Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Kofola's 2025 results conference call. Martin Pisklák, the group CFO, will present a summary of the results. This will be followed by recording with business insight from ČeskoSlovensko, Adriatic, and Beers & Cider segments presented by country CEOs, Daniel Buryš, Marián Šefčovič, and CFO Martin Rosipal.
Good morning, investors. Please welcome on our conference call. I'm pleased to present that our final results for 2025 slightly exceeded our initial preliminary results, which we published in February. The reason for slightly better results are basically a bit lower cost than we expected in the last quarter of 2025. Basically, all the comments which we provided to you during 2025 are still valid. Regarding the development of the revenues, regarding the development on the cost and overall situation on the market, nothing changed significantly. I'm very pleased that improving situation with the consumers on the market and basically confirmed also in the first quarter of 2026, where we are reporting 8% increase of the volume compared to 2025. We really believe that we basically swing low in 2025, and now we are prepared for the growth in 2026.
That's why we also published more precise expectation for the dividend. If nothing significant happened, we will propose to the general meeting dividend CZK 21 per share. Now I will hand over my word to most significant segments from Kofola Group and my colleagues. Thank you.
Dear Kofola fans, here is Daniel speaking. 2025 was difficult year for our business. Expected Slovak sugar tax, surprising weather, and lower consumer sentiment. Lower raw material prices and extraordinary savings including zero bonuses for all team. Very painful. Positive development of market share in retail and HoReCa formats. Declining market position in on-the-go formats due to weaker brand in energy category and wrong strategy in booming functional water category. Believe me, 2025 was the year of many lessons learned for us. Our answer, 42 SKUs of new innovations launched in 2026, especially Kofola Nulka, our innovation of decade. Two brands of functional water and two new brands in growing no sugar, no sweeteners water category. Strong marketing support and maximum focus of growing categories like coffee or kombucha. Q1, very positive development, +10% confirmed our ability to change negative trends. We carefully analyze impact of Iran crisis.
With negative impact CZK 150 million, mainly due to virgin PET plus 40%. We are ready to cover this impact by savings, better performance and price increase. Thank you for your attention and drink Kofola Nulka. It's delicious.
Hello, everyone. This is Marián Šefčovič, CEO of Adriatic speaking. The year 2025 was defined by a dynamic market environment, regulatory shifts, and volatile weather patterns across the Adriatic region. Despite the pressures, the company maintained a resilient position with annual performance in Slovenia, -2% compared to 2024. In Croatia, -3% compared to 2024, reflecting our strategic adaptability. Initially, Q1 headwinds such as the VAT increase in Slovenia and new packaging fee in Croatia were mitigated by a robust first half recovery driven by a prolonged June heatwave. However, EBITDA growth remained under pressure due to rising personnel expenses and other operational costs. Third quarter results were further impacted by an unfavorable rainy season, prompting management to intensify operational expense optimization to protect the net results. Amid these challenges, we achieved major strategic milestone, including the successful launch of Prager's Kombucha and functional collagen.
Our commitment to excellence was recognized with the prestigious Red Dot awards for the Ora quality design and the high ranking in the Valicon Top 25 ranking, which placed Radenska among the two best FMCG brands in Slovenia. Finally, we continued our sustainability leadership through green logistics solution and the completion of a high-efficiency can filling line in Radenci. Thank you. Marián Šefčovič.
Dear investors, this is Martin Rosipal speaking, Finance Director of the beer segment. The year 2025 was relatively cold and didn't have many sunny days compared to what we were used to, which was reflected in the entire beverage business, including the beer segment. There was greater media pressure on healthy living, and alcohol consumption was one of the topics. The population is aging. Although it is growing, it is mainly thanks to foreigners who are not so beer-focused. The longevity trend is very relevant for Generation Z and partly for millennials. The composition of gastro business is changing. There is a trend of eating gastronomy where people go rather for food than for entertainment. The share of takeout and home delivery consumption is growing. Thanks to all this, the per capita beer consumption falls. We can see a long-term increase in alcohol consumption and beer drunk at home.
