DbVIC - Deutsche Bank Depositary Receipts Virtual Investor Conference

Nov 8, 2023

Hello, and welcome to the Deutsche Bank Deposit Receipts Virtual Investor Conference, DBVIK. My name is Zaf Razid from the Deutsche Bank team. I'm pleased to announce that our next presentation will be conducted by Heineken from The Netherlands. Before I introduce our speaker, a few points to note. Please submit your questions in the questions box below the slides. Once the session has ended, don't log out. You'd automatically be transferred to the Heineken booth where you can access additional shareholder materials. On a final note, all today's presentations were recorded and can be accessed by the Deutsche Bank website, adr.dv.com. At this point, I'm very pleased to welcome Federico Castillo Martinez and Mark Matthews from the IR team at Heineken. Heineken trades on the Eoinix Amsterdam on the symbol HEIA, and in The US on the OTCQX market as HEINKY. Welcome, Federico and Mark. Hello. Good morning, everybody, and, and good afternoon if we have anybody listening in from Europe. We're thank you for having us today. We're very happy to be here. We will give you a bit of an overview of our company and our strategy in a few minutes and, dip it very quickly. We will pass on towards, q and a to be able to entertain any questions you may have. So please, if you want to already begin shooting them and feeding it into the chat, then that will make it run the smoothest for everybody. So let me start by telling you a little bit about Heineken and how our dream is to shape the future of beer and beer. This is something that Heineken has been doing since 1864. And at the moment, we are mobilizing our organization to deploy Evergreen, our our new strategy at scale, which we'll be covering a little bit in in more detail about what it's about. In order to get a little bit of a sense, we are the number one brewer in Europe. We're the second largest, brewer, globally. We are present in more than a 190 countries around the world with more than a 160 breweries. We have more than 300 international and local beer and cider brands, and we have a close to 90,000 employees. And, our company has characterized itself of delivering what we call superior growth, which is a level of growth that has been, above the level of the total category, very consistently through time, in the absence, of course, of the most recent disruptions of the COVID pandemic and and a bit of the waves that have followed of volatility thereafter. We have a very diversified footprint. We have a number one and number two positions in 71 countries. And if you look at the composition of our revenue, it's actually quite balanced, more or less half and half between emerging markets and developed markets. We are the most premium of all the brewers with more than 40% of our revenues coming from our premium portfolios. Naturally, a bit over half of that is actually come from from brand Heineken itself. That it represents close to 20% of the total volume of the business. 80% comes from other brands across our portfolio. We have also a very strong, portfolio, what we believe is the most powerful portfolio where the power of our brands is ahead of our market share, level in aggregate, meaning that we'll be there's a good headroom for us to continue to grow and capture and capture share through brand pool. The Heineken brand itself has been shaping the category since '6 since 1864, with a a number of milestones that have characterized, the brand, throughout its history from being, the beer that revolutionized the quality and taste of beer back in 1886, from the moment that it was the first imported beer to come to The US after the, after provision was lifted in 1933. It basically, was the first beer in the world that was able to travel around the world, and many, Dutchmen, were, traveling the world, bringing that brand to pretty much all the corners of the earth, and that's why you have this brand, in this in its omnipresence pretty much everywhere. The ambition of brand Heineken today is to be the most meaningful beer brand for young adult consumers. And, even in the context of the significant challenges that COVID has brought and the aftermath of COVID has brought across many markets around the world, it has continued to grow very strongly. And over the last five years, it has developed over 12% revenue CAGR by itself. And this is great news because it is a brand that is, around 50% more profitable than the rest of the brands in our portfolio, giving its premium position. So let me pause there, and let me hand over to my colleague, Mark Matthews, who will tell you a little bit about our strategy evergreen and the shifts that we're trying now to make into our our business. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Federico, and and good morning to everyone, and thank you for for joining us today. And as as Federico said, so we've we've built a a strong footprint, whether you think about that geographically, and even with our our premium portfolio and our share of markets where we choose to play. And, of course, we've been through various times of disruption. And most recently, of course, Dolph, our our chief executive, Dolph van den Brink, he joined the company, midway through 2020, which, of course, was the the first year where COVID and and the lockdowns that came with COVID causing global disruption really, really took hold. So no better time, right, than to, to shift the strategy, when when there's a global pandemic on. And Evergreen wasn't a a result of that. It was underway before that, obviously, but but clearly made even more relevant with the circumstances that we've seen since then and since Dolph took over the helm. Now the key part about Evergreen and and the the link to nature is intentional. We we talk about our Evergreen strategy, to continue to help us deliver superior and balanced growth, in the next evolution of the Heineken business, and and that's important. We've been known for for delivering superior top line growth, and we now want to switch into delivering superior and and balanced growth, in this next chapter. And as Frederico mentioned, that in that includes an implicit within that are shifts from our strengths, into a comp the company which is is future fit, is ready for the future. So let let me let me walk you through a few of those. We we've had a Frederico mentioned our footprint. We've spent time, building our footprint, expanding into emerging markets with deliberate m and a, for example, in Brazil, in Vietnam, in Mexico over the last decade or so. And and actually moving forward and with Evergreen, we're looking to accelerate organic growth. So this, you know, the the the superior top line growth will will now be focused more on building our our organic growth and driving premium leadership, and market leadership there. So we have developed, as as as Frederico mentioned, a very strong position with the Heineken brand and in premium in general, But now we're really looking to to scale that. So Evergreen, we're taking a shift to scale that premiumization and become even more consumer centric in innovation, which we believe is where the future of growth in in the the beer and broader beverage, alcohol beverage category exists. We've had a track record, we're very proud of, our excellent execution and customer relationships, close, long standing trust based customer relationships. And we now wanna shift this strength to include more data, and and digital customer strategies, shifting our traditional business and our very strong relationships to to embrace the digitization and the digitalization that is taking place everywhere, whether that's with with the consumer directly or with our our own route to market. And we've talked about, having a superior top line growth. Fair to say, pre 2019 driven by and focused on volume. And we are now absolutely wanting to shift that to becoming more balanced, driving value across all four dimensions of our our green diamonds, and I'll quickly come on to that, in a moment. Now I should just, interject it. If anyone wants to to pick up our our investor presentation, there is a link in the the handouts section of our presentation area today, and you could follow that to the website, and it should take you directly to where you can you can download a presentation, which will cover this as well. And finally, we have you know, we've been very intentional and I'm proud of having an And this is, OpCo is operating company. We empower our our local operating companies with a lot of decision making, ability. For example, in pricing execution and the portfolio decisions that they take with their own local brands. Beer, after all, is a very local product to to markets where it exists, and there is a the closeness to the consumer is a real competitive advantage as we understand it. So we've built that over many years, and now the shift is we want to move that to become even more networked as a business. Federico mentioned we have more than 160 breweries, but are we really efficient in our footprint in the best way that we can be? And and, of course, the answer there is no. We we think we can improve, and and we've got some great examples there. For example, the end to end supply chain transformation in Europe, which we recently discussed in-depth at our capital markets event and is currently underway, which is driving more of a networked approach to how we deliver to our customers and and increase efficiency. But it's not just about efficiency. We we like and we want to maintain our entrepreneurial spirit. It's a key part of the company and a key part of what's brought us to where we are today. And this is really about building disciplined entrepreneurship. The shift is is to this disciplined place. Now what does that mean? Well, we we don't want to have a reputation of just planting flags, taking the Heineken brand everywhere regardless of the cost. We are now much more deliberate and much more intentional about our capital allocation and making sure that we will be generating returns, we're building the beer category for the future, of which we can give you some examples of where we've done that, where we've been successful, and how we can see that that working very well. And for those who have followed our company for a while, Brazil would be the market I would I would point to there. Okay? So evergreen is is really a it's a change in our strategy that's building on our strengths. And the the last thing I'll say, and then we'll pause maybe. I've seen some questions come in already, is that