Coca-Cola HBC Aktie

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Coca-Cola HBC's first conference call for the 2026 first quarter trading update. We have with us Zoran Bogdanovic, Chief Executive Officer; Anastasis Stamoulis, Chief Financial Officer; and Jemima Benstead, Head of Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions] I must also advise that this conference is being recorded today, Thursday, May 7, 2026.

I will now pass the floor to one of your speakers, Jemima Benstead, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the call. I'm here with our CEO, Zoran Bogdanovic; and our CFO, Anastasis Stamoulis. We'll start with some opening remarks from Zoran, and then, open the floor to your questions. Please keep to one question and a follow-up, waiting for us to answer the first question before moving to your follow-up. We have about an hour for the call today, which should give plenty of time for a good discussion.

Finally, I must remind you that this conference call contains various forward-looking statements. These should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements in our trading update this morning.

And with that, I will turn the call over to Zoran.

Thank you, Jemima, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the call.

Q1 is typically our smallest quarter, but it has been a busy one for our people and our business. It was filled with many activations and focused execution of targeted initiatives working in close partnership with our customers to deliver our strategy.

Let me share 3 key highlights from these results. First, we have delivered a strong quarter of high-quality organic revenue growth, led by volume growth across all 3 segments and revenue per case expansion. This is a good start to the year, in line with our expectations even in challenging and unpredictable external environment. I'm proud that Q1 is the 12th consecutive quarter that we have delivered volume growth.

Second, we gained a further 110 basis points of value share in Non-alcoholic Ready-To-Drink year-to-date, building on strong gains in 2025 and continuous gains in the last 6 years. In Sparkling, we also had a good start to the year, gaining 50 basis points of value share year-to-date. This is a testament to our unique 24/7 portfolio, execution excellence and focus on joint value creation with our customers.

And thirdly, we are reiterating our 2026 guidance today for organic revenue and EBIT growth. Despite heightened geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty, we remain confident that our portfolio, bespoke capabilities, people and proven track record position us to continue to win in the market.

So a good quarter, and I'd like to sincerely thank all our colleagues, customers, suppliers and our partners for their ongoing efforts and support.

I'll now share some details on the Q1 performance, and then, Anastasis and I will be happy to take your questions. Organic revenue grew 11.6% with volumes up 9.6% and revenue per unit case up 1.8%. Reported revenue grew 12%, driven by strong organic growth and a small benefit from FX translation.

I'm really pleased with the level of volume growth we have delivered in a mixed environment. Innovation, localized activations and strong partnerships contributed to a strong underlying volume performance. Excluding the benefit from 4 extra selling days, volumes grew about 3.5% with growth across all 3 of our segments in the quarter. As well as this, our targeted actions to grow transactions are working with transactions growing ahead of volumes. We continue to leverage our revenue growth management toolkit to actively drive all 3 levers of volume, price and mix.

Our leading RGM capability enables us to navigate mixed consumer environments by offering a range of affordability and premiumization initiatives and tailor pricing in each market based on local inflation and currency dynamics. Affordability solutions and value offers continue to be relevant for many of our consumers, and these are embedded in our RGM plans and execution in the market.

In the quarter, we maintained our focus on entry and smaller packs to manage critical price points, for example, by further expanding 200 mL cans in Poland and Austria. Promotions also remained an important part of our RGM strategy. In Q1, we leveraged Easter in relevant markets by increasing promotions on multi-serve packs, which play an important role in the at-home drinking occasion during this period.

As you know, we always look to balance our affordability initiatives with premiumization opportunities leveraging our data-driven segmented execution approach to personalized portfolio assortments and meet specific consumer needs. This is driven both by our RGM initiatives around package mix and pricing as well as our strong activations and innovations that create relevant consumer experiences and strengthen brand equity. For example, in Q1, we drove growth of our premium small glass bottle of HoReCa channel. And we delivered mid-teens growth in Schweppes, supported by our locally tailored Flavor of the Quarter campaign.

