MOLSON COORS BEVERAGE (TAP) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Transcript

Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director & Senior Consumer Analyst)

Good evening, everyone. It's a pleasure to welcome Molson Coors back to CAGNY this year. Joining us today, we have President and CEO, Rahul Goyal, and CFO, Tracey Joubert. Also, please join me in thanking them for their sponsorship of the beverage reception immediately following their presentation, which will be outside these stairs, right at outside the stairs. Thank you so much for that. Now, it's an exciting time for Molson Coors as the company has made progress on its transformation journey, having changed over the course of a few years, how it invests, how it markets, and how it operates to return the company back to growth. Having completed its revitalization plan, the company is now into the next leg of its journey, which is to accelerate growth, as well as taking complexity out of their system, allowing them to deliver sustainable top and bottom line growth.

With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Rahul to hear more about their efforts. Thanks.

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Thank you, Bonnie. Thanks for the introduction, and good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for being here. You know, before I get started, our lawyer said I got to read every single word on this slide. I think they were doing the new guy joke on me. So, the only thing I'm gonna say is our discussions today include forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities law. So please refer to the forward-looking statements disclosure in our presentation materials for more information. So I am excited. I'm excited to be here to share an update about our business. I'm excited about sharing the new plans and our new strategy going forward. After 25 years in the company, I get the honor of defining the next chapter for Molson Coors, a company that has a 240-year-old legacy in this country.

For those who have followed us and those who are new to our company, we are a top 5 global brewer. We're in about 80 countries. We have about 16,000 people with one purpose: to unite people to celebrate all of life's moments. But more importantly, we're in some of the most exciting and largest profit pools of the world. We've made progress. We've made progress around our core brands in most of our markets. We've kept shares that we gained in the United States in 2023. We've kept about 70% of that share that we gained in 2023 with our core brands. We've been on our journey for premiumization and portfolio transformation, and we've increased that about 5 percentage points. We are on the early innings of our Beyond Beer beverage strategy.

We're approaching about 10% of our revenue based on Beyond Beer and a lot more runway in front of us. We've done that on the back of brands like Topo Chico Hard and Peaty Feast. Along with that, we have strengthened our balance sheet. Our debt is lower than what we started with, and our leverage ratio is in a much healthier place. We've been consistent in terms of delivering cash back to our shareholders, whether it's through a consistent increase in our dividends or by executing about 70% of our buyback program in just 9 quarters, which was a $2 billion program over 5 years. So we know we have delivered shareholder value, but we do know that the next chapter for creating shareholder value is gonna be on the back of consistent, scalable, and repeatable top and bottom line growth.

That's what the new plan is. Well, before I talk about the new plan, I want to address the 2026 guidance. It's no secret that our industry is facing significant headwinds. 2025 saw material industry declines, and that was significant deviations from what the historical trends were, and that uncertainty remains for us. If you go deeper into the bottom line guidance we just shared, there are two factors that are impacting our business right now. One is cost inflation to the increases in the Midwest Premium and aluminum pricing. And two is just lapping of a one-time incentive from... because we didn't achieve anything in 2025. Now we're navigating this period of uncertainty and volatility with discipline. We took immediate action in Q4 on focusing on costs.

We're taking the right actions in pricing, making sure our brands by region are being competitive. And frankly speaking, we're looking at everything around the Midwest Premium. Along with that, we wanna make sure we are investing in our business, investing in smart ways, getting our business back to growth. And this means investing in our brands, in our capabilities, and in technology. We will navigate this period of volatility, being diligent and taking the hard decisions, but we wanna make sure we set our business up right for growth in the future. And so what does all this mean, right? So now this is what I'll leave you with: We have a strong foundation. We have brands that have scale. We have a historical track record of delivering cash, of creating cash generation.

We are doing a reset in 2026 just to navigate this moment of volatility and uncertainty to get our business back. And I'm excited to talk about the next chapter of figuring out how to grow our business, both top and bottom line, going forward in the medium term.... So it all starts with our new plan, Horizon 2030. Folks, this is not just a new plan on a page. It is a plan and a blueprint of how we get our business back to growth. It is about rewiring our business in a world of constant change. It is about taking bold opportunities and reacting on that quickly. And it is about meaning-- and it is means spending more time in the market where our consumers are and where our customers operate. That's what's gonna get us back to growth, and it starts with our portfolio.

