Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Anadolu Efes' second quarter financial results conference call and webcast. My name is Aslı Demirel. I'm the Investor Relations Director of Anadolu Efes. Our presenters today, Mr. Can Çaka, the CEO, and Mr. Gökçe Yanaşmayan, the CFO. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Following the first part of this call, there will be a Q&A session where you will be able to write down your questions on the question box of your web screen during the presentation. For those who would like to ask questions, please write your questions before the Q&A session because it takes some time for us to see them on the screen. Just to remind you, this conference call is being recorded and the link will be available online.
Before we start, I would kindly request you to refer to our notes in our presentation regarding forward-looking statements. Now, I'm leaving the floor to Mr. Can Çaka, Anadolu Efes CEO. Sir.
Thank you, Aslı. Good afternoon to all and good morning to those who may join from U.S. Welcome to our call for the second quarter results. Beforehand, I would like to warn you, there will be a lot of references to strong and exceptional results throughout the presentation, so it might be a little bit emphasized on this. Again, let's start with that. I'm quite pleased to report that we had one of the best performances in the quarter, with exceptional results in all metrics. Let's start with that. Obviously, these results are despite all happening, despite all the global headwinds, volatile operating environments, needless to say, the political and macroeconomic challenges.
I would say all what happened, we were able to beat our expectations in the second quarter following a very strong performance in the first quarter as well. As a total of two quarters, our first half results are as strong as you see. Obviously, we benefited from similar to the first quarter throughout this quarter as well from the low base. Because last year, the first two quarters were highly impacted with the pandemic, and basically we are cycling a low base in that perspective. We benefited from the recovery of on-trade especially, and mobility of the people to some extent.
Thus the strong volume performance was also supported by the promising tourism numbers in that perspective, especially in Turkey, as well as our solid momentum behind our innovation pipeline and recent launches. On top of the solid volume performance, we had a strong top line growth as well. The top line growth supported by foreign currency translations, obviously, because of our, let's say, international parts of our business, of our diverse geographical footprint is helping. The top line momentum was primarily driven by adequate pricing adjustments.
As we discussed in the prior quarters, before the year-end, it was obvious that we would have, let's say, inflation in the commodity prices were going up when we were planning for the year. Thanks to my colleagues in every other operation, we have taken strong pricing decisions, and that was very well managed in terms of adequate timing, the magnitude dispersed throughout the first quarter and early second quarter. That's also followed by the efficient revenue growth management initiatives, and the two also supports on top of the volume, the top line growth. We were also deliberately managing the costs and expenses, being very cautious with all that's happening in our region.
In that perspective, we were strictly ready for the inflationary waves and all these, the events that we were witnessing throughout the quarter. Those are helped. One more credit to our finance team in terms of really very effective use of hedging, both in terms of currency hedging and also material and commodity hedging. Those also helped us in that perspective, improving our profitability despite the very volatile cost environment. We were very well prepared for any volatility in that perspective and supply chain issues. That's better. In that perspective, we also had deliberate decisions in terms of increasing our inventories to benefit from lower prices at the end of last year.
We benefited from the first quarter and first half to the usage of existing increased inventories. Better operational profitability, working capital improvement despite this, inventories were high at the beginning. Again, we had further savings in CapEx and favorable currency. Which led to our free cash flow generation to reach all-time high level once again. While we expect it to be normalized to some extent in the second half of the year, partly because of this beginning inventory effect, partly now we are seeing, let's say, the real impact of the, let's say current prices. Therefore we are cautiously optimistic for this year due to continuing inflation pressures. To some extent, the pricing we have taken throughout the first half was in steps.
Now we are seeing the full price impact. That is why we are expecting the demand to be a little bit of softening on the demand side as well. However, we are committed to our strong execution in that respect. I'm very, let's say, confident that we will continue to deliver strongly in the second half as well. With the help of the first half results, we are improving our expectation for the beer group, improving our guidance. At the end of the presentation, I'll go into details of that improvement. As noted earlier, our consolidated sales volume exceeded pre-COVID levels for the first time. Thanks to, again, I mean, here we have to give credit to the soft drink division, CCI, very strong results in terms of volume.