our our priorities we have five strategic priorities. So within that framework of what we're trying to achieve in the in the company, this is where we focus, our energies and how we'll how we'll win. The first is, as Frederica mentioned, to shape the future of beer and beyond. We we want to build an advantaged footprint, scale premiumization, pioneer the low no alcohol category, and explore beyond beer, this this new and exciting category outside of traditional lager. Our second priority is all around the digital area, the digital space, and we want to become the best connected brewer globally. We have a very clear third priority on productivity. This is this is to enable us to fund our growth and and to fuel profitability in the organization. We also have, clear and specific commitments on sustainability. This is our fourth area of priority across the environmental, the social, and and the governance aspects of of these of of our organization. And finally, people. You know, people are incredibly important. And if you hear Dolph or Harold talk, we will always come back to the strength and the power of our organization, and we really want to unlock the full potential of our people in that sense. And that hasn't changed. Think So about this as a a step forward to become future fit and to create the Heineken, which will be ready to to adapt and to deal with the the the seasons, the shifting seasons that will come in our future. And, of course, we're we're moving through one as we speak. This year, has been a a season of high inflation, high inflationary impact in developed markets, and we're we're currently navigating that and executing on Evergreen. I'll pause there. Federico, anything else to add? Oh, you're muted, think. Sorry. I forgot I was, muted for, to minimize the feedback and the noise. Yeah. I would like actually to follow to continue building on what you were saying, Mark, about addressing the some of the questions that are already in the chat at the same time because they're very relevant and precisely building on what you were saying. The first one that I'd like to speak to is what do we see as the growth drivers of the business over over the next few years? And the first thing that I would like to point out is that beer is a fantastic category. It is it is big. It is accessible. It is moderate. It is natural. It is a very local category, and it is growing share of throat on a global basis. And I underline this because the one market in the world that is the of course, very big, but all exception to this is precisely The United States where is it where beer has been losing share of throat. However, globally and across the broad majority of markets globally, beer is in growth and is gaining share of throats. And this is true across emerging markets where greater purchasing power for consumers and and improve the affordability is making beer more accessible. So countries in Africa, in Latin America, in Southeast Asia have strong growth, and lots of headroom to continue to be growing in beer, but also developed markets across Europe, particularly in the Southern Part of Europe where beer is gaining significant share of throat from wine. And and this is perhaps sometimes misappreciated if you are looking at the beer category from the vantage point of The United States. Now the opportunities going forward are much larger, of course, in emerging markets where consumption per capita beer is stays at relatively low levels, the level of purchasing power of consumers, but also premium. The penetration of premium beer across markets is still greatly underdeveloped, and we believe that there's still significant headroom for that. Heineken has the most premium of the brewers then is best positioned to capture and benefit from this opportunity. And the other area of growth is areas that we have properly identified of underserved consumers and underrepresented occasions of where beer could play a bigger role. Which are these? Well, this is about a low energy occasions, where we could do better in the sense that, when people are relaxing and sometimes this is an area where, the moment, we are under indexing in these kind of occasions. With female consumers, it's also a a segment of consumers where we are underrepresented and where we could certainly do more. If you look at the taste profile of beer, about 90% of the beer category is lager with a very narrow taste profile. So by bringing innovation to bear and expanding the profile of of beer, taking advantage of the wide range of tastes that the that a beer can deliver, there's certainly more opportunities that we can tap on. And, of course, the, premiumization, angle of it. If you look at the spread of value that spirits that have are probably farther along than beer on this premiumization journey have gone. These price gaps can be up to 2.5 times in the kind in in the world of spirits, if you compare them to, the world of beer. Which being a little bit more specific on how these, opportunities manifest themselves. Well, the low and no alcoholic category is, is, growing, on a much more accelerated pace for us than the rest of traditional beer. And it's great that, within that segment, Heineken zero zero is the leading nonalcoholic brand in the world, with the disruptive proposition that it