Anadolu Efes Biracilik ve Malt Sanayii A.S. (BIST:AEFES) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Our CEO, mister Anadolu Birack, and our CFO, miss Yasamancari Reznas. The first part of today's call will begin listen only mode. Afterwards, we will open the floor for a q and a session. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all information, financial information disclosed in this presentation are presented in accordance with TAS twenty nine. Just to remind you, this conference call is being recorded

0:30 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 ground to Mr. Roman Altsuk, Anadolu Efesir. Sir? Also, thank you. Good morning, and good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Efes first half twenty six results conference call. As we anticipated at the beginning of the year, the operating environment inside the volatile throughout the second quarter, particularly in the domestic markets. Political developments in The Middle East, higher oil prices, and persistent inflationary pressures continued to pressurize consumer sentiments across many of our markets.

1:17 Despite the challenges, we once again show the strength of our diversified business models. Our wide geographic footprint together with the solid contribution from both our beer and soft drinks businesses enabled us to deliver another resilience and consolidated performance in second quarter. On a consolidated basis, volumes increased by more than 7%, mainly supported by the healthy momentum across our soft drink business. Revenue growth of 2.8% reflected not only volume growth, but also our continued pricing discipline. Yet revenue productivity was challenged by affordability issues. We also continued to benefit from improving gross profitability in soft drink business while maintaining a disciplined approach to operating expenses despite persistent inflationary pressures and higher distribution expenses driven by elevated fuel prices.

2:15 As a result, we delivered another quarter of EBITDA margin expansion on a consolidated basis. Another encouraging development during the quarter was our cash generation. Both businesses delivered positive free cash flow, allowing us to further strengthen our balance sheets with consolidated net debt to EBITDA improving 1.2 times. Having said that, the first half also confirmed that the recovery in Turkey and beer has been slower than we originally anticipated. While demand trends improved during June, and we have seen encouraging signs entering the summer season, the overall consumer environment remains more challenging than we expected at the beginning of the year.

3:01 Reflecting this more cautious outlook, we have updated our full year '26 beer group guidance. We will get into details in the following slides. Now let me walk you through the performance of our beer group in much more detail. As we discussed earlier, domestic beer continued to operate in a difficult consumer environment while our international operations once again demonstrated their resilience and continues to contribute to beer group volumes positively. During the second quarter, our beer group volumes reached 3,800,000 hectoliters, While this represents an 8% decline year on year, it is important to highlight that the overall performance was largely driven by the softness in Turkey.

3:48 At our international operations, volume declined by 4.1% on a reported basis. But, however, excluding the impact of the export business restructuring in Georgia, our international beer business actually returned to growth, increasing by 1.2% in the second quarter of twenty six with our CIS markets continuing to deliver resilient operational performance. Apart from the operational performance, we also made meaningful progress in executing our long term international expansion strategy. As a follow-up to our year to date achievements, we officially started license production in Azerbaijan and also signed the toll filling agreements in both Uzbekistan and China.

4:35 These partnerships represent important milestones in our asset light expansion strategy, enabling us to enter attractive markets with limited capital investment while increasing the availability of our brands to local consumers. Also in The UK, our cooperation with Sunrise continues successfully, further expanding the reach of our international portfolio. While these initiatives will not materially change our financial performance in the very near future, they represent important building blocks for the future and further diversify our international volume base. Let me now turn to our two k b operations where the operating environment remains highly challenging throughout the most of second quarter.

5:24 As we discussed at the beginning of the year, affordability has been under pressure for some time due to sticky inflation in the country. Unfortunately, these pressures had impacted volumes much higher than we had initially anticipated at the beginning of the year resulting in a slower recovery in demand during the first half. The weaker consumer environment was further amplified by unfavorable weather conditions, particularly during April and May, which continued to weigh on Horeca channel consumption and the overall market volumes, of course. As a result, our beer volumes in Turkey declined by 12.5% during the quarter. Having said that, I would like to highlight an import one important thing. We state started to see some improvement in demand during June and July.

6:13 While two these two months' performance do not mean a trend change, it gives us some confidence that consumer activity is gradually normalizing as we move into the key summer months. During the quarter, we also successfully completed the acquisition of the majority stake in. The transaction is another important milestone in our strategy of building a broader and more diversified alcoholic beverages portfolio in Turkey. We also successfully completed the relaunch of Efes family. This is far more than a packaging change. It's it's a comprehensive renovation of our core brands with the improved tastes and modern look and an enhanced execution standards across all consumer touch points.