That has helped us in terms of to improve volumes on a consolidated basis. Yet on the beer side as well, I mean, you know, we stopped the operations in Ukraine since February 24th, unfortunately. Excluding Ukraine, still the beer segment volumes were flattish. The 13% growth achieved in the quarter was above our expectations and bringing our first half volume growth to 13%. Organic growth, excluding, I would say, Uzbekistan on the soft drink side, the volume growth would have been 6% in the second quarter. Turkey reported another strong performance. You would remember we discussed the pandemic affected Turkey most as we had the highest on-trade proportion in Turkey.
You would need to remember also that we had certain days off, both in off-trade and on-trade, last year due to the pandemic. This helped both business segments with the volume recovery in Turkey. On top of this low base effect, I would say our innovation pipeline helped further with our new launches and extensions. Excluding the JV, the rest of CIS had a very strong performance through the quarter as well, coupled with Turkey performance, despite volumes were behind last year in Russia. Beer group volumes were excluding Russia excluding Ukraine certainly sorry was flat, so we were able to cover the volume lagging behind in Russia.
Soft drinks, both domestic Turkey and international operations were resilient and continued to their strong momentum, with reported growth of 25% in the second quarter in the CIS region. Uzbekistan and Pakistan had the highest contribution to the growth in the quarter. Coming back to the beer group, as discussed, our reported volume decline was low teens in the quarter. When excluding Ukraine, that was flat over the past year and was actually better than our expectations in that perspective. Specifically in Russia, following a strong quarter, we were expecting some softening with higher prices, let's say, moving to or reflected to the consumer, especially in the second half quarter.
Yet we have seen the general market dynamics turning to slight decline starting from May and posting a low single-digit decline in the quarter. The market was impacted, also the availability issues of some brands and beers and lower discounts. That lower discounts to some extent linked to the availability, linked to the supply chain issues. Overall, I'm talking about the market conditions. That's also linked to, let's say, the price adjustments taken by all players through the first quarter and early second quarter. When we look at our own volumes, our volumes were more or less in line with the market and that's in line with our expectations. Mainly our local brands, Stary Melnik, Zolotaya Bochka, Efes, Gold Mine Beer showed the highest contribution in the period.
We have seen some softening in the performance of our non-alcoholic brands. However, the extensions that we have discussed in prior calls, the cider category also increased and added to our volumes. We continued on our efforts to pursue our portfolio diversification strategy. In that perspective, we launched extensions, especially low-alcohol unfiltered. On the unfiltered segment, we launched a new line extension for Efes brands and different flavors to continue to provide the leadership on the flavored beer segment. Those were the parts of the innovation pipelines, you know. Those helped to our performance in Russia. As for Ukraine, we have decided to resume operations. In that perspective, we are looking into details. We have two breweries.
We expect to have one, the Chernihiv Brewery being operational in the coming period. Before the brewery becomes operational, we will start the sales and distribution that will be supported by import business until the production starts. For the rest of the CIS, we continued our solid momentum, grew by mid-single digits in the second quarter. You would remember we were discussing in various calls and various inquiries. Our focus was to strengthen our main brands, national champion brands. Premiumization was on our agenda together with the expansion, so both in all countries in Kazakhstan, Moldova, Georgia, that was mainly the primary focus, and it worked well.
In Kazakhstan, we continued to grow thanks to again here the premiumization helped us together with the expansion on to different segments. Similarly, Moldova showed a high single-digit growth, again driven by premiumization and craft and to some extent and backed by non-alcoholic beverage growth, non-alcoholic beer growth. Low-teens in Georgia growth level that is also supported by the soft drinks. Soft drinks, our segment in Georgia had been impacted more from the pandemic, so the recovery is also more positive. The premiumization helps in Georgia. A few words on the domestic Turkey performance. We recorded a solid growth after the first quarter. As I mentioned, supported by the recovery from the pandemic from low base.
Recovery in the tourism or strong start to the tourism season also supporting together with the recovery in the on-trade and the more eating and, let's say, dining out trends that we are seeing in Turkey. I'm also proud to share that our latest launch. We have launched a new beer. It's an affordable beer in Turkey, Bremen 1827, showed a strong performance despite it was just a month, right, only June was included in the first half results. I hope to see better results with this new brand in the market. As usual, a few words on our soft drinks division performance as well.
