and I think also now, prove that we can deliver on a consistent journey that delivers both value for us but also value for our retailers. We have a strong heritage in doing this in the old Royal Unibrill markets. We managed to take that attitude in Norway already last year, and that is what we are bringing into the negotiations in the newer markets, so in The Netherlands, Holland and Belgium. That is the attitude that we take in. We are here to win together, and we have proposals on how to do so.

Philip Spain, Analyst, JPMorgan: Great. Thanks very much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Arren Ademski from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question, Arren.

Arren Ademski, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Hi, thank you. Good morning, Lars and Flemming. Thanks for taking my question. I have two. The first question is on the Q1 performance.

I think some of your peers reported a relatively more resilient volume performance in The Nordics. And I guess they also had an impact from Easter and some headwind from the strikes. So I just wanted to ask, are you seeing any market share loss in any of the key geographies in Northern Europe across the key categories? And if you could run us through the performance of those key categories in those markets, that would be great. The second question I had is on the planned factory closure in Norway.

Can you please give us a sense of how much savings are you expecting that will bring for the local business next year? And then connected to the efficiencies on Netherlands, have you already begun to benefit from the investments you have been making in the packaging architecture? Or is this going to be impacting 2026 to a greater extent? Thanks.

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: Yes. So on Q1 in The Nordics, no, we do not detect any share losses overall. There is always changes within categories due to promotional pattern and different kind of focuses. Sometimes, we plan to lose share in a category because the profitability might not be as attractive as in another category. So what we are looking at it is it following our thoughts around how the year will turn out, and it is progressing as planned.

So we are gaining share in the categories that are growing. That is our absolute clear view on this. You need to this is a small quarter. You also need to, I would say, be aware of sales in, sales out. There’s also there might be differences, and we could have earned more money if we would have pushed some sales March, and then the numbers would have looked different.

But does it change the flight attitude of the business? No, it doesn’t. And you often have to pay if you do these kind of things. So that’s not how Royal Unibrill works. So that is also why that we are talking here about what is the sales out trend because that’s the real thing.

Sales in is not the real thing. Sales out is the real thing. And that’s where we have a solid momentum and has a continuation of our momentum going out of ’twenty four. That’s the same that we see into ’twenty five, and we have been confirmed on that also in the April numbers. We haven’t gotten all of the numbers in April in terms of sales out data.

But on our main customers, we get access to our own shares in the category, and we can see that we are progressing as scheduled. So we have no, I would say, red flags that we need to highlight or that we need to do something about on the short term.

Lars Westergaard, CFO, Royal Unibrew: If we turn to Norway, then good question. Of course, when we acquired the Norwegian Essence, there was an opportunity to structurally improve the footprint in Norway. And this is what we are executing on. And there will be benefits in the coming years. As you know, we have a long term guidance of 6% to 8% organic EBIT growth.

And of course, the acquisitions we have will contribute to this when we start to deliver on the efficiency agenda on that. We’re not going to comment on a specific number in Norway. And of course, it doesn’t come on the day when you close sites or anything like that. So you need to ramp up in other sites, but it is clearly contributing to our journey in Norway. In terms of the efficiency agenda in The Netherlands, you cannot see that in the numbers yet because the CapEx programs are starting to deliver products in Q2.

So they will start to come into the numbers in the remainder of the year, but more so in next year, where they will be fully up to speed, and we have changed all the sourcings to the new capacities we have. So nothing in the numbers yet, but it will start to come into the numbers in the coming quarters and years.

Arren Ademski, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Next is a follow-up question from the line of Richard Wissigan from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead, Richard.

Richard Wissergund, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Yeah, thanks for the follow-up, because I want to get back to the capacity expansion in, I guess, The Netherlands and Italy, but also in Denmark. A two sided question here. First of all, how does it change your commercial strategy? What are the additional opportunities that you have from having more capacity in The Netherlands, Italy and in Denmark? And then the second part of this question is: should we expect more production reallocation, hence a more efficient production footprint for Royal Unibrew in the next two to three years?