This good performance in Adult Sparkling contributed to improvements in category mix alongside continued strong growth of energy. We also continued with targeted actions to improve package mix, such as the launch of new 500 mL single-serve pack for Trademark Coke in Egypt. Overall, I'm pleased we drove a further 140 basis points improvement in single-serve mix at the group level.

Now turning to performance by category. Again here, the volume growth benefited by about 6 percentage points from the 4 extra selling days tailwind. But overall, we are pleased with the performance across our strategic priority categories. Sparkling volumes grew by 9.4% in the quarter. Trademark Coke grew high single digits, and Coke Zero grew high teens. Coke Zero Sugar Zero Caffeine, or 0.0 as we call it, continued to grow strong double digits, supported by integrated execution, including the launch of a new visual identity across packs in 16 markets.

The new visual identity really stands out with the bold black and gold pack. We are excited about the opportunity for 0.0, an excellent proposition for adult drinkers wanting to monitor their caffeine intake, particularly in the evening occasion. We continue to activate Coke & Meals campaigns across our markets with a truly localized approach. By partnering with relevant food influencers and celebrating local food culture, we drove stronger engagement and transaction growth.

In Egypt, the local team even achieved a Guinness World Record in serving the most community meals with Coca-Cola in 1 hour during a Ramadan meal festive event.

Sprite continued to see strong momentum with volumes up mid-teens. We are excited to leverage the newly launched It's That Fresh global platform with basketball partnerships, the NBA and Euro League. We also launched the new flavor innovation, Sprite Chill in 8 markets during the quarter, and we'll be rolling it out further this year.

We also delivered high single-digit growth in Adult Sparkling, driven by Schweppes, as we continue to tap into both mixability and straight drinking occasions. Another element innovation in the quarter was a new flavor, Cherry Pepper, that we launched across both Schweppes and Kinley.

Energy continued its strong growth trajectory with volumes up 27% and strong double-digit growth across all 3 segments. In the quarter, we launched innovations of Monster, including Monster Viking Berry and Zero Sugar flavor with Valentino Rossi across many of our markets. Both launches have had a great start ahead of our expectations, and we are excited to see how the rest of the year goes. We also continue to leverage football activations in Nigeria and Egypt to drive strong growth in Predator and Fury respectively.

As you know, we are prioritizing the out-of-home channel in coffee, and I'm pleased that out-of-home volumes grew by 39%, as we expanded Costa Coffee and Caffè Vergnano across existing outlets and recruited new ones. As we expected, total coffee volumes still declined in the quarter due to this deliberate shift in focus, but we expect the overall category to return to growth in the second half of the year.

Moving to Stills, where volumes grew 4.1%. Sports Drinks continued its great performance, delivering strong double-digit growth across all segments. We launched Powerade innovations such as Powerade Active Water, Powerade FIFA limited editions and a new can pack format. We also leveraged sports partnerships such as the Olympic Winter Games to drive transactions. Water grew high single digits, led primarily by the emerging segment, while Juices declined in a challenging industry backdrop.

Turning to sustainability. I'm pleased that our performance continues to be recognized externally. Coca-Cola HBC has been confirmed for the ninth time as the world's most sustainable beverage company in the 2025 Dow Jones Best-in-Class Indices. During the quarter, we also concluded Mission 2025 with strong progress and introduced Mission Refresh, our renewed set of long-term sustainability commitments.

Building on our achievements, Mission Refresh is anchored in 4 flagship commitments: reaching net zero emissions by 2040, achieving a net positive biodiversity impact by 2040, replenishing 100% of the water used in our beverages and in high-risk plants by 2035 and being a neighbor of choice for our communities.

These commitments are underpinned by measurable targets across all 7 pillars of our sustainability strategy: climate, packaging, water, agriculture, nutrition, biodiversity and people and communities. We will continue to track and publish our performance annually to ensure transparency and consistent delivery.