CCI's consolidated sales volume registered another strong performance with the reported growth of 25%. Excluding Uzbekistan, organic growth was also strong at 15%, and the solid volume performance was across the board, including Turkey and international operations. From the category perspective, sparkling category maintained its momentum and increased by 25%, while the growth of Coca-Cola brand was even higher, 26%. The still category recorded similar growth rates in line with the overall growth with strong iced tea and energy drink performance as well. Water category growth was led by, backed by solid mineral water category performance in that perspective. Again, domestic operations, a solid growth similar to beer. That's also soft drinks had the advantage of cycling a low base due to the pandemic again.
Volumes were supported by that, the good momentum achieved during the month of Ramadan, with also the better tourism also supporting the category together with the recovery on-trade in Turkey. Cycling a strong 20% growth a year ago. International operations again continued to deliver an outstanding performance, reporting a 29% growth and 13% organic growth in the second quarter. Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan were the main contributors to the growth of the international operations. The highest growth was registered in Uzbekistan, so we are happy with the immediate reflection of the proper, very good geographic expansion on CCI side, especially with strong momentum in the sparkling category. Coming back to beer again.
Like to mention once again that we had extraordinarily successful quarter with strong results both in terms of revenue and profitability management. In the second quarter, our revenues grew by more than 135%. On an FX neutral basis, the growth was around 6%. On top of the volume growth, pricing, proactive revenue growth management initiatives, which also included very efficient discount management helped the growth in that perspective. As I noted at the beginning, we had very, let's say, thorough planning for the year. We have decided to ensure that we will deliver the cost increases into the pricing.
We have throughout the first quarter especially and early second quarter pricing initiatives across the board, and that's reflected into the strong profitability. In that perspective, we were able to expand our gross profit margin and strongly benefited also from the FX in that perspective and commodity hedges. Impact of inflationary or the cost increases or cost pressures coming from the commodity prices were properly reflected and offset in that perspective. On top of that, we were very, very careful, strict on our expense management as usual, and kept our discipline in that perspective. Therefore, in the peer group, we expanded our EBITDA (BNRI) margin by 460 basis points with 24-29 basis points expansion at Anadolu Efes level on a consolidated basis.
Net profitability increased more than 3x compared to a year ago and reached TRY 1.4 billion in the quarter. Obviously, significantly higher EBIT was the primary reason on the back of increased bottom line. While we also benefited from FX translation in that perspective, the contribution of the international operations, I would say. Financial expenses were significantly higher versus last year, with increased cost of borrowing throughout the period and higher TRY equivalent of hard currency interest expenses due to TRY appreciation in the period. Yet we were able to improve our bottom line. Together with that bottom line, free cash flow generation also was significantly ahead of last year, reaching all-time high level of TRY 5.4 billion .
Lowering our leverage despite the increased, let's say, indebtedness in terms of TL, we were able to lower our leverage to 1.1x only. There was an outstanding performance in the first quarter in terms of cash generation. Again, this to some extent is attributable to expanded payables, despite we increased our inventories, FX conversion impact from the working capital also helped. We're cautiously reminding that we expect some normalization in the second quarter. We may do some prep buys also for the year to come in order to ensure the supply chain and overcome the potential bottlenecks and again to improve the visibility in terms of supply.
Therefore, the first quarter performance is not fully expected to be reflected in the full year. Again, we have improved our guidance for the year. I will mention let's say outlook improvement in the coming minutes. Before then, I would like to turn it over to Gökçe to go into further details of the financials.
Thank you, Can. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our conference call for first half results of 2022. Actually, you just listened to Can speaking about Anadolu Efes' exceptional results for second quarter and first half. I would like to give a bit more flavor for the beer group. You have heard already many times, but let me repeat, in second quarter, volume declined by 12%. Here important to underline that Ukraine has not been operational since February 24th. If you were to exclude Ukraine, you would be seeing a flash performance for the quarter in an environment where we've been pushing aggressive pricing actions deliberately in order to mitigate our cost pressure. That's important to underline. Beer group sales though has significantly outperformed volume performance and reached TRY 9.8 billion in second quarter.