The canned segment has clearly strengthened. The main reason is the product simplicity for customers. Draft and tank beer fell the most year-over-year. The market fell by 4% overall, but kegs fell by 6% and tank beer by almost 7%. People drink less, go out less. For us, 2025 was a year of big changes. Two of our key brands, Zubr and Holba, underwent complete rebranding and repositioning. After a long time, they entered the market with media campaigns. The main tool was ATL and TV, which were supposed to fulfill both B2B and B2C effects. At the end of the year, we started working on positioning and rebranding of the Litovel brand. There were changes in the product portfolio, its optimization, where we newly focused on core sub-brands. The Litovel brand underwent the biggest change because its results were a bit behind Zubr and Holba.
In addition, we strengthened our prices and after a long time we increased prices, which had the effect that sales went down a little. There was also a major personnel change, both in sales and marketing. The trade marketing and marketing departments were rebuilt. New key suppliers were selected, both at the packaging and design level, and the new digital agency was selected. Despite all this, there was no impact on the quality of our beer and for example, Zubr won the award for the best pale lager in the Czech Republic with Gradus. In terms of revenue in the Czech Republic market, we reached basically the same gross revenue as in a very successful year, 2024, although in volumes we declined.
In export markets, we had some successes and opened new markets, but the overall revenue declined significantly by about 25%, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, as we continued to prioritize margin improvement and scale back lower value private label businesses. Although our targets for 2025 were not met, mainly due to export and not much favorable weather, we remain committed to our transformation strategy. Our focus is on building a stronger, more profitable, brand-driven business that will deliver sustainable growth in the long run. Thank you for your continued support and attention. Wishing you a successful day ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, now it's 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 a first question from Petr Bartek. Please go ahead. Mr. Bartek, you can go ahead.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can. Good morning to you.
I had some technical difficulties. Yeah. Congratulations to the better results per the preliminaries. Few questions. First, there was some discrepancy in your releases regarding the guidance for 2026. In the presentation, you have a guidance for CZK 1.8 billion-CZK 1.9 billion for EBITDA.
This one is correct for sure.
Okay. The other one in the annual report is not the right one. Okay. Thank you. Second, if you can comment on the development of the PET price increased by 40% and this CZK 150 million cost impact, which was commented by Daniel. Is that already fixed, like that you have purchased all these volumes or how we should understand it?
Thank you for this question. The situation so far is quite unclear. Everyone is following the situation around Iran very closely. However, in the numbers for first quarter 2026, basically this crisis will be not visible basically at all. In the second quarter, the visible impacts in our P&L will be very small. Typically, we have some materials on the stock. Part of the annual purchases are already fixed with the prices and these prices then cannot be changed. So basically, the current expectations are that if the situation will calm down very quickly, let's say now during April, May, then the impacts will be not too long-term. We expect that on the group level, it can be between CZK 100 million-CZK 200 million. Really depends where the crude oil prices will finish and how fast the situation will be back to normal.
We are rather looking at what will happen in the third and fourth quarter. We already implemented some measures on the cost side, and we are preparing very openly for price increase because such an increase in raw material cannot be borne by the producers. We can expect that also our competitors will increase the prices because they are facing the same situation, I believe, as we are. At the moment, we are preparing a price increase. Overall, we still believe that this should not have any impact on the annual targets which we have for 2026, and we will handle this situation.
Of course, this is kind of like a complication for management as always, but we have to work on it, and I really believe that we are able to be prepared because still the second quarter is basically ahead of us, so we have enough time to prepare ourselves for the real hit.
Thank you. Maybe in terms of the cost in Q4, you commented that part of the cost savings from the fourth quarter is probably not recurring. If you could specify the amount and also there was a comment regarding provision for bonuses that it has positively impacted the Q4. Any comment on that? How much was the difference compared to the last year or something like that?
Basically, we in Kofola have very motivating bonus scheme for the employees. Basically all employees in Kofola Group have motivation on reaching the annual budgets because then it really depends. From the very starting position in the production or the sales team, there are some 13 or 14 salaries like middle and top management. They have significant part of their remuneration linked to the budget fulfillment. In 2024, we were in the second half of the year much stronger than we originally expected. As 2024 was a very strong year for us, basically almost everyone in the group was on the maximum bonuses, which were quite high and definitely I would say highest in the history of the company. However, in 2025 we did not reach the budget and that's why they are basically zero bonuses for all the employees in the group.
