Molson Coors at Barclays Conference: Strategic Moves Amid Industry Challenges

On Wednesday, 03 September 2025, Molson Coors Brewing Co (NYSE:TAP) participated in the Barclays 18th Annual Global Consumer Staples Conference 2025. The company addressed current industry challenges attributed to macroeconomic factors affecting consumer sentiment, particularly among lower-income groups and Hispanics. Despite these hurdles, Molson Coors remains optimistic about its long-term prospects, focusing on premiumization and expansion into new categories.

Key Takeaways

• Molson Coors anticipates a mid-single-digit decline in industry performance for the latter half of the year.
• The company is focusing on premiumization within the beer segment and expanding into Beyond Beer categories.
• Strategic investments are being made in non-alcoholic beer and new market expansions, despite macroeconomic headwinds.
• The CFO reaffirmed a free cash flow guidance of $1.3 billion, supported by working capital and tax benefits.
• The company is monitoring the Midwest premium’s volatility and managing its exposure accordingly.

Financial Results

• Updated Guidance:

- Expected industry decline of 4% to 6% in the latter half of 2025.

- Anticipated share decline of approximately 50 basis points.

• Long-Term Expectations:

- Revenue growth driven by price and mix improvements.

- Pricing in North America to rise by 1% to 2%, aligning with historical trends.

- Pricing in Europe expected to align with inflation rates.

• Profit Outlook:

- Mid-single-digit underlying pretax income growth expected.

- Margin expansion through premiumization and pricing strategies.

• Free Cash Flow:

- Reaffirmed guidance of $1.3 billion, bolstered by working capital and tax benefits.

Operational Updates

• Brewery Efficiencies:

- Investments in breweries to drive cost savings and efficiencies.

- Closure of underperforming breweries, such as the one in Wisconsin.

• C-Store Strategy:

- Focus on "influence points" to drive impulse purchases.

- Partnerships with brands like Pringles and Takis for promotional activities.

- Launch of higher ABV brands in convenience stores.

• Brand Performance:

- Coors Banquet has shown 16 quarters of share growth, now representing 5% of U.S. volumes.

- Blue Moon aims for on-premise growth stabilization.

- Peroni seeks increased awareness and distribution through partnerships.

Future Outlook

• Marketing Spend:

- Continued investment in brand marketing, with Q3 spending expected to rise year-over-year.

• Above Premium Growth:

- Targeting a sales mix where one-third comes from above premium products.

- Half of this growth is expected from Beyond Beer categories.

• EMEA and APAC Expansion:

- Focus on strong market routes and premiumization opportunities.

- Prioritizing brands like Madri and Coors Light for expansion.

• CEO Transition:

- Strategic focus remains unchanged, emphasizing core brand strength and premiumization.

Q&A Highlights

• Industry Softness: Attributed to macroeconomic factors affecting consumer sentiment.
• Beer Industry Volume: Continued mid-single-digit declines expected.
• C-Store Strategy: Emphasis on influencing consumer decisions at multiple points.
• Coors Banquet: Opportunities for distribution growth and attracting new consumer segments.
• Non-Alcoholic Beer: Growth seen in Peyronie Zero Zero and Blue Moon non-alcoholic variants.
• Midwest Premium: Ongoing monitoring of unexplained price increases.

For more detailed insights, readers are encouraged to refer to the full conference call transcript.

Full transcript - Barclays 18th Annual Global Consumer Staples Conference 2025:

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay. We’re going get started. We have Molson Core’s beverage company next. Very happy to have the company’s CFO, Tracey Joubert, with us today in Boston. And also, Tracey Mangini at IR, thank you, is joining us on the stage.

A little female power up here. Okay. So still lots of debate on whether soft alcohol consumption trends in The U. S. Are cyclical or structural.

I know you’ve leaned towards the former. How do you assess the industry’s response to the slowdown in category growth? And what more can or should be done?