brought to the market when it was first introduced in 2017. In The US, it was introduced in 2019. And since that it has revolutionized the non no nonalcoholic beer space in the market, and it's the number one brand by value, in that space. Another area that you probably have heard a a bit of is the beyond beer, space where we Heineken's playing through propositions like Desperados, which is a tequila infused flavored beer and, our cider propositions. We are the number one cider producer in the world. With the recent acquisition of Distel in South Africa, we are the largest, beyond beer player outside of The US, on a global basis. So that is another area that will drive significant growth going forward. Let me pause there. I don't know if you wanna pick up another question, Mark, and, follow-up to continue the conversation. Yeah. I I think so. And, let's let's move through because there there there's an interesting question here around, you know, can we give some examples of the the digitization drive and and the benefits? And and I think, I would say, you know, I I would give two examples there for for you to for the for the audience to think about. The first is perhaps much more socialized among the investment community, which would be the the b to b or the e b to b platforms, which global brewers are establishing in their route to markets and particularly in their direct route to market operations. And, essentially, this is digitizing the transaction between the customer and and the the brewer. And, clearly, are efficiencies to be gained, in this space, but also a significant amount of data and understanding of consumption of of where, consumers are purchasing, how they're purchasing, and how we can leverage that data to to improve everything from better quality touch points with the the customers that we sell to, the the the endpoint shops and outlets that are selling our products, but also understand directly the consumer behaviors. When do they purchase beer and for what reason? So that is something that we are very much behind. And in many of our markets, we've also introduced a a new brand called EASL, Business Made Easy. It's an umbrella brand under which we'll start to migrate our e b to b platforms for, more of a global, scale efficiency efficiency and build building a network in that sense. So so that that is perhaps one of the the more well known, and well understood areas that that brewers and other consumer product good companies are accelerating. And we're taking a very active part in that, and we we believe that we can create value there. As well as that, part of our digitization journey includes building a much more connected network of breweries, and we actually call this the connected breweries. We've got more than 60 of our our breweries now What what does this mean? Well, it means that in the similar way, the Internet of Things will connect a, you know, a device to your network at home, for example, and link various devices together. We can also do the same with our breweries and use that connection and the data that is being collected over thousands of different parts of the brewery to, for example, build predictive maintenance routines in place and understand when a particular component within the brewing process is likely to fail. Now, of course, one of the biggest causes of inefficiency in the brewing process is unplanned downtime. So in this sense, by by digitizing and by getting, you know, a data driven view of our operations in the actual process of brewing, we can really minimize some of that unplanned downtime and, of course, create efficiencies within the the operation of the breweries. And this is this is not to be underestimated. This is not small stuff. Right? We can, we can strip out significant complexity and cost from production by being one step ahead. And I think this is, you know, another example which is not necessarily consumer facing, like the e b to b or our direct to consumer platforms, maybe. But it is also driving an internal efficiency that our customers and, of course, eventually, consumers will benefit from. So there there are two examples, but if if anyone else has more specifics, then please, you know, please come back. And and, Frederico, maybe one for you. Where do we, where do we sit in the the nonalcoholic beer market? So maybe just a quick overview of of that and how we see that developing. So, we to give us a reference, so the b the nonalcoholic beer market globally represents, at the moment, only 1% of the total beer market. Now in Europe, that is already close to 5%. In The US also, it's about 1%, but it's growing fast. It's been growing at about a 30% CAGR over the last few years and and has continued that level of of of momentum into this year. And we believe that, that can that segment can indeed reach the levels of European, levels of consumption globally. There's markets within Europe like The Netherlands close to 8% of the total beer market. Spain is closer to 10%. So the headroom for growth there is is fantastic. It was great to know that we over index in terms of our, our share in that segment significantly. So the the headroom for growth there is spectacular. We're actually seeing some of our the fastest growth in emerging markets in places like Brazil and in Mexico, which