Again, here I would like to remind my note from previous call. In all P&L lines we have so far seen, and we might like to see for the rest of the year, conversion impact coming from international operational results. STR continues to have a weak performance. This currently reflects positively to our results, thanks to our diverse geographic footprint. Having said so, FX neutral basis growth in sales revenue was also very strong at 32%. This was thanks to price increases, effective discount management, and favorable product mix. In the first half of the year, beer group sales revenue increased by 114% year-on-year and reached almost TRY 15 billion. On the cost side, nothing new or at least no positive news yet, unfortunately. Mostly linked to global context, we still face strong headwinds and volatility.
There has been significant inflationary pressure in the packaging materials as well as energy prices. Nevertheless, timely price adjustments, coupled with effective use of commodity and currency hedging, helped us offset the impact of cost inflation and even improve the margins. I'll give you an update about hedges in the coming slides. Beer Group gross profit increased by 128% to TRY 4.2 billion in second quarter, and this resulted to a growth of 143% for the first half, with a margin improvement of 475 basis points in gross profit. Strong and positive numbers continue with EBITDA as well. In second quarter, EBITDA was up by 179% to TRY 2 billion.
As a result, first half EBITDA increased by 267% to TRY 2.4 billion, again, with a margin improvement of 681 basis points. Reminder, again, here we are talking about EBITDA before non-recurring items for 2022, and it means that it does not include impairment losses in our Ukraine operation or any other one-offs. Speaking of impairment losses, we had booked an impairment of TRY 980 million in first quarter related to Ukraine operation, and this impairment is being constantly reviewed, and the final amount for first half is slightly less than first quarter number at TRY 963 million. Net income impact is TRY 390 million again.
As a result of strong EBITDA, despite increasing financial expenses and impairment losses, our net income almost doubled in first half of the year. Another good news is a record level of free cash flow in the second quarter, and it reached to TRY 5.1 billion. In first half, Beer Group generated a free cash flow of TRY 5 billion versus TRY 1.1 billion of last year. Let me show you EBITDA and free cash flow bridges and give a bit more details in the following slide. Similar to first quarter, actually we have repeated strong operational results and a very good growth algorithm, meaning that revenue is growing more than cost of goods sold and operating expenses. This is exactly what we see in the EBITDA bridge for second quarter and first half.
Besides timely price adjustments, our disciplined cost and expense management and zero-based budgeting approach enabled us to keep a lower cost base and support bottom line. We can also see in the bridge the positive conversion impact that I have mentioned earlier, especially in second quarter with strengthening ruble and weakening Turkish lira versus last year. Overall, a very strong EBITDA performance for second quarter and first half despite all challenges. In third and fourth quarter though, we may expect that the increase in cost base will be similar to increase in revenues. Therefore, the gross margin momentum achieved in first half may soften in second half of the year. When it comes to free cash flow, free cash flow driven both by better profitability and working capital. Record level of free cash flow, as I noted earlier.
However, I also have to note that appreciation of ruble also led to a currency translation impact, supporting very strongly positive working capital results we have. We may expect this impact to normalize in the rest of the year, depending on currency movements. Moreover, in order to overcome possible supply constraints, we may increase our stock levels above usual, which may also have a potential negative impact on our free cash. Consequently, free cash flow generation might be comparable to its level last year. However, it will be stronger than our initial expectations. On the balance sheet side in the following slide, we continue our prudent approach and hold the majority of our cash in hard currencies. By the end of first half, more than 60% of cash we hold was hard currency denominated, both in Beer Group and Anadolu Efes consolidated.
As we have seen a significant EBITDA growth, our net debt to EBITDA has also seen a significant improvement. As of first half of 2022, net debt to EBITDA declined versus last year end from 2.5x to 1.2x in Beer Group, and from 1.6x to 1.1x for Anadolu Efes consolidated. To remind and update some key figures on Beer Group hedges, from the commodities we can hedge, hedged already 87% of aluminum, 100% of PET, and 89% of our barley exposure for 2022. In the meantime, additionally, we have also hedged around 40% of 2023 annual exposure of Turkey and CIS countries. On the FX side, actually no important update. We are pretty well covered for 2022 P&L exposure. This will conclude my presentation.
