Constellation Brands - Earnings Call - Q1 2026

Executive Summary

• Q1 FY26 delivered net sales of $2.515B (-6% YoY) and comparable EPS of $3.22; results were impacted by softer consumer demand and wine divestitures, while beer maintained category leadership in U.S. tracked channels.
• Versus S&P Global consensus, STZ modestly missed on EPS ($3.22 vs $3.29*) and revenue ($2.515B vs $2.556B*); beer net sales declined 2% and wine & spirits fell 28% YoY as mainstream wine divestiture closed in June.
• Guidance: reported FY26 EPS was lowered to $12.07–$12.37 (from $12.33–$12.63), while comparable EPS was maintained at $12.60–$12.90; cash flow targets unchanged (OCF $2.7–$2.8B; FCF $1.5–$1.6B).
• Management emphasized ongoing macro/tariff headwinds (incremental aluminum tariff ≈$20M and ~20 bps margin hit), but affirmed beer outlook (0–3% net sales and 0–2% operating income growth) and expects sequential improvement on easier summer comps.

Note: *Values retrieved from S&P Global.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Beer continued to lead the U.S. category: STZ was the #1 dollar share gainer with 6 of the top 15 share-gaining brands; Modelo Especial remained the #1 brand in dollar sales, Pacifico delivered double-digit growth, and Corona family had top 15 gainers.
• Comparable EPS of $3.22 and comparable operating margin of 32.2% show resilient core profitability despite demand headwinds and portfolio reshaping.
• Strong cash generation supported disciplined capital allocation: $637M operating cash flow and $444M free cash flow in the quarter; $381M repurchases; dividend declared $1.02 per Class A share.

What Went Wrong

• Top-line softness: consolidated net sales declined 6% YoY; beer net sales fell 2% on 3.3% shipment declines; wine & spirits net sales dropped 28% with operating margin down to -2.1%.
• Tariff and cost pressures: management quantified an incremental ~$20M aluminum tariff headwind (post-Q1) and ~20 bps margin impact, noting limited ability to fully offset via volume.
• Category/macro headwinds: depletions decreased 2.6% in beer (adjusted -1.2% for one fewer selling day); management cited ongoing socioeconomic pressures affecting occasions, especially among Hispanic consumers.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings, and welcome to the Constellation Brands Q1 Fiscal Year 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may be placed into question queue at any time by pressing Star 1 on your telephone keypad, and we ask you to please limit yourselves to one question then return to the queue. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press Star 0. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to introduce your host, Joseph Suarez, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Joseph Suarez (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, all, and welcome to Constellation Brands Q1 Fiscal 2026 Conference Call. I'm here this morning with Bill Newlands, our CEO, Garth Hankinson, our CFO, and Blair Vienema, our new Vice President of Investor Relations, who will assume leadership of the function after today. Blair brings great expertise to the role. He began his career as a buy-side equity analyst and has worked across our corporate development, treasury, and beer commercial finance teams for the last 10 years. I will work closely with Blair over the coming weeks to ensure a seamless transition of the function. We trust you had the opportunity to review the news release, CEO and CFO commentary, accompanying quarterly slides, and our recently updated annual brand appendix slides made available in the Investor section of our company's website, www.cbrands.com.

On that note, as a reminder, reconciliations between the most directly comparable GAAP measures and any non-GAAP financial measures discussed on today's call are included in the news release and website, and we encourage you to also refer to the news release and Constellation's SEC filings for risk factors that may impact forward-looking statements made on this call. Before turning the call over to Bill and Garth, please keep in mind that, as usual, answers provided today will be referencing comparable results unless otherwise specified. Lastly, in line with prior quarters, I would ask that you limit yourselves to one question per person, which will help us end our call on time. Thanks in advance, and over to you for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to be placed into the question queue, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, please limit yourselves to one question then return to the queue. Our first question today is coming from Daryl Mosheenian from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now live.

Daryl Mosheenian (Analyst)

Hey, good morning.