6:58 The relaunch is the result of extensive consumer research and nearly two years of preparation. While it's still early days, the initial consumer and customer feedbacks has been encouraging for us. Rather than relying on a single growth engine, we also continue to build a balanced portfolio that allows us to participate across different consumer occasions and price points where we address each of the segments with variety of brands. Let me now provide some additional color on the performance of our international beer operations, which once again showed resilience. Starting with Kazakhstan, we delivered another quarter of healthy growth, outperforming the markets and marking our fourth consecutive quarter of volume expansion.

7:44 This performance reflects the strength of our commercial execution, continued premiumization efforts, and are able to to adopt quickly to changing consumer preferences. Recent product launches, together with our focus on premium brands and the CAC channel continue to support both volume and value growth in Kazakhstan. In Georgia, reported volumes remained affected by the export business restructuring that we discussed in previous quarters. However, excluding this temporary impact, the underlying business continued to perform very well supported by healthy domestic demand and disciplined execution. Moldo also delivered another solid quarter despite the relatively strong comparison base.

8:29 Our well balanced portfolio and successful innovations introduced over the past years continue to support steady growth across different consumer segments. Let me finally touch upon the performance of our soft drink business, which continued to show solid momentum in this quarter as well. During the first half, CCI once again delivered healthy volume growth supported by the continued strength of its international footprint. During the second quarter, consolidated volumes increased by 9.3%, reaching 519,000,000 unit cases. This strong performance was primarily driven by Pakistan and Central Asia, once again highlighting the strength of CCI's international footprint.

9:18 In Turkey, volumes declined by 1.1% to 159,000,000 unit case, while the suspecting beverage category remained under pressure. We were pleased to see the steels category continue to sustain its positive momentum. Our international operations continued to perform strongly with volumes increasing by 15.4%, building on an already strong comparison base from last year. Pakistan once again delivered an outstanding performance with 17% volume growth, while Uzbekistan remained one of our fastest growing markets, expanding by 21.1% during the quarter. Kazakhstan also maintained its strong momentum, delivering 12.7% volume growth supported by continued consumer demands and disciplined commercial execution.

10:12 In Iraq, despite the ongoing geopolitical uncertainties in the region, we still managed to deliver 1.1% volume growth. Overall, we are very pleased with the performance of our soft drink business. With that, let me now hand over to Yasemin who will take you through our financial performance in more detail. Thank you, Anadolu. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. As Anadolu covered Anadolu's financials, I will I will briefly give you more insight to the bill group performance for the second quarter and the first half. In the second quarter, the bill group sales volume declined by 6% to almost 20,000,000,000 TL. Revenue performance was primarily impacted by the weaker volume trends in our two k beer operations, although this was partially offset by the resilience of our international operations.

11:06 So Turkeye Beer operations recorded 11,000,000,000 TL revenue in the second quarter, which represents 11% decrease mainly due to 12.5 percent volume decline in the period. While we observed a modest improvement in the discount levels in the domestic market, this benefit was offset by an unfavorable product mix as affordability pressure continue to shift consumer demand toward lower price value segment offerings. Turning to international operations, sales revenue increased by almost 2% year on year to 8,300,000,000 TR. Within the international portfolio, Kazakhstan was the strongest contributor supported by timely pricing actions and continued premiumization.

11:53 As a result, revenue per hectoliter in Kazakhstan expanded by a robust 14% year on year. Consequently, WeWork revenue for the first half reached almost 30,000,000,000 TL, representing almost 7% year on year decline. WeWork gross profit declined by almost 10% to 9,000,000,000 TL in second quarter with a margin contraction of 200 basis points. While Turkey operations were mainly impacted by softer volumes, which resulted in a higher fixed cost burden per hectoliter, we also saw some pressure due to higher labor and the packaging cost. Moreover, Kazakhstan gross profit was also under pressure mainly due to the very favorable cost base in the last year.

12:43 Come to EBITDA. We were recorded 3,100,000,000 t I EBITDA, where we had a almost 16% EBITDA margin in the second quarter, which indicated 475 basis point contraction. Approximately, half of this decline was attributable to gross margin erosion as discussed earlier. As shown in the bridge analysis, the primary pressure point remained net revenue generation, largely driven by weaker volume in domestically. In Turkey, the softer top line performance negatively impacted gross profitability. At the same time, we saw the anticipated increase in selling and the marketing expenses related to the Efes relaunch.

13:29 These investments were delivered and aimed at strengthening visibility and supporting the communication behind the relaunch. On the other hand, our international operations continued to benefit from disciplined cost management. Selling and marketing expenses as well as general and administrative expenses declined as a portion of net sales, primarily in Kazakhstan and Moldova. As a result, our CS operations once again delivered strong profitability in the quarter with EBITDA margins remaining above 30% across each of these markets. This solid performance had partially offset the margin pressure experienced in Turkey. Consequently, Beer Group EBITDA in the first half was 2,300,000,000 TR, with an EBITDA margin of 7.7%.