Now, turning to performance by segment. In established, net sales revenue grew by 7.3%, with volumes up 6.7%. Volume grew slightly when excluding the benefit from the additional selling days. When it comes to categories, we achieved good performance from Sparkling, particularly Coke Zero and Sprite as well as Energy and Sports Drinks.

Looking at countries, I'm very pleased with the continued good momentum in Ireland and the improved performance in Switzerland. Revenue per case increased by 0.6%, as positive category mix was partly offset by negative package mix impacted by the timing of Easter and associated promotions. In developing markets, net sales revenue grew by 10.3%. Volume grew by 7.4%, but still grew low single digits when excluding the additional selling days.

When it comes to categories, we saw good performances from Trademark Coke, Sprite, Energy and Sports drinks. Organic net sales revenue per case increased by 2.7%. This was driven by pricing actions, positive category mix and improved package mix, as we drove a 190 basis point improvement in single-serve mix. Finally, in our emerging markets, we delivered net sales revenue growth of 15%. Volume grew by 11.2% or mid-single digits, excluding the additional selling days.

By category, we saw strong performances in Sparkling, Energy and Water. Volumes in both Nigeria and Egypt were particularly strong, as our execution focus helped us build on the momentum from 2025. Revenue per case grew 3.5% organically, benefiting from the impact of pricing throughout the last 12 months, partly offset by negative country mix. We also delivered improvements in package mix with single-serve mix increasing by 160 basis points in the quarter.

And now, looking ahead to the rest of 2026. With regards to CCBA acquisition, we continue to make good progress on the completion process with antitrust clearances in Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana and COMESA, as we continue with the merger clearance process in South Africa and Tanzania. We are also very pleased with our successful bond issuance in March despite the volatile market backdrop, which secures the funding for the EUR 1.4 billion cash consideration of the acquisition.

Overall, we remain on track to complete during the second half of 2026. We are encouraged by the good start we've had to 2026, in line with our plans. 2026 marks 75 years since our business was founded in Nigeria, and we are all very proud of where we are today. 75 years of growth of creating shared value and of continuously raising the bar, 2026 is no exception, and I'm excited for the strong pipeline of initiatives, innovation and partnerships ahead of us. Of course, we are very mindful of the heightened geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty and are monitoring it closely. But we remain confident in our 24/7 portfolio, our bespoke capabilities, our people and the opportunities for growth in our diverse markets, which position us to continue winning in the market.

We have significant experience in navigating periods of volatility. We are well-hedged across our key commodities for 2026, and we are not seeing any material change in consumer behavior across our markets. With this in mind, we are, therefore, reiterating our guidance for 2026 for organic revenue growth of 6% to 7% and organic EBIT growth of 7% to 10%.

Thank you for your attention. And with that, let us now open the floor for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Andrea Pistacchi of Bank of America.

So my first question, please, is on revenue per case, which was a little softer this quarter. Now, you called out country mix. You called out the pack mix in established markets, driven by the Easter promo activity. So as these effects normalize, how do you see revenue per case playing out for the rest of the year? Does it improve from the Q1 level? And connected to this, when you leave aside the peculiarities of the Easter timing, how would you characterize the promo environment in your main established markets compared, say, to a year or 2 ago? This is my first question.

Andrea, yes, you mentioned very well a couple of factors that we highlighted, one of them being country mix that played a role. But I would here call out the -- our intentional play as part of our RGM. As you know, every quarter has its own dynamic. And in Q1, we have deliberately focused on -- with more emphasis on volume because one thing was to deliver benefiting from 4 additional selling days, but also to achieve positive volume performance across all 3 segments when you look at it on a like-for-like basis and also taking into account the Easter impact, where we naturally more activate multi-serve packages because of the in-home drinking moments that happen during this period. So this was in line with our expectations, and we do see for the rest of the year that we will be delivering in line with our guidance, both with volume and price mix across all 3 segments.