So let's talk about our portfolio. Now, each segment has a role to play and to make sure that we, as a business, can reach our full potential. But we are making different choices. We are investing differently here. We are investing differently, and we are executing differently off our brands in the market. And across these portfolio pillars, we feel we have the plans to grow share, revenue, and profits for our total business. And I wanna take you a little deeper on that. But then look at the second part of our plan, and this is what we're doing to operate differently, and this is what I call rewiring our business differently. We're gonna put commercial execution as closest to customers and consumers. We're gonna modernize our capabilities to make sure we're driving efficiency and value. And then we are gonna champion beer and beer occasions, right?

In this industry, where the category is under challenge, we're gonna champion beer, and we're gonna evolve our culture to drive ownership among our people. Now, all of this has to be supported by being disciplined on our cost savings and having a clear dynamic approach to capital allocation. We're gonna go deeper into all of these key areas, right? Let's just start with our portfolio. This is what we do. This is our backdrop. It spans beer and beyond beer to reach consumers where they are. And it's based on the thesis that all segments matter. But within that, we are making clear choices. We have to strengthen our big brands, the core and value segments, while we transform our above premium and beyond beer strategy.

So let's talk about the core, and you probably know this, loyal core beer drinkers represents the vast majority of all beer volume. But what you probably don't know is that this group has the strongest loyalty with premium lights, and we have the brands to compete there. And we have the opportunity to continue to strengthen our brand with this core consumer and gain more share ahead of the category. So how are we gonna do this? It does mean investment in our brands and breakthrough marketing. And you saw... You probably saw some of this in the NFL and leading up to the Olympics with the Miller Lite campaign. It talks about real-life connections, it talks about real-life occasions, and with the perfect spokesman, Christopher Walken, that spans generations.

You can expect us to come forward with more work like that for Coors Light. We're gonna continue the journey on Coors Banquet and leaning into that brand as we grow that both volume and share. With Molson Canadian, where we're gaining both volume and share in Canada. In this subcategory, we are also identifying new opportunities, like the lower-strength beer. We're expanding Miller Extra Light, which is about a 2.8% ABV brand in key markets and regions. These brands have the scale, they have the trust of millions of our consumers, and they have the right to win with our core consumers and get a share of the category. Now, let's talk about the part of the portfolio that we probably haven't spoken about in a long time, which is the value segment.

We are elevating that because, in a safe shape economy today, the value consumer is feeling the pressure, and they are looking for options within their budget. And frankly speaking, we have the scale. Just for context, if you just think about our value segment, we're probably the fifth, we are the fifth largest beer company in the country. So this category matters. This is not about just being defensive. This is how do we use that and make sure we're leaning in with, for the consumers that are looking for this option. But we're gonna increase the focus and value in a very selective way. We're gonna have selective investment in selective markets and with very pointed innovation. We're gonna expand brands like Miller High Life Light across a few more states.

We have some new innovation coming with Keystone, with Keystone Apple in the summer, which is again very directed to this subsegment. Our value portfolio has a strong reach. We have deep consumer loyalty, and this is the way to win for us, but even for our distributors. Now, as we think about value, premiumization is not going anywhere, and we have the opportunity to just get some more runway there. If you look at our business, we're pretty strong in premiumization in Canada and in the U.K. But in the U.S., we are underrepresented, and therefore, we just have a new opportunity to keep leaning into that. Things like Peroni, and you probably saw that in the Olympics. Again, leaning into the brand with on-premise brand ambassadors.

All the work we already have done in Madrí, in the UK, and continue to grow in UK, but also expand that brand across Europe and Canada. And while Blue Moon Belgian White is still work in progress, the Blue Moon non-alc brand is growing 25% is now, and is now probably the number two non-alc craft brand in the country. Now, the other side of premiumization is beyond beer. You know, I talk about being in the most exciting profit pools, and this is where the consumer needs are evolving. And we're gonna continue to on our total beverage journey to make sure that our brand meets the consumers and meet them in more moments. And we're proud of the progress we've made. And if you think about the, the beyond beer strategy, you have first this flavor, and this category has been volatile.