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: Okay. Good. Well, firstly, thank you for having us. It’s really good to be here. So look, we do believe that the industry softness is cyclical.

We believe that it’s being driven by macroeconomic factors, which is driving consumer sentiments and consumer uncertainty. And in particular, we are seeing a bigger impact on lower income consumers and Hispanics. Where we are seeing less buyers and also shift to singles. So we are definitely seeing a dynamic there. In terms of what can the industry do about it, well, can tell you what we’re doing about it.

We believe that we have the right strategy. Over the last number of years, we have been developing a more robust portfolio to focus on not just beer, but premiumization within beer and also premiumization being driven by Beyond Beer and also investing in our capabilities. Now with the software industry, we are also taking actions. So we are looking at non business critical discretionary spend, where we have pulled back. And we’re also looking at efficiencies, driving efficiencies in our breweries, whether it be how we’re operating our line, how we’re using capacity, etcetera.

So we’re taking a lot of actions to make sure that we’re investing in the right places to grow our brands and grow our business and drive cost savings and efficiencies.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay, great. And even before the industry had suffered from a few years now of 3% decline, you were already working on diversification efforts beyond beer. And I know we’ll talk a bit more about it later. But it’s interesting to also see beer distributors increasingly going that route as well. Back on this question of the notion of what can the industry do and are they doing enough, is there a risk that it almost becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, that the industry, that the distribution tier, that everyone pulls back too much from supporting beer?

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: Yes. Look, I think I mean, big beer is really important. And it’s important to and it’s important to our distributors. So when I talk about big beer, I’m talking about high velocity, which we see in premium light. I’m talking about higher margin.

And that’s important to us, our distributors and our consumers. But we also need to make sure that we’re looking at where the consumer is going and catering to the consumers’ needs. And therefore, we have and we are developing a broader portfolio to meet the consumer preferences and also add to occasions that we don’t currently operate in or where we can broaden those occasions. So as we talk about our portfolio, as I said, beer is still really, really important. But we’re also playing in categories where we are seeing growth, might be small, but growing like non alk beer.

So we have two wonderful brands, Blue Moon non alk and Peyronie Zero Zero, really great liquid. They taste very much like the mother brand. And so we’re really excited about the growth that we see in those brands. But then we also are catering to new occasions with adjacent type segments like Clever Tree, which plays in both the alcohol occasion space and the non alcohol occasion space. And then we’re playing in the non alcohol occasion space with brands like Zoha.

And then also, we’ve launched a non ALK RTD, Naked Life, which is the largest RTD coming out of Australia. So we are building a portfolio that cases across consumer needs with how the consumer preferences are changing as well. Okay.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Your updated guidance just turning to kind of shorter term, your updated guidance assumes continued mid single digit declines in the back half of the year, but your long term expectations are still for low single digit sales growth. So what type of longer term beer assumptions underpin that

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: low single digit algo? Yes. So when we spoke about and we updated our guidance back on our Q2 call, there were two main factors that drove lowering the guidance. One was the continued industry softness that we were seeing. So our assumptions is that for the back half of the year, the industry is going to continue to be down around minus 4%, minus six percent.

So that was the one assumption that we took into account with our guidance. The second was our share. So we expect our share to continue to be down around the 50 basis points for the back half of the year. Now in terms of the longer term guidance and having a look at our targets, we haven’t publicly given a volume target because it does differ year by year. But why it’s important to expand our portfolio and to really premiumize is that a lot of our top line, our revenue, NSR is going to come from price and mix.

And so it’s really important to continue to premiumize both within beer and beyond beer. And then also, one of assumptions that we’ve taken from a pricing point of view is we expect in sort of North America that pricing to be around the 1% to two percent range, which is historical. And then in our other countries in Europe, etcetera, it’s closer to inflation. So those are the sort of key levers and key drivers of our longer term growth on our top line.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay. And so beer industry volume in The U. S. And with that one to two points of positive pricing, we can think about that embedded in your long term plan is flat to sort of a low single digit decline in terms of beer industry volume?