I really want to highlight this element on the volume, which is really, really important in Q1, but also that is the 12th consecutive quarter of us growing volume. And also, last couple of years, we had very, very healthy price/mix performance. And we are just very mindful in our game plan how we play every quarter. For the rest of the year, we do see that we will have, and we do expect some improvement in the price/mix beyond Q1.

Okay. The second question, and I don't know to what degree you'll be able to talk about this for regulatory reasons. Just on CCBA, if you're able to provide a bit of an update on how CCBA has been performing since you announced the deal. Maybe 2025 numbers that you will have, I imagine, seen at this point, if you could give any update there, what's positive, what's maybe less positive on CCBA performance?

Thanks, Andrea, and I think you already alluded that we will not be able to say much, especially on numbers. However, the process is progressing really well with 4 of those regulatory approvals already happening and 2 more coming up. And we are very excited that everything is going as planned and that sometime during the second half of this year, we can get all the approvals so that we can really start with this really phenomenal opportunity for Hellenic.

In the meantime, our teams are working across all functions on integration planning, fully respecting all the rules that apply during such periods as we are now. But we are doing our homework on all the integration planning with -- across all functions to be really ready for day 1, whenever that will be sometime later in the year. But on the...

Andreas, Anastasis. As Zoran alluded, there's not much we can comment at this stage on details on the performance of the business on '25 or '26, given the fact that the transaction has not been completed, and we have not taken over that operation yet. But we are still remaining very excited about the opportunity and the growth that we expect to get out of this expansion. CCBA covers high-growth markets, and we are very excited about the opportunity that it brings both on demographics and the overall setup that we see in the future.

Your next question comes from the line of Mitch Collett of Deutsche Bank.

If we strip out the additional selling days, organic sales growth this quarter was slightly below your guidance and your algorithm. And there was also a benefit from Easter. So perhaps you gave us part of the answer with your comment a minute ago about price mix, but can you just give us some color on what's going to close the gap for the balance of the year? I'm obviously conscious that Q1 is a relatively small quarter, but what do you expect to drive acceleration throughout the rest of 2026?

Mitch, as reiterating the obvious Q1 smallest quarter and all the game plan really came as we were planning for that quarter. Now, this year is full of lots of exciting things in pipeline. We are in the year, as you know, of the World Cup, where this is going to be the biggest activation that we had so far. And that's going to be a great entry into the strong plans that we have for the summer and for the rest of the year. So marketing calendar with our partners, Coca-Cola Company and Monster primarily, is very strong.

And even in Q1, it was a good preview of the World Cup Trophy Tour, Olympics. We had, as I said, Ramadan activation. And I think this is just a preview of the way we do the events, and we see very good receptiveness from consumers for this type of activations to bring excitement, which eventually are driving the product appeal and transactions.

Then, also, there is a good pipeline of innovations. In Sparkling, there are a number of things, and I'm very, very excited, as well as the whole team, about Coke Zero and overall zero proposition performance. You can read and hear from us about Zero Sugar Zero Caffeine, which is having a very, very strong performance. And we can see that rest of the year, this will be really ramping up.

We had a good start with flavors. I particularly want to call out Sprite because there is a whole toolbox of either new flavor, new campaign, phenomenal assets that we will be activating throughout the year. Adult Sparkling had a very strong performance because we started already with Cherry Pepper, but also there is more to come, both with Schweppes and Kinley. Then, with Monster, you see that innovation continues with a strong pipeline. Same thing with Powerade.

So I can say that calendar, very full activations, innovations, continue our disciplined focus on the execution, leveraging our capabilities, route to market, strong customer partnerships. So all that, in short, gives me confidence that in the remaining 3 quarters, we will be seeing a good performance.

Your next question comes from the line of Simon Hales of Citi.