is not what we would have thought at the start when we launched the these these innovations. Now I'm also conscious that we have a very we're running short of time. So I'm gonna try to run through some of the questions that are there to try to hit as many as we can. There's one about the difference in geographic, exposure and how do we expect the growth to come differently. So for us, clearly, the biggest part of the growth we expected naturally to come from emerging markets. And if you look at the priorities for regions are very different. You can find them in our presentation. But on APAC, it is about seizing a larger share of that expected growth in that region where we have very attractive profit margins. In Africa, it's about the, creating more value out of the long term growth potential and delivering balanced and profitable growth. Here, the capturing, the the growth, but capturing value, it's important because of the challenges that many of these countries, go into from time to time, like the challenges we have in Nigeria at the moment. There's actually one question about Nigeria specifically there. Yes. We're being affected significantly in Nigeria at this moment, and it's a bit challenging to say when will that, come back in growth. I think Nigeria has shown very strong resilience through time, and the potential of that market remains immensely significant. It will become one of the most populous countries in the world in just a few years' time given its demographics. That is quite deterministic. It will happen. So it's great to maintain that position despite the short term challenges, for that big potential that can come down the road. Continuing on the geographic lens, in The Americas, it's about progressively capturing a larger share of the profit pool by capitalizing in our momentum. We are having strong momentum, particularly in Brazil, but also, in Mexico with, with our brand portfolio that as we come out of, some headwinds that we've had given the mixing of OXXO, the largest retail chain in that country. We will start to see some acceleration of our growth into the coming years. And finally, Europe, where it's more about improving the profitability and the value creation of our model given that this is not a region we're gonna see a lot of growth, but where we need to do better in order to leverage our scale advantage and our privilege in a premium our our leadership position to to create a a bigger value. Maybe we we have actually, we need we have, we need to stop, I think, because we've run, up to the thirty minute milestone unless some, somebody of the moderators tells me differently. So I think we are we can we will need to wrap up. So I'm sorry to go back to you again. One more quick question. Frederic, I think we've just been we've just been given the the white smoke. We can do one more question. So there you go. Fantastic. Maybe the one about discuss shareholder returns, dividends, and buybacks. So let me just share with you what are our capital allocation priorities. We see ourselves as a growth business. So the first and foremost priority is to reinvest in our business. We have a, investment level objective to stay on the order of 9% of our net revenue in terms of CapEx to continue expanding our positions and investing in the growth of our business. That is a very important destination of capital. The second and third is largely about maintaining a very disciplined financial profile. So to have a two point to stay below 2.5 net debt to EBITDA ratio, It's important, for, for our business. We have a strong rock track record of around fifteen years of doing so. And when we have deviated, at a particular moment in time because of a large acquisition, we have returned to those levels within a couple of years time. So that is a so staying within that threshold is another important priority. Third is our dividend policy. We've been very consistent about with a 30 to 40% payout of, of our net profit BEIA year on year. Even during COVID times, that's exactly what we were able to to deliver despite the significant challenges that our business went through. And, and once all of these priorities have been met, then we, certainly will continue to have an important m and a agenda as we still see opportunities in our business to continue to expand geographically, maybe not by large transformational acquisitions in the past, but large bolt on acquisitions like what we did in Brazil in 2016 with Kirin or what we've done with South Africa with Distel more recently. And once all of these priorities have been met, we might consider other avenues to allocate capital. You may have seen that earlier this year, we acquired a big part of the shares that FEMSA, one of our shareholders, put into the market, and we bought back some of those shares. So if, the conditions are the right ones, like at that moment in time, we could, also consider that, to allocate some capital. I don't think we can stay longer, Mark, before we get them fill the hook, coming from the right and pulling us out of the screen. So with much without much ado, I would just like to thank everybody for their interest in Heineken, and feel free to contact us at investors@heineken.com in case you have any follow-up questions or you would like to engage with us more directly.