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: Yes. I mean, the beer industry for the last number of years pre this year has been around the down 3%. But again, NSR is growing. So it’s driven by that 1% to 2% pricing, particularly in The U. S.

And then the above premium category in beer is still growing, which is really exciting. And that’s why I focus on some of our above premium beer portfolio. Perfect. Okay.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: And then on profit, sticking with the outlook for this year. The plan is for constant currency, mid single digit underlying pretax income growth. How much flexibility is there in that outlook, in the implied margin expansion? So in the event that the category and things remain lower for longer, increased consumer pressure in the back half, slowdown in premiumization. Just how much flexibility is in that mid single digit profit outlook?

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: Yes. So look, I mean, I spoke about the drivers of the top line, which is also a driver of margin. So premiumization typically comes with higher COGS, but also comes with higher margin. And so that’s why the drive to premiumization. And then pricing, as I said.

So that’s part of the margin. And then as we look at COGS, for example, we’ve done a lot of work around investing in our breweries to drive cost savings, efficiencies, taking out the low margin contract brewing perhaps has certainly helped take a lot of complexity out of our breweries and we will have fully have cycled that at the end of this year. So it takes a lot of complexity out of our breweries. It also allows us to have capacity to make our own higher margin brands, particularly during the peak selling season. But also it has allowed us to do things like onshore Peroni, which is driving I mean, it’s an above premium brand, much higher margins now that we’ve on shored it.

And it’s growing really nicely. And also, it allowed us to sort of taking out that sort of contract brewing lower margin. It’s allowed us to close smaller underperforming breweries like we did in Wisconsin last year. Yes. Okay.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Do you think longer term, again, in this like down low single digit, down 3% volume backdrop, is there further opportunity or need to take out capacity as you continue down this road over the next, call it, five years? Yes. Look, I

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: mean, we’re really happy with our brewery footprint at the moment because again taking out the Pepps contract brewing has allowed us to bring in higher margin brands and being able to make that in our breweries. But when we look at our brewery footprint, we also one of the things that we have to consider is transportation cost is very high. So you have to consider if you close a brewery, much you’re going to add to logistics cost to move your beer from one brewery across the country to another. And that is a high cost. So we take that into consideration.

But when we look at capacity, we also before we make a decision around closing brewery, there’s a whole lot of other things that we can do as well. So it could be taking down a line in a brewery or reducing shifts in a brewery. So we make those decisions first because, again, logistics cost is a big driver of costs. And so taking a brewery down is a big decision. Okay.

That’s really helpful.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: The looking closer in, how would you characterize The U. S. Consumer environment through the end of the summer?

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: I mean, I think what we’re seeing as we sort of got to the end of summer, it’s very similar to what we saw in the beginning of the summer. Consumers are still very uncertain. Consumer sentiment is low. We are seeing less buyers, but we’re seeing that same sort of dynamic that we’ve been seeing for a while now is we’ve seen channel shifting and SKU shifting. So either consumers looking for value through higher bigger packs or going to C stores, singles, etcetera.

So we continue to see that. But no difference from a sort of promotional activity and things like that that we’ve seen in the past. But certainly the consumers are stretched and uncertain in terms of economics. And just touched on it,

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: you said no real change in the promotional environment. Is that right? And as you think through the back half in this continued pressured environment, what do you think about the risk of that changing, stepping up? I mean, as

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: we go into the summer, we always do see increased competitive activity. We see increased promotional activity. But again, it’s not really different to what we see. Now there has been some retail accounts, etcetera, that have done different things. But generally, a lot of that in our belief is retailer driven.