And there we need to be agile, right? We had some great success initially, but then we got to figure out a way to pivot, and we did with Topo Chico. We pivoted from being a hard seltzer brand now to a full flavor beverage, with higher ABV innovation and new different packaging for more occasions. And we've changed the trajectory of this brand. We have consecutive, consecutive dollars and share trend performance improvements in all quarters of 2025. And with Fever-Tree, we're just getting started. We just finished the transition last year. We're getting it into our network, and we have an excited distributor network, we have an excited retail network, and we have an excited team to get really behind it.

There's a few brands that you can get the whole trifecta working, and we believe we have the opportunity to do that with Fever-Tree. And this, in this space, we have the other opportunity of deploying M&A dollars in a very disciplined way to make sure we are augmenting and filling gaps in our portfolio. And I know Tracey's gonna talk a little bit more about that in the future. So hopefully this gives you a sense of the clear choices we are making in our portfolio. But let's talk about how are we gonna make this happen. And this is where, folks, we are executing a big change within the organization. Because how we execute, how we make sure we revive our business, is super important in this business, in this category.

It starts by putting our customer and consumer at the heart of everything we do. You know, folks talk about beer being a global business. We talk about beer being a national business, but actually beer is a very, very local business, and we need to make sure we're putting the P&L accountability at the level closest to the customer. That's where pricing decisions, promotions, assortment, investment, that's where those decisions are being made, and that's what we need to unlock for our teams. We gotta unlock clear accountability that drives outcomes. We've got to make sure we're taking decisions with precision, where we can change tactics, move, spend across the actions that are working for our total portfolio in particular markets. And we need to do it with speed, where decisions are done in days, not weeks, not months, and definitely not quarters.

This is not just an academic principle. This is how we wanna make sure our planning process and our execution model changes. We have already started that journey in Q4 and going into 2026 with our distributors. You know, the next part of our plan is we talked about capabilities. You know, and I talked about us having, being in the largest profit pools. But we also have the largest platforms in these profit pools, where basically we execute across the entire market. And so we will keep investing in our capabilities, investing in capabilities that drive efficiency and value to the bottom line. This is in this area of sales and marketing, where we're gonna put capabilities in AI and in analytics to make sure our sales teams are front-forward looking and not looking in the back.

When I talk about AI, this is not about using it in marketing just to create new brands and assets. We obviously are gonna do that and drive efficiency, but how do we literally use it to make investment decisions? And then the third element of our capabilities is our investment in our ERP and our technology to augment and automate areas in our supply chain to drive value and to optimize business processes. And as we think about our internal business, we have to keep a lens externally, and that involves championing beer. You know, we talk about the category doing declining, et cetera. And one of the things I talk to our distributor network is none of us should accept a declining category. You know, that should not be okay.

We must find a way to get this category healthy again, and we need to do it together as an industry. This is not about us, you know. We have the humility to realize that this is... one company can't change it, but we need to lean in to make sure we can build beer's relevance back. We need to make sure we can bring people back into the occasions where beer fits. And so we got to lean in this, and we're gonna do our part, right? We're gonna do our part in marketing on how we talk about Miller Lite. You saw that. But also a new campaign we had just over the holidays, which was just about just bring the beer. This campaign is designed to put beer back on the shopping list.

It's to put it in the center of social moments, driving category relevance. Right? Again, this is not what's the word I wanna use? This is not, you know, an elusive idea. I mean, when we think about our sales teams, we have about 22% market share in the country. The category captains for 60% of our retailers. So how do we really lead with a category front focus? And then the fourth pillar is around building a culture of ownership. We have 16,000 people that are passionate about our business, are passionate about our brands, but we need to change how we operate in this moment. And that's where I'm asking them to lean into two of our key values: being bold in decisions and take accountability.