14:18 Coming to free cash flow in the second quarter of twenty twenty six, Birack Ord generated free cash flow of 3,800,000,000 TR. The year on year decline in the free cash flow was primarily driven by lower operational profitability and reduced contribution from working capital. This impact was partially offset by prudent capital expenditure management as well as lower tax and interest payments during the quarter. Despite the current challenging operating environment, our commitment to cash flow generation remain unchanged. All of these result in a net debt to EBITDA ratio at 4.7 as of June 30, which would be at 3.3 in excluding TS 29 figures.

15:06 Let me briefly touch on our financial performance excluding the impact of TS 29. The beer group generated 30,000,000,000 TL in revenue in the first half, representing a growth of 24% year on year. As I highlighted earlier, this growth was primarily driven by our international operations. In addition, the appreciation of Kazakhstange against Turkish lira in the second quarter of twenty twenty six compared to the same period of last year provides further support, making revenue growth more visible in non t s 29 figures. On the same basis, EBITDA increased by 2% year on year to TRY 4,500,000,000, corresponding to an EBITDA margin of 15%.

15:56 Turning to cash and debt management. As of June 30, gross debt at peer group level stood at approximately 1,000,000,000 tia, 1,000,000,000 US dollar, with more than 60% of total debt denominated in hard currency. At the consolidated Anadolu Efes level, the corresponding amount of approximately 2,300,000,000 US dollar. Almost 60% was in the hard currency. On the liquidity side, 36% of Birgur cash balance and 32.2% of consolidated Andal Fes cash balance were held in hard currency. As a result, our net debt to EBITDA ratio stood at 4.7 for the Birgur Group and 1.3 for Anadolu Efes on consolidated basis.

16:44 Turning to risk management, we further strengthened our commodity hedge position. For Turkey and CS operations, our aluminum hedge coverage increased to 88% for 2026 at an average price of 3,100 US dollar per ton. For 2027, we have already secured 27% coverage at an average price of 3,070 US dollar per ton. On the FX side, we close our FX exposure at an average rate of almost 49. With that, let me hand over to Anadolu to walk you through our updated guidance. Yeah. So, Anadolu, thank you. Before we move on to q and a, let me briefly talk about our revised output I mentioned in the first part.

17:30 As we mentioned earlier, the first half has been shaped by a more challenging operating environment than we had anticipated at the beginning of the year. While our international operations continued to perform strongly, consumer demand in two k b u remained softer for longer, leading to a slower recovery than we had originally expected. As a result, we are updating our full year's Birack Ord guidance to reflect these dynamics. We now expect Birack Ord volumes to decline by low single digits compared to our previous expectation of low single digit growth. The revision is entirely driven by our revised outlook for two k Beers, while our expectations for our international beer operations remain unchanged.

18:16 Reflecting the lower volume outlook, we also now expect beer group EBITDA margin declined by around 150 basis points under TAS 29 or around 100 basis points on a without TAS 29 impact. Importantly, this revision is driven by lower operating leverage resulting from softer volumes rather than any deterioration in our pricing discipline or revenue management capabilities or our product mix. Most importantly, despite the headwinds in our two k a b a business, we continue to expect beer group free cash flow to be at breakeven for the full year. At the consolidated outlet test level, we continue to expect mid single digit volume growth and low single digits revenue productivity growth under TAS '29.

19:08 While we now expect EBITDA margin to decline slightly, the resilience of our soft drink business and international beer operations continues to support our consolidated performance. Looking ahead, while we remain mindful of our macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties, we continue to focus on the factors within our control, investing behind our brands, maintaining pricing discipline, and preserving a strong balance sheet through financial discipline. Now we are ready to take your questions, Asla. Thank you. There is one question on the floor. Let me, read it. How are you working to return to positive free cash flow generation and refinancing the 28 bonds?

20:00 What are the rating agencies' views on these results? Are we at risk over a rating downgrade? K. Regarding the cash flow, actually, since we couldn't get the full performance of the top line performance of our p and l, we focus on the balance sheet management. And, accordingly, our focus on the working capital management, zero based budgeting in terms of the OpEx, and also the full scope of our balance sheet and including the CapEx management. So in terms of the Eurobond, we've been working on the reissuance of the Eurobond, refinancing of the Eurobond. So regarding the rating agencies, we have been meetings with the rating agencies in a frequent frequent way.

20:51 So but, of course, in terms of their, their reactions and their comments, we don't think so. It's the right approach right approach to make a comment on behalf of that.

21:04 Thank you, Yasama. There are a couple of questions we may begin here. Let me start with the demand part for domestic market demand part for Onur Bay, and then I'll go through the finance parts for Yal Samad. And what would be a catalyst for domestic market demand to improve?