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: I think I think you should you should definitely expect that with the enhanced capacities that we can harvest efficiencies, no matter if it’s running less weekend shifts, if it’s logistics savings as we have invested closer to where the consumers are, etcetera, etcetera. It gives us capabilities, so we can add a new type of packaging to the market. We have in with the PET line in Denmark as an example, it is in carton boxes, the PET that we are delivering, which is I haven’t seen that before in any of the European markets that you deliver. Most will shrink-wrap it with plastic. It is super well received by both the customers, but in particular, by the consumers.

They really, really like this packaging. So it’s not the primary pack, but the secondary pack, which is brand new. In Holland, we are getting new capabilities from a canning point of view. They could only do the stoppie can in the past. And now we have a suite of things that we can add to the market as we are getting them into the line, so to speak.

It has just been up and running for about a week or so. So of course, it’s going to take a bit of time. We are launching the mini cans, the 150 cans in Italy as an example. It’s a proposition that we, as a company, have not launched before. And I think you have almost only seen from the red guys in the soft drink space in the market.

And then in that respect, we bring something new into the category with lemon soda and almond soda in these containers. So yes, it is a part of, I would say, building capability for the commercial plans for the future that should help us in delivering consistent bottom line growth of 6% to 8%, and it will help us on being more efficient in the way that we are operating. And then I would say the final thing is that remember that the countries that you mentioned here are all countries that supports the international business. So this is not just about the local market, but it’s also about supporting international, which is on a very strong growth trajectory and making sure that we can deliver what they need. Okay, Richard or?

Richard Wissergund, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Yes, yes, that’s very clear, Lars. So thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andre Thomas from Danske Bank. Please go ahead, Andre.

Arren Ademski, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Yeah, thank you so much for

Andre Thomas, Analyst, Danske Bank: taking my question. Thanks for choosing me in. Just a follow-up question on the reported performance in Northern Europe compared to peers because it seems that Carlsberg said their volumes were flat in The Nordics yesterday and all these volumes declined five percent to 6%. So why is ECL volumes declining so much more? That is my first question.

The second is regarding gross margins, where your gross margins improved 120 bps, as you said, but they actually declined 160 bps in Q1 twenty twenty four, so it’s not even back to twenty twenty three Q1 levels. So should they continue to improve rest of the year when the base is more tough? Those are my questions.

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: Thank you the questions. On the volume side, I think it will be a bit of repeat of what I’ve said already before. We do not know how our competitors are stocking up or stocking down. When you look at the Nordic markets, some markets are with and customers are with central warehousing systems. Some of our competitors, in particular, I would say, Finland, as an example, are more skewed towards off trade, where off trade is more central warehousing, where our setup on route to market is a direct link to the customer.

So the wholesalers, as an example, have not been subject to the strike. So if you’re stronger on the wholesale side of things, then it’s a different delivery pattern that you have compared to us, where we have our own route to market setup in direct contact with the customers. So this is also why that in our judgment that we are much more focused on looking at the sales out numbers. So what is actually being sold, what is actually being consumed. And in when we look at those numbers, we are not losing in the marketplace.

And then there might be swaps between a month or a week or whatever. But if the long term trend and when we put March and April together is clearly indicating that we still have a trajectory of strong market share development, we are super comfortable. So I think I don’t know how they do it, the ones that you talk about here, but now you know how we do it.

Andre Thomas, Analyst, Danske Bank: And just on

Lars Westergaard, CFO, Royal Unibrew: in terms of the gross profit question, I think you and I know better than anybody else that if you look a few years back, there has been high inflation, there’s been high price increases, you’ve had acquisitions and so on. And I think when we so our numbers, if you go back two or three years, are impacted by a lot of different factors. And I think what we said at the end of last year was that 2024 is a normal year where you have very little impact from COGS or price increases or other stuff. So it is true that if you go back a few years, then probably we had a different gross profit margin. But I would say, we are the guidance we have done this year of quite decent organic growth rates are we are following those plans and the gross profit margin in the first quarter is supporting that agenda.