This is designed to empower our teams, to move with urgency, to move with pace, and drive ownership within the business. And this matches the complexity we have from an outside world perspective. So hopefully you see that, and then you see, okay, how do you know we're gonna make progress? Like, what are the key metrics? We should be seeing market share improvements in our key markets. We have to continue the acceleration of our portfolio transformation across all our portfolio. And the investment we're making in our capabilities and cost savings need to show margin improvement. And while we're doing this, we're gonna be disciplined about returning cash to shareholders. We are setting 2026 with clarity and transparency, but we are rewiring our business and our operating model for execution.

We're investing in brands and our capabilities, but we are being very deliberate on how we do that. We're gonna fund our growth with discipline. There's two key elements of the plan that I'm gonna have Tracey come over and talk about, which is making sure we're disciplined about cost savings and having a clear and dynamic approach to capital allocation. With that, Tracey?

Tracey Joubert (Global CFO)

Thank you, Rahul. Hello, everyone. Good to be back here. Look, as Rahul highlighted, we have a compelling strategy. We're really focused on discrete actions that will support our medium-term growth algorithm. So I wanna give a little bit more color on our financial discipline and the capital allocation priorities that Rahul mentioned. And I'll highlight how they support our ability to execute against our strategy. So our ability to drive strategy starts with a strong cash generation. We feel that we have compelling cash conversion, and we continue to be a very cash-generative business. Now, we delivered over $1.1 billion in 2025, and as we announced earlier, with our release earlier this afternoon or earlier this evening, we expect to deliver a similar amount in 2026.

Now, we plan to build on this very strong base through profitable growth and also a new cost savings program. So over the past 5 years, we have delivered over $1 in free cash flow for every $1 of underlying earnings, and we have amongst the highest free cash flow yield in all of CPG. Our solid cash generation has significantly strengthened our balance sheet. Now, moving forward, it should enable us to invest in ways that we believe will drive value for our shareholders. So let me take you through a few of the details around our new cost savings program, which we believe supports both our medium-term algorithm and also strong cash generation. So to help fuel our strategy, we are announcing a 3-year cost savings program targeting up to $450 million, with savings beginning in 2026.

The program anticipates savings across both our business units, and it'll also come through multiple lines in our P&L. Now, in cost of goods sold, we have a very strong pipeline of plans and projects. This is enabled by procurement, the investment that we make in capital, and productivity and efficiency improvements that gonna get delivered through our world-class supply chain program. Now, in Americas DNA, we've already unlocked meaningful savings by implementing our new structure at the end of 2025. And as you heard from Rahul, we expect to deliver further savings in M&A, enabled by technology and new capabilities that we'll be investing in. In EMEA, APAC, we have plans that are designed to expand operating margin and also improve profitability in that business unit. This will be done through implementing new technologies, evaluating supply chain opportunities, and also portfolio optimization.

Now, these savings are intended to be used to mitigate the impact of inflation, and also will allow the right levels of investment to fuel our business for growth. So let's talk about how we're thinking about deploying our capital to execute that strategy. Now, our first priority is to invest in our business to drive long-term sustainable growth through capital projects and new capabilities, investing behind our brands, and using our financial flexibility to fund M&A. From a capital standpoint, we are rebasing our medium-term CapEx expectations, and we now expect to spend approximately $650 million a year. Now, this level should allow us to continue to invest in margin-enhancing cost savings projects, and also make investments in technologies to drive efficiencies and increase our capabilities.

And we target double-digit returns on our cost savings programs, and we have delivered against that goal over the last few years with programs including our variety packaging that we, the capabilities we built in Fort Worth, adding seltzer capability in Canada, and also the domestic production of Peroni in the U.S. And to grow our business, our aim is to look to invest in M&A to drive meaningful portfolio transformation. Now, we would target deals that would add around 1%-2% NSR annually to the enterprise, but that are also bottom line accretive. To contextualize, these could be in the range of about $200 million-$350 million, and are expected to be funded from cash from operations.

Now, these targets must be scalable, they must fill white spaces, and they also must be in areas where we believe we have the right to win. Second, we remain committed to maintaining a leverage ratio below 2.5 times. At the time of the 2016 MillerCoors acquisition, our net debt was $11.5 billion, and our leverage ratio was 4.8 times. By the end of the year, in 2025, our net debt was $5.4 billion, and our leverage ratio was 2.3 times. So reducing both by more than half. We've continued to hold the highest credit rating that we've had since 2016. Now, that brings me to our third capital allocation priority.