I'm giving back to Can Çaka. Thank you.
Thank you, Gökçe. As discussed throughout the call, we had a strong first half performance above our expectations. That was mainly driven by the pricing, timely and adequate pricing, and actions and revenue growth initiatives and effective use of hedging tools together with the very cautious expense and OpEx control in that perspective. With that in light, we expect to have we are improving our outlook. Again, for the second half our expectations are cautious. That's obviously given the current environment. I mean, it's still the rest of the year as we see it today is as challenging as before, if not more.
Yes, I mean, we see at least the increase on commodity costs is slower or in certain commodities. We are seeing price levels below the top levels that we have seen through the first half. Still, the current levels need to be addressed. As discussed, we have taken the pricing actions in steps and to the first quarter and early second quarter. The consumers faced the final current pricing recently. One would normally expect an impact on the consumer demand and potential impact on the strong consumer demand that we have seen till now. We are bearing in mind all these challenges we may face through the second half.
We are improving our beer group outlook as a result of the first half performance with all these challenges in mind and with cautiousness. The improvements in the beer group outlook was also reflected on a consolidated basis to the Efes outlook while the softening guidance was reiterated as announced in January. Accordingly, we improve our beer revenue growth expectation from mid-teens to high teens on an FX neutral basis. On consolidated basis, we now expect our revenue to grow by mid-thirties on FX neutral basis, which was low thirties previously at the beginning of the year. We no longer expect to have our beer group EBITDA margin to decline with strong profitability achieved and the margin expansion achieved through the first half.
Our new outlook for the margins is to be flattish in that perspective versus last year. Finally, our EBITDA margin is expected to stay flat on a consolidated basis, as well, which was at the beginning of the year, a small decline around 100 basis points. One final reminder, as you might remember, as again, regarding Ukraine. On February 24th, we have halted the operations in Ukraine, unfortunately, with all these happenings. Recently, we have conducted the risk analysis. Our teams are on the ground and several businesses are resuming operations in Ukraine.
In that perspective, we are making evaluations in terms of opening our Chernihiv beer brewery, which is six kilometers to the north of Kyiv as a result of our analysis. Basically, upon that then we expect the brewing operations to be resumed by the early fourth quarter. In that perspective, till then, we will support the operations with importation to the country. That's overall. Now, we are ready for your questions. Thank you for listening to us.
Thank you, Can bey. Thank you, Gökçe bey. There are a few questions that I see on the screen. Let me start with the first one from Ece, Ünlü & Co. Congratulations on the strong results. Could you please comment on the competitive environment in Russia on a segment basis? Have you observed stronger growth in premium category than other players? Was this the main reason for the favorable mix effect in second quarter? Additionally, in your beer segment guidance, what level of USD ruble do you take into account? In a scenario of ruble depreciation, how would your EBITDA margin be affected? Could there be additional price increases? Thank you.
Ece, thank you. Thank you for your strong statements. Basically I mentioned about the growing brands in Russia, mainly from Stary Melnik, Löwenbräu. To some extent, upper mainstream and lower premium brands are growing. That helped in that perspective. Obviously it was the improvement in the margins and improvement in the profitability was mainly driven by the pricing initiatives that we have taken in that perspective. I'm not going to go into details of the, let's say, FX rate assumptions, I would say. Gökçe, if you like to, you can. Again, I mean, if we're very straightforward in that perspective from the very beginning.
If we see an pressure on the cost base, we'll have pricing to cover that cost and make sure that the profitability is maintained. Currently, I don't see a major reason for any pricing decision. Again, if necessary, we will be able to take the necessary decision in that perspective. This is all I can say. Gökçe.
One addition I can maybe have for this year specifically from FX point of view, we have covered with hedges, so there won't be any impact on the EBITDA margin even if the FX would move.