21:32 15% volume decline we saw in the first half in Turkey was not something actually as we expected or anticipated at the beginning of the year, as I mentioned during the presentation. As we discussed, consumer purchasing power deteriorated much more sharply than we had anticipated, and that is really the key factor behind the performance we are seeing today. Based on what we see today, we have revised our guidance to a low single digit volume decline for the full year. But having said that, given the uncertainties around the purchasing power, tourism season, and broader geopolitical environments, I would also highlight that there is still some downside risk on this one. Looking at recent numbers, June and July combined delivers almost 4% year on year growth.

22:22 And August has started positively, actually. And I wouldn't call it a particularly strong start, but the momentum is encouraging. Overall, I have to be honest, this is a challenging year. I mean, we have a new Efes family active launch that might be

22:38 a catalyst for the rest of the year. The consumer environment remains tough, and our visibility is limited on this one, and we continue to monitor developments very closely. At the same time, we are staying focused on what we can control and on executing our plans as effectively as possible. As we all know, our execution muscle is the strongest one in the field. And, also, let me underline that we also saw some temporary pressures on our own volumes as we intentionally reduced our inventory levels in the trades ahead of this Efes family uplift launch. This was deliberate decision to ensure a smoother and a healthier transition to the renewed Efes family portfolio. So to make it available in much and more point of sales, we deliberately diminished our, old stocks, let's say. So there's an effect of this as well.

23:35 On the way, there are more questions about the Turkish beer markets. So let's continue with them, and then I'll go back to finance parts for and to answer. How did the Turkish fear market perform in the second quarter? So, this is a question related to the market rather than our performance. And, could you help us understand how much of the weakness was driven by the overall market versus company specific factors such as portfolio mix channel dynamics or the relaunch? Let me actually, the the first parts, I almost answered the first part. But Turkish beer market after so many years after so many years, is now in a decline.

24:25 We can say that. So we we justify these numbers from Nissan, and our market online data as well. So beer market is not growing, be because of the obvious reason I have mentioned already. And in terms of portfolio mix, channel dynamics, or through launch, I mean, let me let me handle this on this way. Our portfolio mix is improving. As we mentioned before, we have the best premium portfolio in the country, so we are trying to leverage it. And as you we all know, we we just we we launched Stella, and we are observing good improvements in this one. So our portfolio

25:11 mix is improving. In the channel dynamics, the that's the problem in the on trade channel and Horeca channels. We see an obvious slowdown as we all know. Traditional trade is also struggling, on a channel based. And in the modern channel, we see some dynamics, and dynamism, but, it should be on the promo prices. So all channels in a nutshell is struggling right now, but it is definitely resulting from the purchasing power, disposable income, and the macros that are obvious and the the points that we already mentioned during the presentation. Thank you very much. And now going back to the finance questions.

25:58 What are your plans for the refinancing of 28 bonds? Do you consider coming to the bond market, or do you plan to tap into other sources of funding? Would you expect some shareholder support with regards to bond refinancing or more conservative approach to dividends? And the second question is 25 EBITDA margin, was already under pressure at 13%, and now we're expecting a further 150 basis points contraction. What would you say if there is any room for margins?

26:38 And, what is the margin that you would expect in normal conditions? Regarding the month, actually, we already applied to the capital markets in order to increase our limit. So within that content, we started to our preliminary studies internally. So in terms of the bond issues, yes, we are trying to reapply to the bond market. And, within that content, by considering the existing, cash flow position, yes, for the dividends, we've been considering what, what would be our approach. Most probably, it will be a conservative approach. And on top of that, our cash flow discipline and free cash flow focus will continue. So in terms of the EBITDA, on top of that, depending on the, downside potential in the Turkish bureau operations, that could be 100%, 100 basis points further contraction in our, EBITDA margins.

27:37 That would be an further question. There was not. So with inflationary accounting, including the inflationary accounting, the guidance is 150 basis points contraction without the inflation accounting, numbers. The contraction will be limited 200 basis points. And last year's base for noninflationary numbers, for EBITDA margin was 19.6%. So this corresponds to if we consider the 100 basis points contraction, this will correspond to around 18.6 to 19% EBITDA margin.

28:24 Because the inflationary accounting impacts the Turkish operations EBITDA margin much more than the international operations, it seems to be far lower than noninflationary numbers. But the the profitability margin is all already a conservative margin expectation, so we are not expecting much, deviation from this for the for the full year. For the time being, I don't see any more questions. So let me remind that, the floor is yours for for writing down the questions.

29:34 I don't see any more questions on the floor. So thank you for everyone for joining to the school, and see you in our nine month, 26 results. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.