Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Kofola's Second Quarter of 2026 results conference call. Martin Pisklák, the Group CFO, will present a summary of the results. This will be followed by recording with business insights from Czechoslovakia, Adriatic, and Beers & Ciders segments presented by country CEOs, Daniel Buryš, Marián Šefčovič, and CFO Martin Rosypal.
Good morning to everyone. Before I hand over my work, the role to my colleagues who will give you more business insight, I will very generally comment on the first six months of 2026. As you most probably already studied in our presentation, you see that the first six months are basically according to our expectation. We are very glad that we are keeping the growing pattern of our profitability and we are managing the enormous impact on raw materials. Also, it's visible from our presentation that revenues in the main season in July and August were very strong, again, according to our expectations. So far, we are very confident with 2026, and I hope that we will continue in this trend also in Q3 and Q4. Now I'm handling my words to my colleagues. Thank you.
Dear Kofola lovers, here is Daniel speaking. Let me comment first half year in Kofola Czechoslovakia Soft drink division. Very positive development on sales level in all formats and both countries. More than 5% compared to last year. Our June reported second best monthly sales in our history. We successfully launched all innovation leading with Kofola Nulka, no sugar Kofola and Rajec 321 functional water. We were safe on cost side till April. Unfortunately, Iran crisis impact from May is still reality. Full year effect less than CZK 100 million. We are ready to deliver target profitability due to higher sales and flexibility on cost side. July, August sales were 12% above last year. That's unbelievable story. Top season performance was excellent not only due to sunny weather, but positive consumer sentiment help us too. We successfully closed BHMW acquisition in last days.
Now we focus on integration and healing waters portfolio development. Thank you for your attention and take a break in your favorite garden restaurant. Daniel.
Hello everyone. This is Mari á n Šefčovič, CEO of Adriatic, speaking. in Q2, the Adriatic consumer environment stabilized as decelerating inflation transitioned growth drivers from pricing to a unit volume expansion and favorable mix. This top line momentum was further supported by early season tourism inflows across Slovenia and Croatia, which expanded the addressable market and accelerated overall volume consumption. In the second quarter 2026, sales revenue increased in Slovenia by 4% and Croatia by 3%, while export markets are in line compared to the same period last year. HoReCa channel revenue surged +5% year-on-year, outperforming retail +3%, shifting product mix toward higher margin, single serve packaging and driving overall profitability. In second quarter, we successfully organized the 34th Three Hearts Marathon, which once again brought together numerous runners and sports enthusiasts in Radenci. After almost 20 years, the record for the 42 km marathon course was broken.
Another major success was achieved by Radenska Naturelle, our still natural mineral water which won the prestigious Grand Gold Award at the Monde Selection quality evaluation, the highest recognition in the water and non-alcoholic beverage category. Additionally, the Studena brand won six gold awards at the International Dani Komunikacija festival confirming its authenticity in marketing communications. To mark the 60th anniversary of the legendary Ora brand, we designed new packaging and a new label. We also expanded the Radenska Adriatic portfolio with two brands from the Kofola portfolio, Boccetta and Curiosa. Thank you. Marián.
Dear investors and analysts, this is Martin Rosypal, Finance Director of the Beer segment. I'd like to walk you through our operational results for the second quarter of 2026. Q2 traditionally represents roughly 30% of our annual revenue, about same as Q3. Compared to the second quarter of last year, total gross revenue remained essentially flat, both in value and volume terms. In our domestic market here in the Czech Republic, gross revenue grew by almost 3% year-over-year, maintaining the solid momentum from Q1. In terms of packaging mix, cans once again delivered the strongest performance. In exports, while results improved compared to Q1, we still saw a year-over-year decline of roughly 10% in the second quarter. However, this positive recovery momentum continued to gather pace throughout July and August. On the commercial side, we are still steadily advancing the modernization and rebranding of our pub network.
We successfully secured several prime new locations, effectively expanding our market footprint and bringing our brands closer to customers. Alongside these on-trade activities, we sustained strong marketing support for our portfolio, rolling out active campaigns across television, digital platforms, and outdoor media. During Q1, we focused heavily on preparing for the crucial summer season and, for example, expanding the distribution and availability of our summer specials, specifically our Cherry Lager and White Wheat Beer. With the peak holiday period now behind us, early Q3 results look very promising and give us confidence in supporting our full-year performance. I look forward to sharing more details on this during our next call. Thank you for your time and support. I wish you a successful rest of the day.