So the brewers and again, I can’t talk for our competition, but generally, don’t participate in what the retailers do because they do it a lot to drive footfall and put traffic through grocery stores, etcetera. But again, if we do see any increased activity, whether it be promotional or consumer dynamics, we look at it for the long term of our business. I mean, we’re not going to do anything short term that’s going to harm our brands. We’re going to look at it market by market as we always do with our pricing, market by market, SKU by SKU, brand by brand and that’s worked for us.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay. Great. And in The U. K, just we’ve been talking so much about The U. S, I think that was a market where you had seen some elevated competitive pressure.

Just latest on the consumer and promotional environment, just focusing in on

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: The U. K. Yes. Maybe, Tracey, you want to talk a little bit about The U. K.

Consumer and Sure, sure.

Tracey Mangini, IR, Molson Coors: So in The U. K, I mean, sentiment remains challenged. It actually is a negative territory by the indexes that they follow. But the like real wages are up, and inflation is coming down. So the macros are looking better.

But again, the sentiment is still challenged. So we continue to push forward with our plans. Obviously, we have a strong portfolio of brands there. But it is a highly competitive environment. We see that at sort of the mainstream level with Carling, where some of our peers have reduced ABV on their products.

We have chosen we have not done that. We certainly looked at it, but we have not done that at this point. But what that means is that at times, in the off premise, our brands Carling, for example, could be 20% higher in price points. So there has been some obviously, challenge there, but we’ve taken a value over volume approach. Very positively, though, we continue to premiumize very nicely.

For example, in Q2, Madrid U. K. Business was up mid single digits. Stara Promen, another above premium brand we have in The U. K, was up double digits.

So premiumization continues to be positive for us as we manage the competitive environment.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay. Great. And let’s shift back to The U. S. You shared this targeted plan for the convenience channel.

Think we first talked about CAGNY, if I remember correctly, where your share had slipped a bit since 2019. Could you talk a

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: little bit just give us some

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: background on this influence point strategy and give us an update on how that’s going and some of

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: the associated innovation? Sure. Yeah. Look, we’ve done a lot of work around our C store strategy. And look, the C store is the biggest sort of beer channel.

So it’s really important and we do under index in the C store. So we spent a lot of time looking at consumers, interviewed thousands of consumers and really trying to trace the path to purchase in the C store. And the insights that we’ve got from that is every C store visit is different. And it may be as you look at the past to purchase, it may be an influence at home or in the car on the way to work or at the pump or in the store at cooler. So there’s all these influence points that you call it, these points that matter that we are focused on.

And so I’ll give you an example. The biggest visits to C stores is generally impulse visits. And so someone might be just popping in to C store to grab a snack. And so we want to nudge them to say with that snack, grab a beer. And so we’re doing things partnering with various companies.

So for example, Miller Lite partnering partnering with Pringles in the C store or Miller High Life partnering with Plants Peanuts or Topachico with Takis. So providing that sort of promotional just a nudge around beer. And then also it’s not just one sort of promotional sort of in the store, we can influence them at the pump through commercials at the pump just to remind them to pick up their beer or in the store at the cooler, etcetera. So there’s a lot of work that we have done around the C store consumer and that’s also driven some of our C store innovation. So this year we launched three higher ABV brands, 8% brands, Blue Moon Extra, I always have to look at Tracy to help me with this, Simply Spark Bold and Topo Margarita Max.

I think I got that all right. All at 8% ABV and Simply Spice Bold was the number four singles launch in C store with Blue Moon Extra number six. So we’re really excited traction and what we are seeing with those brands, early days. But some of our C store strategy and insights drove us to make decisions like that, which

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: can be quite excited about. Okay, great. Let’s talk about Coors Banquet, another area you’ve had great success. So 16 quarters of share growth, 5% of U. S.

Volumes now according to beer marketer data. What do you see as the brand’s potential, especially given distribution is still so limited relative to Coors Light? I think on the last call, you said it was about half the outlet coverage. So curious about the path and potential for Banquet.