The biggest difference of course came in the last quarter because still we believe in 2025, we believe at least that for some minimum level of the bonuses still in the end of the third quarter. However, we didn't reach this minimum level. We released also the part for the minimum bonuses in the last quarter of 2025, which improved the results. Compared to 2024, where the situation was still better and better. In 2024 we basically increased the provision for the bonuses in the last quarter. Now if you look quarter-on-quarter, it's visible that the performance it's better by approximately CZK 200 million. Vast majority of this difference is due to the annual employee bonuses. That's for sure.
rest of the year, or the last quarter, is basically in the same mood as was the rest of 2025. We were trying to save as much as possible to deliver at least kind of flat result compared to 2024. You see that we basically manage. We are slightly behind 2024, but still the result is strong enough to pay out a very solid dividend.
Thank you. Maybe last question. If you can comment on the development in Slovakia. How do you see the consumer sentiment there? Is this improving already after the impact from the sugar tax last year?
Yeah.
Is the economy still problematic?
Yeah. What we at the moment see in Slovakia is that the sentiment is improving. Still it's first quarter, so we are very conservative regarding the outlooks for the rest of the year. The beginning of the year is significantly better compared to 2025. We are also waiting for the beginning of the second quarter in terms of results because there were some kind of press talking in the end of 2024 in Slovakia. Now we basically really following the trends. What is positive and we like it, is that the innovation which we placed or launched to the market in the beginning of this year in Slovakia, the strongest one is Rajec Bylinka which is functional water. The first reaction from the consumers are very positive. We believe that the sentiment is really improving.
Thank you.
Next question is from Mr. Raška. Please go ahead. Mr. Raška, you can click on the unmute me icon.
Yeah, sorry. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
I'm sorry. Yeah. You indicate a solid 8% increase of volumes in the first quarter. Can you split this growth between non-alcoholic segment and beer segment? Both of them are participated on this dynamic or can we see difference between two segments? Thank you.
Yeah. In terms of Czech market, both of them are participating in this increase. In terms of export, breweries are still a bit decreasing the export sales compared to 2025. I think that really from the second quarter these decreases compared to prior year in terms of brewery should stop and they will contribute to the growth of volumes in 2026 for sure.
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. We have another question now from Mr. Kubík. Please go ahead. Mr. Kubík, you can now click on the unmute me button and put your question.
Good morning, Martin. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Yes, we can. Good morning.
Sorry for the technical difficulties. Allow me to congratulate you on a slightly better than expected result. I have just one question. Would you briefly clarify if you plan to decrease the overall indebtedness to at least some midpoint of where it is right now? And where is the long-term target, based on the net debt to EBITDA? Because as I see it's a little bit on the higher side. That is the long-term guidance. Thank you very much.
Yeah. Long-term guidance definitely should be in between of 2-2.5x EBITDA in terms of operational part of the business. We will still keep this leverage around three times EBITDA also till the end of 2026. The main reason is acquisition, which we are doing. Definitely, the leverage will stay at this level also during 2026 as it's now.
We have another question from Mr. Bartek. Please go ahead.
Yeah. I would have one additional question. Sorry, can you hear me now?
Yes, we can.
Yeah. There was a very interesting comment in chairman's letter about the expansion in Latin America, actually. If you could comment on that. You currently have minority stakes in the local operators. Is there any target to maybe increase the stakes, or what's the current status of the cooperation and the plans for this market?
Yeah. At the moment, we are still in this interim period between signing and closing. As we indicated last time, we expect that the closing will happen in May, and it seems that really it will happen around the mid-May. From the mid-May, we should be the co-owner of these operators in Latin America. We are stepping in with the minority share or a minority share, and we have some rights in shareholder agreement to increase these shares to majority in the future. We will see how the business will develop in Latin America. In general, we see the market very prospective. Acquisition of Alta Fermentación is our test for the market to learn how the market is working, what we can achieve on this market, and how we can develop our business in Latin America further. At the moment, it's very early to say some more information.
In general, we see Latin America as a promising market. We are starting in the smaller countries, and let's see what we can manage in these countries. Yes.
Thank you.
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 webpage. You may now disconnect. Thank you very much and goodbye.