And it’s a good improvement on last year, which was a normal base where we should not adjust for high cost or late price increases or things like that. So it’s a little bit difficult in Royal Unibrew to go back a few years and look at trends because we have been in years that have been pretty volatile and done a lot of acquisitions and had inflation.

Andre Thomas, Analyst, Danske Bank: And then just to be sure, so is Q1 twenty twenty four a normal base because it declined 160 bps in Q1 twenty twenty four?

Lars Westergaard, CFO, Royal Unibrew: I cannot remember what happened in Q1, the year before, which must be in I think if you look at the whole season of 2024, then there has not been any particular quarters that have been impacted by any one offs. And there was a lot of price increases coming through in the year prior and inventory revaluations, I think, in was it ’23, impacted Q1. So I would say it’s easiest in our business to look at ’24 because all those effects are out of ’24. Destocking in Italy and remember that Italy was is a very high margin market for us. So ’23 was, as I remember it, very heavily impacted by destocking in Italy, which is negative for our group margins.

Arren Ademski, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Okay. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now take our next follow-up question from the line of Soren Samso from SEB. Please go ahead, Soren.

Soren Samso, Analyst, SEB: Yes, hi again. I just had a couple of more questions. First of all, in Italy, I can understand that you are taking out some volumes on private label and replacing them with own brands. Maybe elaborate a little bit on what brands we’re talking about and then how I mean, it may cost you on the volume short term, but I’m sure this is going to improve your gross margin in Italy. Maybe talk a little bit about how we should expect that to develop over the year and going forward?

Second question and then my second question is on the admin expenses, they are up some CHF 25,000,000 in Q1, so around 12%. Just maybe bridge that, what’s the increase due to? Thank you.

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: When we look at Italy, yes, it’s correct that when we look at it from an overall point of view, including the private label business, the volume is more flattish. So we are selling more Cheetos, in particular, but Fox is also doing well. But Cheetos is, of course, the magnitude of our business. When we look at now off trade, remember, that’s only about 35% of our total business, and it is a very, very small quarter for us in Italy. But when we look at the beer market as a whole, it is slightly declining, so kind of like minus 1%.

And again, they also have a little bit of Easter. So let’s say that the market is fairly flat. And in that market, we are growing double digits. So we have a good momentum on our beer business with our own brands. And we rather want to allocate production time for our own portfolio that comes with a totally different margin.

So this is a management of resource and return on investments that we are doing in Italy. And then yes, that would then come with a higher average net revenue per hectoliter and an average higher profitability on a per hectoliter and likely also a margin expansion at the end of the day. So that is what we do in Italy, and that is totally in accordance with the plan that was built when we acquired the business.

Lars Westergaard, CFO, Royal Unibrew: On the admin expenses, it is primarily related to Belux. And then, of course, we also have some extra cost in Finland related to the integration of the spirits brands that we are acquiring. So that’s where to look for the increase in admin.

Soren Samso, Analyst, SEB: Okay. Thank you. And I expect we will see something similar for the rest of the year then?

Lars Westergaard, CFO, Royal Unibrew: I think if you look at admin for the admin expenses for the full year, it’s included in the guidance. We will see a little bit higher admin expenses. But of course, we’re also looking at driving efficiencies out of admin. So it’s all included in the full year guidance, and we don’t guide on individual lines in the P and L.

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: Admin is like international, obviously, you need to look at the not on the shipping data, you need to look at this in a longer period of time from a trajectory point of view, and admin cost is a bit of the same. Look at it in a twelve month flying height. And then Belux is adding a layer to this. So that’s the thing. There’s nothing structurally changing in admin cost.

Conference Operator: I’m showing no further questions. I’ll now turn the conference back to the speakers in the room for their closing comments.

Lars Jensen, CEO, Royal Unibrew: Thank you very much, everybody, for your participation. As I would usually say here at the end, enjoy the day and you know where we are if you need us. Thank you very much, and enjoy the day.

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