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: Okay. So other than Banquet being an exceptional liquid with a wonderful heritage, I mean, there’s such a lot of opportunity for Banquet. So you’re right. I mean Banquet is in about half of the outlets that we see Queer’s Light in. So a lot of opportunity around distribution still to come.

But what’s also just really, really exciting is the new consumers that the brand is attracting. So in later fifty two, I think it was at July, later fifty two weeks, we saw an increase of Aldec Gen Z consumer, up 25% Coors Banquet. And also importantly, we’re seeing a 20% increase of Hispanic consumers buying Queers Banquet in Layers 52. So huge opportunity that we’re seeing in Banquet. Now, why is Banquet so successful?

Well, other than

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: the fact that it’s a 150

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: plus year old brand and it’s growing because of the exceptional liquid and heritage, it’s a very cool brand. People love to hold a little stubby bottle, it’s a unique package. As I said, it’s driving new Aldec drinkers into the space. And then added to that, there’s a lot of work that Coors Banquet does with conservation and the firefighters, etcetera, that is really appealing to younger drinkers.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay. Great. And just on the flip side, how do you think about the contribution of Coors Light and Miller Lite growth in ’twenty six and beyond? And how is that shaping your resource allocation decisions?

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: Look, I mean Coors Light and Miller Lite will always be important to us. Are two biggest brands. And look over the last couple of years, we’ve actually gained a lot of share. So our share is at 1.8 share points since 2022. So that’s big.

And our focus now is to retain that share and to actually to grow the volume. Mean, it really is important. Coors Light and Miller Lite is important to us. And as I say, the big brands are important to distributors as well. So we’re really looking at continue to strengthen our core brands and because they are so big and so important to us, they do take priority in terms of investments.

And so typical, if you look at going into football season, you’ll be putting a lot of money behind those two brands with our NFL alliances and as well as our college football alliances,

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: which we’re very excited about. Okay, great. Relatedly, I want to talk a bit about marketing spend in 2025 and beyond. How are you thinking about marketing investment levels as you balance this tough category backdrop and macro backdrop with the need to defend share, protect the share you’ve earned and also continue to drive premiumization? Yes.

So look, I mean,

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: we’re not going to do anything short term that’s going to harm the long term health of our brands. And so despite the macroeconomic headwinds that we’re facing, we’re going to continue to invest behind our brands. We’re to continue to spend our marketing dollars behind innovation, behind non alc and behind our core. So if you look at our big spending quarters in a year, Q2 and Q3 where a lot of the investment takes place because it’s peak summer selling season, etcetera. And so for Q2, Q3 of this year, we expect to be flat year over year to last year.

A little bit of shifting, we actually expect Q3 to be higher year over year than Q3 last year as we continue to fuel some of the non alc brands as we continue to get awareness around Peroni, for example, our campaigns just really kicked off in Q2. So continue to put pressure behind our premiumization and then continue to build behind Miller Lite and Cruise Lines. But we want to make sure that all our marketing returns a good investment and we’re certainly again not going to cut our marketing to drive a bottom line for

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: the short term. Okay. Great. You mentioned Peyronie and Blue Moon a bit earlier. You’re targeting a onethree sales mix from above premium going forward.

You’ve been active with Peyronie and Blue Moon in The U. S. What would you say is the next major milestone or proof point to watch for each of these brands in terms of some of the plans and support that you’ve had in market for them are working?

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: Yes. So I wouldn’t say that there’s a specific proof point, but it’s more just continuing to grow those brands. So if we look at Pironi, the focus is on continuing to take share. The focus is to continue to get more awareness and then continue to drive distribution. So if we look just look at awareness and distribution, I mean, Peroni has only got about 40% awareness of its competitor in the market.

It’s only got about a third of the distribution. So we see a lot of opportunity with Peroni. And as I say, Q2 really we kicked off the campaigns, but just a lot of opportunity. It’s also only 10% of the volume of Stella. And we see no reason why Peroni can’t be as big or bigger than some of the other imports like Stella.