Bill Newlands (CEO)

Hey, Daryl.

Hey, Daryl.

Daryl Mosheenian (Analyst)

Just wanted to discuss your confidence in the unchanged full-year beer revenue growth outlook as well as margin guidance. We've obviously seen some industry weakness ramp up in May and June. Your depletion decline in fiscal Q1 was similar to Q4. If you strip out one last day, I understand that, but presumably some of this industry pressure ramped up towards the end of the quarter in June, at least in the track channel data. Can you just discuss confidence in your beer volume growth outlook? At some point, it implies you move back to depletion growth. Maybe just give us some more context on a quarterly basis when we should start to see that.

Just on the margin side, with incremental aluminum pressure with the higher tariffs, can you talk about what sort of the offset is to allow you to still deliver profitability on a full-year basis in the beer side in line with what you were expecting previously? Thanks.

Bill Newlands (CEO)

Sure, Daryl. Why do not I start, and Garth will come in with the margin question. I think it is important to point out that the quarter was as we expected. We saw a significant amount of consumer concern that has continued from the past quarters into this quarter, but this quarter was as we expected. Recall, this is going against the strongest quarter that we had last year. Q1 was what I would describe as a normal quarter for us, and as you pointed out, there was one less selling day in the quarter. I think the important thing to point out is sequential improvement is required for us to accomplish our guidance, but it is not predicated on significant consumer change. We are going against much easier comps as we head into the summer in scanner data.

You may recall that in July of last year was when things started to decelerate both for us and for the overall industry. So we're going against easier comps as we progress into the summer months. Garth, do you want to touch on the margin point?

Garth Hankinson (CFO)

Yeah, I'll touch on the margin point, but before I touch on the margin point, again, as Bill said, we feel confident with our outlook for the year, which is why we affirm guidance, and we haven't seen any changes in consumer behavior. That being said, there are still some macroeconomic factors, if you will, that we continue to monitor, and there continues to be some uncertainty in the macro backdrop. We've seen from our banking partners and from the Fed some reductions in expectations around GDP growth, as well as some softening in expectations with inflation, unemployment, and interest rates. That being said, there's a lot of guesswork, I think, more so in this year's forecast as it relates to things like the impact of potential tariffs or the potential impact of tariffs and the potential impact on unemployment of government-related layoffs.

Again, just a fair amount of uncertainty as we go through the year. On the margin front, we feel good about our ability to deliver margins in line, excuse me, with what we laid out in April, specifically to the incremental tariff that went into effect in June. To be clear, that did not impact our Q1. Going forward, we think that the impact of that is going to be roughly $20 million. As a reminder, what was announced earlier in the year was an impact of about $30 million. It is obviously less for us given that it is one quarter into the year, or the incremental is less for us because we are one quarter into the year, and from a seasonality perspective, the first quarter is the highest quarter.

Volume-wise, we do not expect that we are going to be able to fully offset this incremental tariff, so that will be about a 20 basis point hit, but we still believe that we can deliver margins in line with what we outlined in April.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Nick Moody from RBC. Your line is now live.

Nick Moody (Analyst)

Yeah, thank you. Good morning, everyone. Bill, I know this might be a hard question to answer, but I know you guys are doing a lot of work regarding the Hispanic consumer. It almost feels like it's getting a bit worse in terms of just at least from the headlines of the raids and kind of where they're targeting consumers in normal places of shopping. I'm just curious, there's got to be a breaking point at some point, and obviously, this is a big driver that is weighing on your business. I'm curious if you have any perspective on how long you think this might go on. I know this is a hard question to answer. Do you have any perspective from the administration in terms of when some of these raids will start to calm down? Any perspective around that, I think, would be helpful.

Bill Newlands (CEO)

Sure. Thanks, Nick. As you know, you're right. This is very hard to call as to what the consumer reaction is going to be going forward. I think the important part that we continue to look at is, first of all, our loyalty is very strong and remains very strong with the Hispanic consumer base. Our loyalty is increasing in the general market, and we are continuing to invest against our business to support the consumer as they progress down this path. Importantly, our brand health measures remain as strong as they ever have. We'd be hard-pressed to tell you when you see a fair amount of change.