Molson Coors has a long track record of paying cash dividends to its shareholders, and it remains our intention to sustainably increase our dividends, just as we have done for the last five years. We also feel that we've made tremendous progress against our $2 billion share buyback program, which is over five years. We announced that back in October 2023. And as Rahul said, through just nine months, we've executed 72% of that authorization, tracking to complete the $2 billion well ahead of the schedule. Now, given what we view as a compelling valuation for our stock, our board has approved an increase to the amount and extended the duration of our existing share repurchase program.

Your question on pricing, you know, we definitely look at pricing by brand and by region, but we also wanna make sure we're competitive. That's why you see us leaning in the value segment, right? We have a portfolio which meets the consumer needs at the right price points, at the right budget levels they have. Usually in beer, people don't leave their brands, right? In core, they're usually looking for different price packs, they're looking for different channels. So if you look at what's happening in our business, we have singles doing really well, and we've got big packs doing really well. So with our core business, our core brands, we need to make sure we're leading in that space. But the value piece is where we need to make sure we can get some support on the volume piece.

So I think between price, mix, and the transformation on Beyond Beer, that's where we have confidence we can get our business back to low single digit growth, right? I mean, this is, it's a low base in that regard. And in terms of your pricing decision, it's making sure we can use all levers of our portfolio to really get after the volume play.

Greg Tierney (VP of FP&A and Commercial Finance)

Yeah, from here.

Eric Serotta (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you. Eric Serotta from Morgan Stanley. You mentioned that the midterm, that the cost savings $450 would offset inflation and allow for reinvestment. Hope you could expand upon the reinvestment side a little bit. Can you give us any context for what kind of quantum you're expecting in terms of reinvestment for 2026 at the midterm, whether it's marketing, technology, other capabilities, how to think about that? And then in terms of the, one for Tracey, in terms of the midterm outlook, mid-single-digit on pre-tax and then high-single-digit on EPS, it's, you know, if you're gonna be spending more or investing more on M&A, that's gonna be funded from cash operations. The cash has to come from somewhere.

Shouldn't there be less of a contribution from buybacks than you've had historically, or is your leveraging for that? Thanks.

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Thank you. I'll let you do the buyback one, Tracey, but let me make sure I address the two questions you have. First is on the cost savings and then the investment profile, right? So if you look at our cost savings, there are three broad buckets. It's obviously the work we need to do in the Americas, and we took all those hard decisions in quarter four. So making sure we can take the actions in optimizing our teams, how we execute, making sure we have the right resources and pressure on the front end of the organization versus internally. On supply chain, we're gonna keep looking at opportunities on optimizing and driving savings, right?

So other than the one-time issues that we have with wrestling in aluminum, our teams do a great job on making sure we match and drive savings to for any cost inflation. And then EMEA, APAC is where the opportunity lies. So that business has done a good job in terms of growth, but we have the opportunity to improve our margins there. So that's where we try to unpack all the areas of our business to make sure we can lean on the savings side. If you think about our investment, you know, the way I'd leave this with is, we're not looking to step up investment in a significant way. We wanna make sure that our brands are competitive. We wanna make sure we're putting the right pressure against our brands across all these segments.

You know, when I talk about elevating the value segment, this is not about big investment in the value segment. This is about, you know, pointed investment in brands, in particular geographies, in, in terms of winning. We do have investments in our capabilities around systems and infrastructure, and again, both to drive value and efficiency into the bottom line. So we judge that and carefully make sure we're investing in the right places. But, you know, we talked about ERP implementation, but all of that investment needs to drive some outcome. And that's what I mean by when I talk about efficiency and value, right? So, you know, there's not a, I would say, not a significant step up in terms of investment that we're looking for. We, we feel our brands are well supported.

And some of it is to manage the challenges we have and the headwinds we have. But that's the cost savings and making sure we invested right. And Tracey, you want to take the-

Tracey Joubert (Global CFO)

Yeah. So, I think, look, we, we're really proud of the work that we've done on our balance sheet. You know, going from a leverage ratio of 4.8 times to 2.5 times, it has given us a lot of optionality. So, you know, we have done things like re-reducing our medium-term CapEx spend. You know, if you recall, in previous years, this was in the range of $750 million, plus or minus. We've reduced that to $650 million. We also believe that we have opportunities in working capital, and so we'll continue to focus on that. And then as we grow the top line and expand our margins through some of the efficiencies and the capabilities that we're building, that's obviously going to contribute to the bottom line.