So very excited about Peroni, very excited about some of the partnerships we have with Ferrari and Formula One, etcetera. And then added to Peroni is Peroni zero, which we’ve spoken about the non alk. I mean, in terms of Blue Moon, look, the focus is to stabilize that brand. Now we have seen a trend change in the on premise Q2 over Q1 with Blue Moon Belgian White. So really focused on driving that on premise, it’s a big on premise brand, but also focusing on the off premise.

And so I spoke about the higher ABV Blue Moon Extra. That’s one of the ways to continue to drive awareness of Blue Moon and grow the Blue Moon brand.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay. And these are both the brands you’re really pushing in terms of NA. Just curious, how would you score your progress on NA beer? And maybe even before that, how big do you think NA beer can become in The U. S?

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: Yes, Annick, I mean, it’s not like Europe. Europe non alk beer is very big, much bigger than here. It’s still small in The US, but obviously growing. And there is a little bit of a more mindful drinking focus with some consumers. And so we want to make sure that we play in that segment and in that category.

And we’re doing that with the two big beautiful brands, Peyronie Zero Zero and Blue Moon non alk. And we’re very excited about what we’ve seen so far. So Peyronie growing 30%, Blue Moon non outgrowing 30% in Q2. So seeing a lot of growth and we’ll continue to put focus and investment behind those brands because again, they’re just wonderful liquids. They’re very the profile is very similar to the mother brands.

So we do think there’s a lot of opportunity still.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay, great. Half of your above premium growth is expected to come from Beyond Beer. Just curious, what is the relative profitability of Beyond Beer, given things like brand? Is it consumers really fickle, I think, in that space? Flavor churn, it’s a lot more activity relative to big beer at the other end of the extreme.

So cost to launch new brands, more frequent innovation. So how do we think about profitability beyond beer given that that’s supposed be a big part of the above premium growth?

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: Yes. So I would say it differs, profitability differs. So it depends on a number of things. Is it an existing brand that you’re just sort of adding to or is it a new brand? Obviously, existing brands you wouldn’t have to spend that much in terms of getting awareness.

Is it regional? Is it national? Is it produced in house or do we co manufacture it. So all of those things change profitability and it’s all different. But if we look at beyond beer above premium innovation, sorry, innovation all plays in that above premium space.

So it’s all higher margins, generally it comes with higher margins. But it does profitability does differ, but as we are able to bring things in house that adds to our margin, as we able to bring things like Fever Tree in to our network and into our portfolio, it drives the top line and margin. Fever Tree, if you take out full strength spirits, Fever Tree NSR per hectoliter is our largest is our highest NSR per hectoliter brand. So that drives top line, it also drives margin through mix as well.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay, great. I want to touch on some elements of the financial outlook for this year, in particular, cash flow, which you reaffirmed at $1,300,000,000 even with the lower expected pretax income growth. I think you talked about my memory working capital as being part of that offset on weaker profit. But can you clarify maybe what’s driving that working capital benefit and whether the improvement is structural or more timing related? Yes.

I’m going do it.

Tracey Mangini, IR, Molson Coors: Sure, sure. So yes, so we when we reported Q2, obviously, we’re very pleased to reaffirm at that time our $1,300,000,000 free cash flow, even though we had reduced on the bottom line. And two of the reasons were the working capital benefits that you mentioned as well as some cash tax benefits from one big beautiful bill. So there’s both a timing element as well as an ongoing element to that. So for the working capital benefits, those are things that we’re always doing, trying to improve working capital.

So we would expect sort of ongoing benefits from that as we continue to focus on improving in areas of receivables and payables. So those are just certain examples of things that we’re working on in the different markets that we’re in. And so those are benefits that would be ongoing.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay. Great. Midwest Premium. I know. So the driver of the negative profit revision for this year, is there anything that can be done to manage the volatility the Midwest premium differently looking at 2026 and beyond?

