Anadolu Efes Biracilik ve Malt Sanayii Anonim Sirketi (AEFES) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Audio Gap] Anadolu Efes Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. My name is Asli Demirel, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations of Anadolu Efes. Our presenters today, Mr. Can Çaka, the CEO; and Mr. Gökçe Yanasmayan, the CFO. [Operator Instructions] 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. And now leaving the ground to Mr. Can Çaka, Anadolu Efes CEO. Sir?

Asli, thank you. Hello, all. It's a pleasure to be with you again for our second quarter conference call. Obviously, we are also happy to deliver another strong quarter, with remarkable consolidated volume performance throughout the quarter and also leading the first half volumes, even exceeding the pre-pandemic levels. The volume growth was supported by both business lines, that is also positive. The domestic operations, Turkish operations showed superior performance in both business lines, both in beer and soft drinks. In line with our value-driven focus, revenue growth was substantially ahead of our volume growth in the second quarter with 47% growth in nominal basis. Obviously, such growth was driven by price increases, a further mix improvement as well. We also benefited from the better discount management compared to a year ago. As we mentioned in our year-end 2020 results call, in order to support the top line growth and also enhance the consumer appeal to our brands in 2021, we have deliberately chose to enhance our visibility in the market, especially in Turkey, and to strengthen our communication with respect to our flagship brand. Therefore, the OpEx was higher on year-on-year basis to execute such plans throughout the year as we have the first year -- to the first season of our +1 relaunch in Turkey. Free cash flow generation was also quite strong this quarter, predominantly due to the international beer operations, where we had a quite good performance in managing cash cycles and managing our CapEx as well. Although we still expect strong cash generation in full year, as we mentioned in our guidance, the free cash flow will be below its levels in 2020, therefore. And the core working capital and the CapEx-to-sales ratios are expected to normalize in the second half of the year. This quarter, we registered another successful transaction by issuing $500 million 7-year maturity Eurobonds, with a coupon rate of 3.375%. We not only set any benchmark for Turkish corporates, but also broken our own record, and so we are very pleased with that. And we have definitely taken the advantage of being the only investment-grade corporate in Turkey. I'm also very happy with the results of the tender offer, which is almost 65% of the prior bondholders, returned back their bonds a year earlier. Therefore, that helped us minimizing our carry costs. One important remark which has drove the wildfires around the world and especially what we have witnessed throughout the last week or 10 days in Turkey, extreme weather conditions occurring worldwide are once again showing us the importance of climate change problems, once again showing us the importance of the environmental consciousness. So as we discussed in various parts on Anadolu Efes, we are very much responsible, we feel the responsibility on this point. We know we are a part of the environment. We are a part of the solution as well. So in that perspective, we have put sustainability at the core of our focus. And we have identified and set our sustainability goals for 2030 for 10 years in order to show our commitment to improve our ESG-related practices, which I'm going to go at the end of our presentation. Next page, please. So as noted at the beginning in the second quarter, our consolidated volumes grew by 14%, reaching to 33.2 million hectoliters, and 1/3 of our volumes are driven by the Beer Group actually. Our revenue growth was significantly above our volume increase as noted. Price increases, premiumization, SKU prioritization, higher FX rates contributed to this growth. Revenues expanded by almost 50%. And if we exclude the FX impact, the increase was still strong at 31% leading to ending up with our top line exceeding TRY 10 billion. Contribution of Beer Group in revenues much -- was much higher than that of volume. So 44% of the revenues came from beer in the quarter. Our EBITDA performance was also strong. However, the increase in absolute profit was lower than the top line growth, which led to margin contraction in the period. The margin contraction came from Beer Group as a result of year-on-year higher operational expenses. As you would remember, throughout last year, we had a very low base due to significant savings, as we have taken out of precautions because of the COVID, because of the pandemic, because of the unclarity at that time. And as I noted earlier, we have also decided to increase our marketing and communication efforts throughout this year as we have the first year of our relaunch of our flagship brand. And then other factors that put beer margin under pressure was higher FX rates and commodity prices. And we