Thank you. Let's skip to the second question. Thank you for the call, and congratulations on the strong Q2 results. Two questions. Can you give more color on the raw material cost developments in the second half? Can you walk through each m-raw material item, how much is hedged, what is the cap price, and how does that compare in the first half of 2022? How much is hedged into 2023? And can you discuss what mechanisms are in place to repatriate cash from Russia? I understand at the moment this is not a concern because of the low cash generation, right? For the future, it would be helpful to know what options there are.
Thank you again. I mean, Gökçe would, you would be able to give much more color than me. Again, I mean, when you look at the raw material and commodity cost, they started to increase in the second half of last year. By the end of first quarter, we have seen the highest peak levels, I would say. Again, I mean, we were hedged and basically our I mean, we were hedged more than 70% at the beginning of the year and even higher right now. In that perspective, our cost base wasn't fully reflecting these historical levels in per se. We have started to hedge for next year as well, 2023, for various different commodities.
They mainly for aluminum, it's 40%, Gökçe is reminding me. This hedging level is more or less in line with what we have last year levels despite the volatility in the prices. Today, when we look at the price levels, we see in most of the commodities, you know, as you're following, as we do, are below their peak levels but still higher than the averages what we had through last year in that perspective. We will have certain cost pressures going through the second half because we had lower opening inventories at the beginning of the year. Also, the current levels would have higher or similar cost levels for going forward in for 2023.
Actually, there's not much to add. I can only maybe add a bit of flavor of the hedge cost of the aluminum. As you said, we have covered 40% of next year exposure. The current year is slightly lower than this year's average cost. That's it. I can add.
That's good.
One more question. Can you provide an update on discussions to acquire ABI's share in the JV in Russia? I believe certain brands were under discussions. Can you give some color?
Well, I mean, the discussions are continuing. In that perspective, we couldn't come to a conclusion. I mean, it would be very premature to say anything in that perspective. As in our initial announcements, yes, there were certain brands, AB InBev as a brand almost, requested to terminate the production. That's a part of the discussion. Only after we come to a solid position, I would be able to mention, give more details. As of today, we unfortunately cannot provide any color on this. It's an ongoing process for the time being.
A question from Lütfü Gazioğlu. Congratulations on the great results. I have a question on raw materials prices outlook for 2023 and how much you've hedged. Actually, we already answered the question, but let me read the rest of it. In the last couple of meetings, you had mentioned about uncertainty on raw materials for 2023 as prices soared due to the war. Any more comments? No.
No. Actually.
We have covered.
Okay. The next question is, could you please share the contribution of each Russia and Ukraine to the Beer Group EBITDA in first half? Can you please give us more color on the status with negotiations? Again, the same question. What is your cash position at the holding level, EBI?
I can go ahead here maybe 'cause the second question, I think Can already answered. The first question about the share of Russia and Ukraine, EBITDA-wise, it's around 60% of our total EBITDA in the first half. About the cash we hold in Efes Breweries International, it's around $200 million in the first half, and it's supposed to decrease to $150 million levels as we're gonna be servicing our debt on, you know.
What is the current market and consumer environment in Russia in recent months? What kind of positive and negative surprises you are facing in the new era, changes in consumer trends? Question from Melis.
Thank you, Melis. I mean, not much of a surprise, I would say. I think our evaluation at the beginning of the year both in terms of the inflationary environment reflection into pricing and everything, it worked very well. In that perspective, from the consumer point of view, what we are seeing in the market is in line with our expectations. We are not that much surprised, and our execution is working in that perspective. The only positive, we have taken the necessary pricing to cover the cost increase and to improve the profitability as that was our ambition to balance the volume and value growth in the country, and that's also achieved to some extent through this period of time.
Yes, the current price levels, we were expecting to put certain pressure onto the consumer across the board globally and, specifically in Russia. We are seeing that, now the price is fully passed through to the consumer. We are seeing softening consumer demand and, for the quarter, a decline in terms of volume in the market. Again, the good news is we are gaining both volume and value share, and that's all I can say at the moment.
Can you manage to maintain second quarter beer margins for the upcoming quarters and next year? Or is there any chance to further build up beer margins on top of quarter two levels in the upcoming quarters in 2023?