Yes. Look, I mean, the Midwest premium,

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: it’s we’re continuing to monitor it. It doesn’t make sense to us why it’s gone up 180%. It’s an opaque pricing mechanism. It’s priced by one company. It’s difficult and expensive to hedge.

It’s not as liquid as other commodities. Now we do hedge the Midwest premium, but as I said, it’s more difficult and expensive. So it’s one of our least or it is actually our least hedged commodity. Now when we hedge, we have guardrails. Never 0% hedged, we never maximum percentage.

So we’ve got this exposure to the market. And again, the Midwest premium is the fact that it’s gone up as much, it’s I mean, it’s unexplainable. But we try and manage what we can manage and just assume that at some point, it’s going to get back to where it should be.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay. I know we’ve been very U. S.-centric in this conversation. So I did want to just kind of squeeze in a question on all the activity you’ve had in EMEA and APAC over the past couple of years on bringing in new brands. Just curious what the framework is for deciding where and when to expand.

Does that differ when it’s like a new to the world brand versus a legacy brand like Kors? So just some color on that brand expansion in non U.

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: S. Markets. Yeah. I mean, again, we’d look to where we can add complement our portfolio in specific countries. And Madri and Coors Light are two big priority brands in terms of expansion.

So Madri probably our most successful launch in decades, just a wonderful brand driven by not just the amazing liquid, but the whole experience with the on premise that’s how we started it, even though we launched that brand during the pandemic. On premise grew and then we really focused on the off premise. So because of that success of that brand and how we managed to build that brand, were confident in taking it into different markets. So we launched in Canada, with really exceeded expectations. We then launched it in Bulgaria.

Well, we launched those two together and then we launched in Romania just recently. So we look at markets where we’ve got a strong route to market. We are premiumizing and the markets allowing the premiumization. And so Coors Light and Madrid are two of those brands, which we’ve learned from expanding into other markets and we believe we’re going to do it in the right way. But we know that we’ve learned how to really launch strong brands like that in different markets.

That’s brands that we currently have. And then new to market would be I mean, good example is Karimann that we launched in Romania. Now it was a dormant brand that we had there, plays in the sort of mainstream space. But we wanted a dual strategy in Romania. And so we launched this brand, which is very strong in the Western part of Romania.

It’s really resonates the name resonates there. And so that’s been really successful as well. Now, again, it’s core, so it’s not in the premiumization, but it was a white space that we saw an opportunity for to expand in that country. And again, really exceeded expectations on a dormant brand that we always had in our portfolio.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay, great. Few minutes left. I just wanted to close the question on the CEO transition on the horizon. So how are you and the team ensuring continuity in existing acceleration plan and maintaining strategic momentum? Is this sort of it’s going to be a it’s a long transition?

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: Yes. Look, I mean, we’re not taking our foot off the gas. I mean, we believe that our strategy that we’ve got is the right strategy. And despite all the macroeconomic headwinds, etcetera, our strategy is right. I we’re building on the strength of our core brands, we are focusing on above premiumization of our portfolio, we’re focusing on Beyond Beer.

And we’re also focusing on capabilities and partnerships like we spoke about the C store strategy and insights as well as partnerships with fantastic brands like Piva Tree. So certainly not taking a foot off the gas, we know that our strategy is the right strategy for us. And a new CEO coming in, I think we’ve built a really great foundation to continue to strengthen our portfolio and grow our portfolio.

Unidentified speaker, Interviewer: Okay, great. All right. We’ll wrap it there. We want a breakout? Is it a breakout session or else?

I think so. Breakout. Yes. Okay. So we’re going to have a breakout session.

Sorry, I had to whisper. But please join me in thanking Tracey and Tracey for being here, and then we can carry on

Tracey Joubert, CFO, Molson Coors: and break out. Thank you very much.

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