Ladies and gentlemen, now it is time for your questions. If you wish to ask a question, please click on the raise hand icon on your participant panel. When prompted by organizer, click on the unmute me icon. If you have no further questions, click on the lower hand icon. We have the first question from Mr. Petr Bartek. Please go ahead. Mr. Bartek, please click on the unmute me icon as we cannot hear you talk.
Good morning. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can. Good morning, Petr.
Sorry again, technical problems. I would like to ask about the latest acquisition of the mineral waters producer in Czechia. If you can share some financials, what revenue EBITDA the company should have? When do you start to consolidate it? If you can confirm the purchase price of CZK 440 million, which was in Czech media and in the court decision justification. What synergies with these new brands you expect? Also the acquisition in Slovakia, the acquisition of a transportation company. If you can share a little bit about the price paid and the maybe cost savings for you or the benefits. Thirdly, you have repeated in the presentation the dividend policy to pay out CZK 300 million annually.
I know that's a repeated policy, but still, does that mean that you will come back with the dividends from CZK 21 back to CZK 13-CZK 14 , or is that a kind of floor for you? Thank you.
Okay, thank you for your question. I will start with the dividend policy. This CZK 300 million is kind of floor, I would say. The truth is that we did not update the latest dividend policy, but my expectation is that in case that we continue in the profitability with EBITDA above CZK 1.8 billion-CZK 1.9 billion , also the dividend has no reason to decrease compared to prior years. We will keep it rather on the higher level. But the discussion regarding some at least midterm dividend policy, we did not publish the new version. That's true, and that's something which we should do definitely in the close future. Regarding the latest acquisition, yes, I can confirm that the price was CZK 440 million as it was announced. For us, it's important acquisition in the segment of functional healing mineral waters.
That segment which is growing a lot not only in Czech Republic but also in other countries in Europe. That's definitely something we would like to participate in. Generally, we took over the company on Tuesday on the 1st of September. Currently, you can see already the changes in the business register, justice.cz. We will consolidate the result of this entity starting from 1st of September. Some impact will be already visible in the last quarter definitely. In regards of the financial numbers of this mineral water, basically this mineral water is coming through some kind of reorganization. In our opinion, the EBITDA based on current sales performance in past 12 months should be somewhere around, let's say, CZK 40 million , which is bringing us to multiple of approximately 11 x.
But given the fact that this is kind of a very strategic asset because basically there are no other functional healing waters on the market, we believe this multiple is okay and this acquisition will be successful for us. In terms of integration to our structure, this company will become a part of the Czechoslovak non-alcoholic beverages cluster. Daniel Buryš and his team will take care about this acquisition. Basically, our plan is obviously to make out of this company another production plant in Kofola Group. Definitely the sales or the sales functions, administrative functions and so on will be provided from Kofola , so there should be synergies on this level. Also sales through the pharma channel. We should help ourself with our colleagues from LEROS which are very strong in the pharma sales channel with the herbal teas.
In general, this is the approach which we are currently taking. The acquisition itself was quite new for us because it was first time when we participate in Czech Republic in this kind of insolvency proceeding. Quite an intensive work for our lawyers. As I said, we are very glad and we are looking forward to have this brand in our portfolio. With regards to Slovakia transportation company, this transportation company was working with us very closely for a lot of years. Basically, the base of this company was in our production plant in Rajecká Lesná and Kofola was the most significant customer of this company. Because of some generation exchange, basically we agreed with the previous owner that we took over this company and integrate it to our structure.
Basically, our transportation company in Czech Republic is in charge of managing this company and basically nothing is changing. We do not expect any synergies basically from this acquisition. We basically take over the company to secure the logistic way in Slovakia by ourselves. That's maybe answers to all of your questions. Do you have some more?
I have, but maybe other participants also have some questions. Thank you.
Mr. Petr Bartek, please go ahead.