Both Hispanic and non-Hispanic consumers are concerned about inflation and about cost structure, but I also would point out that the percentage of alcohol in the basket has remained constant, even though the basket has gotten smaller relative to what consumers are doing with consumer goods. Our focus has been on control the controllables. We have seen high single-digit share gains in the shelf. Our buy rates, while visits are down, spend is up when people visit and when they actually go to the stores. NPD continues to be an important part of what we do. We're pleased with the development of Sun Brew. It's ahead of what we had expected. As I said earlier, we continue to invest against the business.

Our focus continues to be monitored carefully where the consumer is and control the controllables, do everything we can possibly do so as the consumer hopefully returns in the near term to more normal behavior. We're there and ready to take advantage of just that.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Lauren Lieberman from Barclays. Your line is now live.

Lauren Lieberman (Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Good morning. I just want to talk a little bit about marketing. It was interesting to see stronger marketing in the quarter. I was curious if you could talk a little bit about marketing cadence this year versus last. Also, in that standpoint, it feels like not so much from a pricing standpoint, but from a marketing standpoint, the competitive landscape has picked up, and you've got Michelob Ultra that's been a fast-growing brand for some time. The only other fast-growing brand alongside Modelo has really picked up its activity, and I think picked up, it seems, sort of the target market they're going after.

I just was curious if you could talk a little bit about kind of brand competitiveness, your marketing efforts, not just quantum and timing, but also kind of thoughts around any changes or differences in targeting and what you're seeing in the competitive landscape. Thanks.

Bill Newlands (CEO)

Yeah, you bet. I think it's important to point out that because of seasonality heading into the summer, Q1 is always slightly higher in terms of our marketing investment versus the rest of the quarters. I think it's also important to point out Modelo and Corona are the number one and the number two share of voice within the beer sector for marketing. We continue to invest against our brands to build long-term success for those brands. We're investing in places that we think are high-impact: football, soccer, Major League Baseball, things that are live, things that are action-oriented, and things that tend to be beer occasions. We're going to continue to invest against our business. Our fundamental belief is, as I said on the prior question, our brand health metrics are very strong.

Our intent is to keep those metrics as strong as they are, if not to improve those. Part of the way we will do that is to continue to invest against the consumer so as the consumer begins to revert to more normal behavior. Whenever that occurs, we're going to be in a position to win.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Chris Carey from Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is now live.

Chris Carey (Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks a lot for the question. I was thinking about the investor presentation at the investor day, and there's a lot of pride in the fact that the portfolio is so focused and you're gaining share in the category behind such a focused portfolio. I think when you look across some of your peer set, there's actually been an attempt to continue to diversify the portfolio to perhaps hedge against some of these situations. If the portfolio sees slowing growth or market share loss, it's offset by something else, right? You've seen that with some of your competitors. Does this moment in time give you a bit more credence to think about maybe investing or diversifying the portfolio, however significant that may be in the coming years, to give yourself a bit more diversification against such events?

Within that, can you just talk about how elevated maybe Pacifico will become now because it has been such a reliable growth driver? Can you accelerate that growth even more? Just some thoughts there would be helpful. Thanks.

Bill Newlands (CEO)

Yeah, you bet. First of all, I think it's important if you think about what has changed versus the investor day, a lot of things have. Non-Alc didn't exist at that point in time. Today, it's the number two share gainer in a growth category, the non-Alc sector. Oro didn't exist. You've probably heard that we are adjusting our Oro pricing to go after high-end light beer, where we see competitive opportunity for us to succeed. We introduced Sun Brew this year, which is ahead of our plan, goes after a consumer who's interested in flavor. I've said on prior calls, we're very pleased with the fact that our share of sales in LDA 21-25-year-old consumers is twice the average of the sector. We're continuing to bring in new, younger consumers into the equation.