already started to see the impacts, and we have incorporated this into our full year guidance. On the other hand, soft drink margins expanded in the period, benefiting from a strong top line growth as well as continued controls in spending in the OpEx. And from our final remark, we generated about TRY 2 million free cash flow, which we expect some normalization in the second half of the year. But I would say this is a very strong focus as a result of -- there's strong focus in terms of profitability, in terms of working capital management and also investment management, CapEx management. Going to the next page, please. So our beer operations on our beer side of this equation, sales volume increased by 4%, slightly more than 4%, registering another strong performance in the second quarter of the year. International beer operations volume was up by 2%, where we have -- except Ukraine in every other operations, we have contributed to the growth of the volumes. Despite the tightened restrictions during the quarter, the Russian beer market showed its resilience once again and was able to stay flat, and even grew slightly. And in our own business in Russia, we were able to deliver low single-digit volume increase, thanks to the solid growth delivered in core and premium segments as we have quite focused in those segments. In super premium and low premium segments, our growth rates were double digits, supporting our premiumization strategy and supporting our value share focus, and we are increasing our value share in Russia. Our mainstream and upper mainstream brands gained share in the first half of the year, and we also benefited from the good performance in our non-alc category as well. In Ukraine, our performance was below the market due to the implemented price increase at the beginning of the year. Ukraine market is much more sensitive to the price increases, I would say, but that is again in line with our value focus strategy. We are expecting a better performance in volumes, especially in the second half of the year with rising prices from the competitors as well. Our market share in the new beer categories, where we are focusing continuously as well, continued to grow in the quarter. In Georgia, Moldova, we had both superior performance with more than 20% volume growth, where our volume growth in Kazakhstan was also by low-teens, so strong volume delivery in every other country in our CIS operations. We have observed some premiumization in CIS Countries and also that's -- that also supported our profitability throughout the quarter. In Turkey, despite 7 days' of lockdown with the weekend curfews continued during the quarter, where no alcohol sales or alcohol sales was prohibited during the lockdowns, we were able to deliver 22% volume growth in our domestic beer operations. Obviously, we have benefited from the very low base of last year, but we observed a robust performance in traditional trade volumes as a result of increased tendency for home-stocking, especially during curfews. And we also see our upper mainstream brands better performance throughout the quarter. And a little bit -- a few statements about our soft drinks performance as usual. CIS consolidated sales volume continued its strong growth momentum and expanded by almost 20% in the second quarter with positive contribution from all countries without any exception. Despite the continued restrictions in Turkey, as I noted earlier, Turkey volumes grew by 18% as a result of increased focus on core brands. The business also adapted to itself to changing consumer preferences, effective promotion management, successful relaunches and new product extensions in line with the consumer catching up with consumer preferences also supported the volume growth. Sparkling beverages grew by almost 13%, 12.6%, with Coca-Cola branded stuff even growing further than this. The sales category increased by 32.2%, driven by strong iced tea and sports drinks performances. Water segment was up by more than 40%. International operations grew by 21%. Pakistan continued its successful performance in this quarter and growing by 20% with significant expansion in terms of the penetration and increasing its superior execution on the field and ensuring our brand growth in the country. And for the other CIS operations grew by 27% in the second quarter. All countries recorded double-digit growth rates, and Middle East posted somewhere around 12% growth driven by Jordan. In Jordan, our volumes were more than 57%. Next page, thank you. So I have already touched base with the operational performance. So let me say only a few words here with respect to our net income. We delivered a net income of TRY 415 million in the second quarter and TRY 710 million by the first half, but in line with these results, but in line -- almost tripled compared to a year ago, benefiting from increased operational profitability since the -- and FX gains in CCI as a result of higher cash generation despite year-on-year tax expenses going higher and this -- covering also the higher losses from Anadolu Efes. So I'm handing over to Gökçe to have his remarks on the financials. Thank you. Gökçe?