For the second half of the year, as we have mentioned, we are expecting a softening in the margins as the cost escalation will be catching up the price increases that we have done earlier than the cost escalation. However, you also heard about our guidance change actually. We were expecting our EBITDA margin to be flat to minus 100 basis points, but we have revised it positively on the positive side to flat to 100 basis points positive this time around. So we are having a better expectation for the remaining part of the year, though it's going to be challenging. For the next year to come, I can say that obviously, as Can also mentioned, our first intention is to be able to reflect the prices too as we face cost pressures.
Thank you. Another question from Mehdi. When you resume production in Ukraine, is there a possibility that impairments might be partially reversed?
For Ukraine, as I tried to explain, we need a couple of months to restart, ramp up the operations, brewing operations. That would be end of third quarter, early fourth quarter. In that perspective, yes, I guess, some part of the impairments would be reversed back.
Obviously, we are, as I said, I mean, constantly reviewing it, and depending on the commercial landscape of the country and what we can resume, what will be the forecasted sales and volumes and free cash flow, we will look into that.
Okay. What is the medium to long-term Beer segment EBITDA margin guidance?
Well, I mean, you know, well, our ambition is to improve margins going forward. Grow revenues, grow profitability over the revenue. That's the algorithm that we would like to stick to. In that perspective, every other year, we are sure, obviously excluding the extraordinary happenings, our ambition is to improve margins, together with the volume and revenue development.
A question from Cemal Demirtaş. How they see the outlook in the third quarter so far, both in Turkey and international operations?
Well, I guess that's included in our guidance, so that's all we can color in. Again, we have benefited from such a low base of last year. In the first half, we have benefited beginning with the low-cost base, beginning inventories. There would be further headwinds in the second half. All these are reflected into the guidance. We are confident to deliver what we are revising as a guidance for the time being.
I mean, another question about the transaction. I'm skipping it.
Sorry for not being able to talk about it. Again, it's an ongoing process, so we don't want to mislead anyone. That's ongoing, and we'll see how it goes. Once there is a solid development, we will let everyone know about it.
Can you comment on extracting cash from Russian operations? Also, how is your hard currency cash generation in light of increased capital controls from the Turkish government?
Well, when it comes to Russia, let me start with the first part that I think I understood better the question.
Mm-hmm.
In Russia, for the time being, we don't see any issues or we didn't face any issues when it came to international payments. We could execute them whenever we needed to. That would be my answer. Going forward, obviously day by day, the context is changing, so we have to follow closely, which we are doing already. I don't understand very well our currency cash generation in Turkey actually, but.
There is no problem.
I don't see any.
You know, our operations, there is no capital controls. There's no issue with respect to access to hard currencies. Yes, we're facing difficult macroeconomic environment to some extent. Like, fortunately, we don't have an issue with respect to having and paying our obligations, legal obligations in hard currency, repatriating cash to anywhere outside of the country in any of our operations.
Another question from Mustafa again about the deal. A follow-up, I mean, do you have any plan to divest their stake at Anadolu Efes due to the indirect exposure to Russia? Lastly, any non-cash deal is an option, I mean, swap of their share in the Russian operations with higher shareholding at Anadolu Efes.
Well, again, it's very, very hard to comment on that. It's I would say the discussions is around having a specific deal with respect to the 50% non-controlling stake they have at the JV.
Thank you. Cost inflation. Again, Ukraine, I'm skipping that. Can you provide more color, the tight OpEx management and sustainability in light of higher inflation in Turkey as well as minimum wage increases?
Okay. I mean, for the last couple of years, we are also implementing zero-based spending principles in all our operations, which starts also in Turkey and much larger categories as well. Yes, I mean, wages are increasing. There's the inflation. We are increasing wages and salaries in that perspective. We have to make sure that our team members, colleagues are, let's say, remunerated adequately, and their purchasing power is not deteriorated with respect to the inflation. But again, for the rest of the other expenses, other OpEx items, I would say, our operational teams are showing a great performance there.
For us, yes, we are making a budget at the beginning of the year, but we are going through extraordinary periods of time. I would say many major items are all frozen at the beginning of the year. There are category owners, there are budget owners, and they are very quite responsible in terms of reevaluating every other expense, reevaluating every other action in that perspective and making sure that is in line with our, from, let's say, on a rolling estimate basis, in line with our expectations. As we deliver, we are releasing, and we are spending. That's a very well-established discipline.