But, you know, we are a very cash generative business. You know, we have delivered on our free cash flow. And, you know, with our new share repurchase program, it does extend out to 2031. And, you know, we will make the right decisions around how much and when to buy shares. But, you know, as you've said, we've done a really good job with that. I mean, we're already 72% of the way in our previous, you know, share buyback program. So, you know, it gives us confidence that we're able to, with our strong balance sheet, do all of those things. Number one, invest in the business, you know, to drive long-term sustainable growth.

We're gonna be very disciplined around the investments, for example, the capital and, you know, with that, we're able to sustainably increase the dividend and, you know, continue the buyback program.

Greg Tierney (VP of FP&A and Commercial Finance)

So Robert, over to you.

Robert Moskow (Managing Director & Senior Food & Beverages Research Analyst)

Yeah, thank you very much. Robert on the sales side. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about, you know, the change, the fundamental change that you're making in terms of how the organization is run by the accountability, more local, pricing decisions more local. So sort of number one, how, where did the idea or where did the change come from? And two, can you talk a little bit about execution of that? You know, how exactly does that get executed? How do you deal with national accounts? How do you keep coordinated and not gonna trip over yourself in certain areas? And how local is local? I mean, you know, rough idea, just, you know, how has this been implemented?

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Yeah, no, I think, Robert, that's a great question. Again, this is something that was important, you know, and I got on board, we made some changes in our leadership team, and it was to drive to this outcome, right? I mean, I think one of the previous questions is, we know the category is challenged. We know the shape of our portfolio. So we've got... You know, we have to figure out a way to execute the portfolio we have and use the investments we have, right? I mean, I talk about this all the time. We've got to make sure our marketing dollars and our people dollars are going after the right things in the market. So your question of how are we going to make it, right? We took all those actions.

We have the leaders of sales and marketing and our Canada business around the table now. We're making sure that, you know, we reoriented our regions of, of in the United States. And this is, by the way, applicable into our EMEA/APAC business. We're making sure that we look at our investments as a collective pool and making sure we're getting the right ROI against that by geography. You know, what's the right level, R-Robert, I think that's a little bit more, you know, we'll share that a little bit later. But we want to make sure, you know, in terms of how the brands show up, your question about, you know, is how do you coordinate? How the brands show up is obviously going to be in one way, right?

You're not going to have 5 in Coors Light or 4 Coors Light. You're gonna have 1 Coors Light, you're gonna have 1 light. But how those brands are executed in those geographies matter differently, right? And this is what I say is beer is very local. And it's true, by the way, for brands like Coors Light and Miller Lite and obviously for the value segment. So the question is: How do we rewire our business to really drive that? So we implemented the changes in quarter four. We're in the process of executing it. We reoriented our planning with our distributors. So this is more of our, you know, distributor-facing organization. And we frankly are leaning into that, starting already in January. And this has resulted in different conversations with our distributors, right?

On how we bring funds and how they bring funds on really winning in that particular geography. So, it is the concept of we are being local. It is about reorganizing our teams. And then, frankly, we did the hard stuff in Q4 to really put that within our organization. The only other part I'd add is we're also therefore changing the incentive plans, right? Incentive plans of how we measure our people. When I talk about P&L accountability close to the market, that doesn't mean anything if folks are not measured both on the top and the bottom line, as close to the market as possible.

Greg Tierney (VP of FP&A and Commercial Finance)

All right. Go, Chris, Wells Fargo.

Christopher Carey (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Chris Carey, Wells Fargo. Just, I guess this serves as an earnings call, so I'm gonna be a bit tactical about this and then strategic. But Tracey, is there any phasing considerations that you want to put out there for the guidance this year? Midwest Premium pacing-

Tracey Joubert (Global CFO)

Yeah.