Thank you, Can. Welcome again, ladies and gentlemen to our first half results. As this is my first call, let me very briefly introduce myself. My name is Gökçe Yanasmayan, working for 17 years in Efes for different countries, and my first role in Turkey and in Anadolu Efes. Previously worked as CFO of Efes Kazakhstan and then later Efes Ukraine before becoming Managing Director of Efes Moldova, which was for the last 7 years. And I'm thrilled by the opportunity and looking forward to contribute to our organization. And I also want to thank Efes as I've inherited a very strong team, which supports my transition perfectly so far. And as this is my first call, I'm very happy to report another successful quarter. And obviously, that means strong first half results, both on Beer Group and Anadolu Efes consolidated basis. In Beer Group, we had a solid top line performance in second quarter. As Can mentioned, all operating countries, except Ukraine, achieved successful growth rates in volumes, while Turkey and all CIS countries registered double-digit growth. Beer Group sales revenue was substantially ahead of volumes and grew by 32% in second quarter versus last year and on a constant currency basis, increased by almost 17%. Price increases across the board as well as favorable product SKU mix helped to increase revenue per hectoliter by 12% on a constant currency basis. EBITDA grew by 5% year-on-year, which is less than revenue growth as a result of gross profit margin pressure in Russia due to FX and commodity price increases, and accelerated marketing and sales spend over last year in all our operations in line with our plans to support our brands for top line growth. I'm going to show you the figures in a while in the following EBITDA bridge. Consequently, the EBITDA margin shrank in second quarter for Beer Group. The good news, though, good performance in gross profit in Turkey was due to a larger volume base and a good pricing, which resulted in an increased EBITDA, with a slight margin improvement driven by high-end marketing spending related to +1 rested relaunch ahead of the season. Another good news is very strong free cash flow generation in the second quarter. The cash was mainly generated in Russia with a significant improvement in core working capital, especially coming from the performance in trade payables and as well as the decline in absolute CapEx. We have the lowest ever core working capital-to-sales ratio this quarter. However, both working capital and the CapEx ratio are going to normalize in second half. Coca-Cola Içecek has also recently announced very strong second quarter performance with 61% growth in revenue at 73% growth in EBITDA, which obviously contributed significantly to strong top line and bottom-line performance of Anadolu Efes. So consolidated net sales revenue of Anadolu Efes was up by 47% in second quarter and by 43% in first half. Consolidated EBITDA grew by 42% and by 55%, respectively, in second quarter and in first half, while free cash flow generation surpassed previous year and reached to TRY 2.2 billion. As a result of robust cash flow generation, our debt leverage improved compared to first quarter and reported at 0.9x. Next, please. When it comes to EBITDA and free cash flow in second quarter. First of all, it's important to remember, second quarter of 2020, which was the first full quarter of pandemic impacting our business and financials. Naturally, we have seen drop in our volumes, relatively low performance in revenues. However, this fell back by 0-based spending programs and additional cost saving initiatives to mitigate the negative impacts of top line pressure during the first months of the pandemic. Consequently, we had reported a very impressive [ 12% ] of EBITDA growth year-on-year in second quarter of 2020. What you saw in EBITDA we reached last year was almost completely the opposite of what you see now. As you may remember, our strategy for 2021 was to grow our bottom line by driving top line growth supported by investing to the beer markets as well as to our brands. And in line with our plans, major growth components of EBITDA this year is increasing revenues. To remind you again, net revenue increased due to price increases, favorable mix and premium segment development. Cost of sales, we had the effect of increasing commodity price and FX. Nevertheless, revenue increases over cost of sales in most of our operations with effective risk management in place, which I'm going to refer in coming slides. Selling and marketing expenses were deliberately above last year as we were preparing for the hot season ahead. And other line you see in EBITDA bridge mainly refers to currency translation. All in all, we were able to outpace last year's high base in EBITDA in second quarter. Free cash flow, very similar to EBITDA, despite unprecedented challenges, had substantially improved in 2020 as a result of significant improvements in core working capital as well as prudent CapEx spending. This year, though, again, different than last year, but again, in line with our planning, we will spend more CapEx, and we will normalize our CapEx-to-net sales ratio to high single digits. In the first half of the year, the CapEx-to-sales ratio was 6.5%. But as I mentioned now, we will close the year with high single CapEx margin. On working capital management side, improvements continued across all countries. We were aiming to have lower average turnover days on receivables and inventories in every other country, while turnover on payables either remained the same or decreased, eventually led to a significant improvement of cash cycle days in our operations, while we expect some amortization as well in second half. On top of working capital changes, incremental EBITDA is also positively impacting free cash flow. Overall, we achieved to outperform last year's very high base and generate almost TRY 1.7 billion. Next slide, please. A few more topics to coverage linked to financial discipline. As previously mentioned, average turnover days as well as first half period turnover days are significantly lower than previous year, and they are at record low levels. Once again, we expect that to get normalized in second half. After the latest review of Fitch, we have maintained our investment grade and still are the only company to achieve double investment grades. Happy to maintain that in these very challenging times. As Can also mentioned, we have successfully issued new bonds of USD 500 million with a coupon rate of 3.375% and a yield of 3.5% to refinance our existing bonds, maturing in 2022. Following the issuance, almost 65% of our existing bondholders participated in tender and total amount of -- that we first total to amount of $320 million approximately. And this was also above our expectation and will help us to decrease negative carry costs. And these results confirmed Anadolu Efes' status as one of the strongest credits in Turkey as well as its excellent reputation among investors. Last but not least, just to remind you, the initiatives we have for effective risk management and to protect our bottom line. No hard currency debt, except for Eurobond, and approximately 75% of cash is held in hard currency in Beer Group as of July end. And the tools that we use are cash designation, commodity and FX hedges. Again, numbers for 2021 would be 78% of FX exposure, 84% of aluminum, 79% of PET and 100% of [indiscernible]. And we also have aluminum hedges for 2022, approximately 13% of our exposure below USD 1,900 levels. So this concludes my presentation. I'm turning back to Can. Thank you.