I have to give a lot of credit to the finance team who led this, but also the operational teams who had been working very, let's say, very good working practice between the working groups.
Are there any changes to CapEx outlook for 2022 and any indications for 2023?
Actually, yes. We have already, given the context that we face in Russia, we had already decided to have some optimization of our CapEx this year. We might be seeing certain percentages of decline from our usual rate of spending in 2022. Going forward in 2023, at least current assumption is to be around high single digits, 7%-8% if I remember correctly.
Do you have any short-term debt with local banks in Turkey in the Turkish lira? If so, how do you assess interest rate risk increase and the impact on Turkish beer cash flows?
Well, we have Turkish lira debt. Yes, that's a fact that interest rates are increasing in the market currently. From our end, we don't see any issues at least for the time being to roll over our debt. It's okay.
In Russia, have you seen the effect of your competitors withdrawing from the country? Has this contributed to the ability for you to take market share from Bernard?
Well, I mean, for the time being, I would say there is not much of a change in terms of any shareholding, any brand presence in the country. In that perspective, the competitive landscape is from the brand perspectives and operational perspectives weren't that much different. Obviously, various challenges were ahead of every operator there internationally as well, supply chain interruptions, so on and so forth. That we have seen certain cases, limitations on that. Those in certain cases that may have led also sometimes lower discounting and promotion practices, but again, more or less the same old market conditions.
A follow-up about repatriation of cash from Russia. I understand at the moment this is not a concern, because of the low cash generation there, but for future it would be helpful to know what the options are. I think we skipped that part. Okay. How do you expect the Russian beer market to evolve? The same question, so I'm skipping it. The update about the transaction and the departure of main global beer brands, we already discussed that. The upstreaming of cash from Russian operations, we already discussed that. The next one from Pars: Could you share upcoming maturities for 2022 and 2023 for debt book level and plans to repay these cash increase at EBI from first quarter to the second in Russia and at offshore entities?
Well, the biggest maturity that we have in this year, actually, we have mentioned we're gonna be servicing our Eurobond.
November.
In November, $180 million. That's the biggest chunk of money that's coming in the short term. Actually the other Eurobond that we have, as you would remember, we had to refinance it. It's the maturity is still in 2028, sorry. Therefore, that's the only loan that we have to pay this year.
Can you please give some color about new beer brands you have launched in Türkiye? What consumer group are you targeting? What's the price point? What market share are you targeting?
Well, it's a very recent launch. It's an affordable brand given the macroeconomic conditions and everything. We'll see. Hopefully we can give you more color in the coming quarters. I wouldn't like to make any commentary at the beginning. Rather, let's talk it when as we realize.
Okay, thank you. Gökçe Bey, there is a follow-up question about the cost inflation for 2023, but it's a bit early to comment on it.
Well, the item that we know is aluminum. As I have tried to give a sense of it, that we are currently at a lower cost base with our current hedges-
Mm-hmm.
From beer to 2022, $150 lower than this year's average we currently hold. It depends on how it's going to obviously evolve in the future. The other maybe idea that we can give is around barley. Currently, we have started procuring about that locally in Türkiye. We see a huge increase obviously there. That's why we are trying to buy as much as we can. As we mentioned throughout the presentation, stock as much as we can so that we benefit from the cost in the coming year.
Last question is beer group net leverage has improved notably. Is 1x-1.5x the target level going forward?
Well, actually, in our guidance we say 1x-2x of targets. These are the levels that we want to see it.
Thank you. These are all the questions that I have on the screen. I mean, thank you for listening to our presentation and writing down the questions. I have one more. The last questions are the same questions that we already answered. Thank you for your participation and any words?
No. Thank you, Aslı.
Okay.
I mean, thank you for your interest. I mean, this is the first time we have seen more than five questions in an August call. Obviously there is a lot of interest, especially with respect to Russia. Sorry if we couldn't provide sufficient color, but probably in the coming periods you will see much more details. Thank you all.
Thank you.
Thank you.