Christopher Carey (Equity Research Analyst)

Brand volume pace, like, whatever that is. And connected to this is... Some of this is gonna have to or ultimately get to, like, an exit rate for the business. We're talking about medium-term, top line growth, bottom line growth. In a way, you're gonna be measured against perhaps how you exit 2026.... Yeah, I don't really know how all that will go, right? But at what point do we start, you know, anchoring you towards, you know, some of these medium-term objectives that you've laid out today? And what are the metrics that we should be looking at over the course of 2026, like improved market share? Should we have growing Q-trading profits? Like, what do you think that we should be looking at in order to gain, you know, that perspective?

Just the phasing thing on this year, you know, how do we measure you-

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

For the phasing work?

Christopher Carey (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks.

Tracey Joubert (Global CFO)

So let me start. So in terms of phasing, you know, we expect the quarters to look very similar to, you know, last year. So STW, the shape, you know, quarter by quarter, very similar. You know, we've got the same number of days. April sort of follows the same quarter as last year. There might be a little bit of loading for Fourth of July, but really, very similar. 2025 was different because we had the contract brewing arrangement that was coming up, and so it was a lot more volatile with that. In terms of the Midwest premium, if you look back, the Midwest premium really rapidly went up in the second half of last year.

So, you know, the first half was still a little bit muted, although, you know, from February it did sort of go up. But the big rise was really the second half of the year. So we'll be lacking that only in the second half. Other than that, I mean, the, you know, pricing, when we take pricing, that's all very similar. The way that we're investing in our brands, generally, we tend to invest marketing dollars more in the summer selling season, where it matters. So you'll probably see similar phasing around that as well.

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Yeah. And, you know, a question about what metrics and how do you see they're making progress? I'd call out, you know, market share is obviously a key one, right? I mean, we know where we are in the category, we know the shape of our portfolio, but we are starting, you know, share improvements. The other thing I'd call out is in the portfolio transformation journey is mix, right? I mean, more and more of our NFR. I think the question was, so while surprisingly, well, we lean on that where we can, but mix has to be an important aspect because that's where the portfolio transformation happens. You know, we're excited about the Fever-Tree business coming into our portfolio, full year 2026. I think Fever-Tree is our biggest per hectoliter brand we have now, right?

So, I would say those two are the key ones, and obviously the cost savings and our investment, all is around margins, right? So those three, I would say, are the key metrics we're gonna keep, you know, talking about and making sure we can show progress, along with the buyback. I know the questions about, you know, cash and, and buyback is fair, but, you know, we're committed to making sure, we continue on that buyback journey while we're making sure we use that and get our business back to growth. I think Bonnie's telling us to give us a sign. There's one more question.

Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director & Senior Consumer Analyst)

We're, we're running out of time, so I think we're gonna have to stop there. Please join me in thanking Molson Coors again for the upcoming reception. It's again outside, down the stairs. They'll be around to hopefully answer any more of your questions. As a reminder, please don't forget to take all of your belongings because this room will be locked. Thank you.

Molson Coors Beverage Company - Q4 2025 & Consumer Analyst Group of New York Conference (CAGNY) 2026

Transcript

Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director & Senior Consumer Analyst)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Tracey Joubert (Global CFO)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Robert Moskow (Managing Director & Senior Food & Beverages Research Analyst)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Robert Moskow (Managing Director & Senior Food & Beverages Research Analyst)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Kevin Drummond (Analyst)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Kevin Drummond (Analyst)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Kevin Drummond (Analyst)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Kevin Drummond (Analyst)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Greg Tierney (VP of FP&A and Commercial Finance)

Eric Serotta (Equity Research Analyst)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Tracey Joubert (Global CFO)

Greg Tierney (VP of FP&A and Commercial Finance)

Robert Moskow (Managing Director & Senior Food & Beverages Research Analyst)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Greg Tierney (VP of FP&A and Commercial Finance)

Christopher Carey (Equity Research Analyst)

Tracey Joubert (Global CFO)

Christopher Carey (Equity Research Analyst)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Christopher Carey (Equity Research Analyst)

Tracey Joubert (Global CFO)

Rahul Goyal (President & CEO)

Bonnie Herzog (Managing Director & Senior Consumer Analyst)

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