Modelo Chelada, one of the single best chilladas that we have, did not exist when we had investor day. All of those things, I would argue, are part of our innovation agenda. As we have said, we can see between 20% and 40% of our growth profile in any year, reflecting from new products, and we would expect this year not to be any different along that line. We are continuing to be focused on how we can win more consumers on more occasions. Relative to your question on Pacifico, obviously, Pacifico continues to be very, very strong. What is exciting to us is, despite the fact that Pacifico is the number two brand now in Los Angeles, where it is obviously a huge brand, 50% of the growth profile that is occurring on Pacifico is coming from outside of California.

You're starting to see significant increase in growth of that brand around the country, and we expect to put some fuel on the fire, if you will, around that brand. We think it's a great opportunity. Its demographic profile is somewhat different from our other brands, and we think that's going to be an important growth driver and an important share gainer in terms of shelf positions for us as we move forward.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, that is star one to be placed in the question queue. When we ask you, please ask one question and then return to the queue. Our next question is coming from Carmel Gardner-Wilell from Jefferies. Your line is now live.

Carmel Gardener-Willel (Analyst)

Hey, everybody. Good morning. I guess I'm going to follow Nick's lead with a tough question, which is, let's just assume things get better from a socioeconomic perspective. How do we know that behavior will go back to where it was? I kind of ask in the context of it does seem we're learning now that COVID really changed the way the consumer is behaving in general across a series of things, but especially across beer. Could this be sort of the equivalent of a COVID moment that even if things start to open up a bit, that maybe the behavior doesn't go back to where it was?

Bill Newlands (CEO)

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think the important part of that for us to all keep in mind is, especially with our Hispanic consumer, which reflects roughly half our business, that consumer is very interested in beer. What has occurred is that occasions on which beer is consumed have decreased because of concerns of the socioeconomic area that you mentioned. When you look at the fact that consumers are not going out to eat as much as they had, they're having less social occasions at home, it doesn't change their interest in consumption of beer. It simply has been that those occasions have been decreased of when that occurs. I think you're going to easily see it revert to a more normal scenario as the macroeconomic scenario comes back to a more normal environment.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Peter Galbault from Bank of America. Your line is now live.

Peter Galbo (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, Bill and Garth. Thanks for the question.

Bill Newlands (CEO)

Hey, good morning.

Peter Galbo (Analyst)

Morning. Morning. I wanted to go back to maybe Daryl's question on just the beer gross margins. Actually, there was probably some favorability or upside to what we thought in the quarter. Garth, I think in your prepared remarks, you talked about kind of a $40 million tailwind on kind of operational improvements. I'm just wondering how much of that as well is maybe some favorability on the peso that you guys locked in kind of at a more favorable value and maybe how we should think about that on the go forward in the back half of this year or even into early next year as the dollar has weakened and peso has gotten stronger relative. Any context there would be helpful. Thanks very much.

Bill Newlands (CEO)

No, no. Thanks for the question. Right. So just, I mean, as you know, we have a pretty robust hedging policy. It is a hedging policy that starts sort of three years in advance of any one fiscal year. We are pretty good at this point to be able to manage the impact and smooth the impact of any currency and, for that matter, commodity risk from year to year. As we entered this year on the peso front, we were hedged in the low 70% range, which is a little bit higher than what we normally target to start the fiscal year. As we saw some favorability earlier in the year with the peso, we did layer in incremental hedges for this year. For this year, now we are up hedged for the peso over 80% ish.

We layered in incremental hedges, for that matter, for FY 2027 and FY 2028 to take advantage of that favorability. As we sit here looking at the balance of the year, there's still potentially a little bit of opportunity across the whole basket of currency and commodities. Specific to the peso, we feel the peso is probably a little bit overvalued right now due to the de-dollarization. We'll continue to look for opportunities to take advantage of any changes that go in our favor there. The impact is certainly not as material as it was earlier in the year, largely due to the incremental hedging we did through the quarter.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is coming from Andrea Teixeira from JP Morgan. Your line is now live.