Yeah. If there are no other questions, I would continue with my questions. How should I perceive the confirmed EBITDA target for this year in the light of the very strong July and August sales? Did you increase the estimated cost impact from the Middle East conflict on your company? If you have some numbers to provide us. Last time you talked about CZK 200 million cost impact. Second, the beer exports in the second quarter, they dropped again while there was already a low base from the last year. If you can provide some comment to that. Third, the UGO chain was growing very nicely in the second quarter. I see some new openings. If you have further openings in the pipeline for this year and if you have some midterm targets for this segment. Thank you.
Okay. Let's start with the Middle East crisis. Basically, the estimations, let's say three months ago, where the group impact should be, let's say slightly below CZK 200 million. Majority of this impact is in Czechoslovak businesses. Czechoslovak business is the biggest one. At the moment, it didn't change a lot, to be honest. Still, the impact in our calculation is somewhere in between CZK 150 million- CZK 200 million on the group level, also included Adriatic region breweries and so on. We are keeping the EBITDA target. What we did typically in the last year that after the second quarter, we make it a bit more narrow, the interval. This year, I didn't narrow it just because of the Middle East crisis, because still the situation is very unclear and basically everything can happen. So we are keeping it like it is.
But in case that nothing big change till the year end, I would assume that definitely we will be rather in the upper part of the interval. So I'm quite positive, mainly because the main season was really very successful. We are very satisfied with the main season. It also seems that beginning of September is with a relatively good weather, which is always a good sign, because typically if the end of August or the last holiday weekend is nice, then typically the seasonal sales are continuing also in September, which seems that is case of this year. So September looks very promising for us. If September will be also very strong compared to last year, then basically we expect result really in the upper part of the published interval. In terms of beer, basically beer started losing the export sales in the beginning of 2025.
Basically, gradually the beer segment lost the export sales to Eastern market basically in the first half of 2025. So there was still some export, even low export, but there was still some in the second quarter of 2025. But now in 2026, there is none. So that's why we see still the decrease in export volumes. We are working very hard on bringing our beer to Slovakia market, where we are strong in distribution. However, Slovak beer market is completely different compared to Czech one. Also per capita consumption is significantly lower and so on. So it's not that obvious just to put the beer on the market. We should be very careful with the pricing and other things. So that's the fact about the export in breweries now. In breweries now, guys are working very hard on improvement in some other countries.
But the most important for us would be gaining the market share and volumes on the Czech market, which is crucial for the breweries still. That is something we should work on very intensively. With regards to UGO chain, we are growing very nicely. Some new openings are coming also till the year end. This week we opened the shopping mall, Stromovka in Prague. I think that one or two should continue till the year end. There should be very nice and big outlet in Eden in Prague as well. I mean that we expect that the growth definitely will continue. With this respect, the head of the UGO, Marek Farný, is basically responsible for the HoReCa segment in general in Kofola Group. Also the latest acquisition of Cøkafe will be managed by him.
I really believe that this HoReCa segment is very promising for us for the next years. With respect to UGO, we think that still there is some space to grow in Czech Republic. Definitely not tens of new outlets, but some we can add also in 2027. After 2027, we should go basically to some foreign markets because there will be no more space for growth in Czech Republic. The number of quality shopping mall outlets is quite limited. We are talking much more about the expansion abroad.
Thank you.
Mr. Jan Raška , please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Good morning.
Good morning. Did you start to increase prices of your production portfolio in the second quarter, or will you increase prices from the third quarter? Thank you.
So far, generally in the biggest Czechoslovak segment, we are keeping the prices. Maybe we are even decreasing the prices in some segments. Where we increase the prices are some products in Adriatic region. Otherwise, there was no increase in prices in 2026.
Okay. Thank you.
We have a next question from Mr. Petr Bartek. Please go ahead.
Thank you. One additional question regarding the increased outlook for leverage for the end of 2026. Is there any issue with debt covenants or how does this look like with this topic? Thank you.
No, basically, there is no issue. The increased leverage is the function of our acquisition activities, and we have no issue with our financing banks. We have a very good cooperation. Now we are even discussing some changes in the financing structure. But still we are keeping the relationship, and there is no issue with covenants or whatsoever. The appetite of the bank is still very big to finance our M&A activities, so we are satisfied.
Okay. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please click on the raise hand icon on your participant panel. As there are no more questions, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. A recording of today's call will be available on our website. You may now disconnect. Thank you and goodbye.