Thank you very much, once again. Let's go into our guidance. Can we go to the next page, please? We are obviously revising our top line guidance for Anadolu Efes that is driven by the upgrade on the soft drinks side. I'm sure you have followed their conference call yesterday's or so. They had very strong and better than planned results in the first half. So in that perspective, they have taken the decision to revised guidance, and that has been reflected into Anadolu Efes as well. Although our top line performance in the Beer Group side is also -- was very strong. We made no change in our Beer group expectations, especially costing the uncertainties going ahead regarding the pandemic and vaccination rates in various countries. Obviously, we see nowadays, unfortunately, again, an increasing number of cases in every other country. And yet, we haven't seen any further restrictions coming into mobility of our consumers. But that is the risk add. That's why we are not -- we keep our guidance and take a prudent approach here. According to our new consolidated, volume is to grow by mid-single digit and revenues to grow by high-teens in FX-neutral basis. On the other hand, in terms of profitability, FX rates, rising commodity prices are going to pressurize our second half results, most of the impacts will be mitigated by the hedges, good news, Gökçe already mentioned about that. And therefore, again, we make no change at the moment for our profitability expectations. We still expect to deliver strong free cash flow, yet it will be lower than what we had back in 2020. Again, next page. Yes, a few words about our commitments to sustainability. Actually, we have recently announced our sustainability goals for the next 10 years, for 2030, and our strategic action plan. Targeting zero for environment, further consolidating and enhancing our social impact and getting stronger to diversity and inclusion. Actually, these are all parts of our G&A, parts of our culture, how Anadolu Efes work and behave. In the past as well, we had various targets in all the areas. But now it's more in a consolidated manner, in a more structured manner. We have committees and KPIs set within the organization to follow this. As I touched before, I mean, we see the climate change, the environment issues as the very important issues we face is globally, and they are part of the environment, and we are aware of our responsibilities for converting all these changes to be able to leave next-generation a livable planet. Therefore, we are aiming to have a zero environmental impact, reduce our plastic usage, become carbon neutral in all countries we operate, and we are also aiming to become a zero-waste beer company by 2030. Social responsibilities is again character of our business and is another crucial part of our company culture since from the very beginning. For more than 30 years, we've been focusing on our cultures, arts, sports, everything in our -- in the lives of the societies we were in. While we continue to support these areas in cooperation with all our stakeholders, we will step up our community investments for the empowerment of human as well. We continue to work with our farmers to develop their skills, educate them on sustainable agriculture practices, helping them actually experiencing this. We also look for further opportunities to support entrepreneurs, especially entrepreneurs through our collaborations with start-ups. We've been discussing this with the [indiscernible]. We're supporting especially social start-ups, and we are supporting them. We are helping them to develop the businesses. So we are learning together and developing one of the very recent brands that we had special brands as cooperating with one of the start-ups. This startup is dropping plant seeds, tree seeds with drones and every other, converging to seed in the nature, green for the future. So these are parts of the things that we are doing. We are aiming to increase the representation of women in our workforce. It is currently at the 30% level to a 50 plus 1 (sic) [ 51% ] by 2030. We value all our employees equally and provide equal opportunities regardless of gender. So we are targeting to certified by this [indiscernible] gender gap. Actually, I have to admit we have pretty much good many areas. For example, we have the very first -- we are the first FMCG company in Turkey to be certified to have equal pay for different genders in different jobs. So we are there are in Turkey, we will make sure that's reflected in every other piece of our operations. Below 30 years of age, within the managerial positions, the number of women are higher within our organization versus the men in our organization. So I would like to emphasize, yes, we set targets for the next 10 years, we are delivering them by now as well, that is a part of our culture, and we will continue to deliver that. And more focus on environment to impact our footprint in various areas and making sure that we are a part of the solution to be a livable planet for our next generations, for our children. So thank you for your patience. As I also stated, if you have any questions, you can write down in the Q&A part, and we will be ready to answer your questions together with Gökçe. Thank you all for joining us today.

There are no questions at the moment [Operator Instructions].