Andrea Teixeira (Managing Director)

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thank you for the question. I was hoping to see, I mean, I think the important questions were asked, but just in terms of your new distribution, I believe you quoted a good amount of high single digits into the summer. I was hoping to see if there is any, obviously, with the conditions that the industry is in right now, but just to understand how the velocity has been so far and the level of incrementality you're seeing within a baseline. Of course, we know what the industry has been facing and the depletions on the negative front, but just thinking how you are positioning as we go into the summer season and how that velocity is behaving from now.

Bill Newlands (CEO)

Sure. Distribution is going to continue to be a critical part for us. Fortunately, as the number one share gainer in the category, we are in position to continue to gain distribution and shelf positions. I think that's important for us as you see strong growth profiles for things like Pacifico, which we talked about a moment ago, and Sun Brew, and things that really are demanding more shelf position because of their strong start in the marketplace. We believe that that's going to continue to be an important part of our growth profile as we go forward, is broadening that distribution. Our team is very focused on that. It goes right back to what I said before, which is control the controllables. Our loyalty remains strong.

We are seeing continuing improvement in the loyalty that we see with our Hispanic consumer, and it's growing in the general market. That speaks to the long-term benefit against your velocity question, and I think that will be an important part. Another thing that I would point out where we're spending a lot of time is in price pack architecture. It's an area where, as the consumer may be more concerned about inflationary trends, it would be important to have the right pack set at the right price points so that no matter what the consumer has available to them to spend, we have a product available to them for that quantum that they have available to them. All of those things are critical elements about what we call the controllables that we're going to be focusing on as the year progresses.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is coming from Filippo Falorni from Citi. Your line is now live.

Filippo Falorni (Director of Equity Research)

Hi, good morning, everyone. I wanted to get your perspective on the pricing environment in beer. Obviously, the category is under a lot of pressure across the board. How are you seeing the pricing implemented this year being taken in the market? Are you seeing any competitors maybe relying a little bit more on promotions to try to accelerate the volume in the category? Thank you.

Bill Newlands (CEO)

I think there is some additional price promotion that's gone on in the marketplace. I'll use our example. We have addressed our Oro pricing starting this past month, going after the high-end light beer consumer, where we feel there's a great opportunity. We have made that adjustment in our own business in the interest of building additional share in the high-end light sector of the business. I think you're always going to see a bit more promotional activity at a time when there's economic concerns. That doesn't surprise us. Again, this goes right back to what we started with, which is our brands are strong and the loyalty is strong, and that at the end of the day is going to win the day.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Bonnie Herzog from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now live.

Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director)

All right. Thank you. Good morning. I actually wanted to ask about the California wildfires that happened last year and I guess the expected rebuild. Could you give us some color on what is happening with the rebuild and what type of growth or upside you might be expecting from this, considering how important this market is for you? Maybe clarify for us if the rebuild potential upside is factored into your guidance. Thanks.

Bill Newlands (CEO)

Sure. As many people know, and we've seen this at various, what I will call, external factors, hurricanes in the east or fires in the west, anytime you see that sort of thing, there's a short-term hit and a somewhat long-term upside because as you, A, clean up and then rebuild, you're creating great job opportunities that tend to include interesting beer moments. I think as we are starting into that process, and as you know, it takes a while to start the process of rebuilding with permits and so forth, that will likely be a bit of a tailwind. The amount of that tailwind remains to be seen as a lot of it depends on permits and development and how much construction capability exists in the marketplace. You are correct. That ultimately will be a bit of a tailwind.

Yes, that is built into our expectations of our guidance going forward. That being said, Bonnie, I think it's important to point out that California has experienced some consumer challenges from the macro environment as it relates to things like unemployment, particularly for the Hispanic consumer, and even construction there, where we expect that there will be some benefits. As Bill just noted before, construction employment remains down year over year in California. Again, should be some benefit longer term, but short term, still some macro headwinds in the state.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We've reached the end of our question and answer session. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's teleconference webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.