So my first question was just around Nigeria really, Zoran. I wonder if you could just provide a little bit more color around the volume strength we've continued to see in the first quarter there. Any real reason to believe that we should think about the momentum there sort of starting to slow as we head into the next sort of few quarters and through the back end of the year? Because it just looks quite impressive performance. So a bit more color there to start with, please.

Yes. Thank you, Simon. Look, very pleased with the performance of Nigeria in Q1 with this volume of 14%, which actually is a great continuation of performance over the last couple of years. And we really contribute that to the -- to a number of things that come well together. So strong marketing plans that we have with the Coca-Cola Company, excellent capabilities that we have in the country, where particularly, we are leveraging the data that is serving us in the way how we not only segment, but micro-segment the market both on the consumer and customer front, which is helping us to drive more informed and deliberate approach to every single outlet, and Nigeria is leading the way in this initiative, which we call Ignite Naija and Naya, and Nigerian team also addressed this in the last year's Bitesize event. So that is truly giving results.

We've been also investing in supply chain, really helping that we have sufficient capacity to deliver on all our plans continuously. There is a strong program of RGM between both affordability, which you can imagine is very important in Nigeria, but also on the premiumization front, because you see that Monster and Predator in the country are performing really well as well as Schweppes, which is on a fantastic trajectory of growth.

And I also need to underline the quality of the teams that we have in the country, which are really driving the business in the -- in a very optimistic, bullish, competent way. So in closure, I'm also excited by the prospects and very sure that Nigeria is going to have a strong year this year.

Great. And then my second question was just around the commodities hedging for 2026. Obviously, you mentioned you were well hedged. Can you remind us where you are on your key inputs now for this year and provide any early thoughts on how you're thinking about 2027 and how you're making sure that you can ensure sort of a consistency of supply of those key inputs?

Simon, yes, so first of all, just to give a little bit more color behind COGS. And as you mentioned, the key commodities for 2026, as you hear from Zoran, we are strongly hedged covering about 75% on average, which means that we don't expect any material direct impact for the rest of the year.

Now, there is an element of energy cost, of course, that would be part of production overhead and haulage because of electricity and what we have seen with the volatility around us. And even in this case, in those markets, where we are -- where it's possible, we are also hedged against electricity and utilities, which means the remaining have a very small portion of our overall COGS. So again, nothing material from that perspective.

Now, in terms of other indirect impact when it comes to transportation cost or conversion from suppliers, our existing contracts and long-term relationships partially mitigate the impact. And as you would expect, we have a list of mitigation actions and productivity initiatives in place to navigate with that.

So in summary, what I want to highlight is that for 2026, we still see -- we expect our COGS per case to increase in the low single-digit levels for the year. Now, I believe you also asked for 2027. I think it's a little bit too early to comment about 2027, especially considering the volatile unpredictability around us with the situation in the Middle East, which will actually define the level of -- the duration and the evolution of the situation will define how things will evolve for '27. What I can reiterate is that we'll continue on our disciplined hedging strategy and our supply chain efficiency and productivity plan to ensure that we continue to deliver on our commitments.

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Ford of BNP.

Just 2 for me. The first one is just on Russia. The performance in the quarter, I think you grew low single digit, so kind of excluding the selling days, probably down low to mid-single digit there. So any comment on what you're seeing in the Russian market? Have you seen any deterioration there within that performance? Or is it just comps related? And would you expect that performance to kind of sequentially improve, as we move through the year? So that's the first one on Russia.

And then secondly, just a follow-up, I suppose, on the previous question. Obviously, you're talking to some mitigation to potential COGS inflation and energy cost pressure. Does that include incremental pricing for you? And would that be something you're kind of thinking about, as we move through to the second half of the year? Are you in a position where you would look to take potentially incremental price in some of those markets as we move through the back half?

Matt, look, on Russia, there is not much difference. The consumer backdrop remains fairly challenging, and no major changes in the first quarter, and that business continues, as you know, as a self-funded, self-managed. So really not much change.

On the second one, look, we are really deploying our overall RGM framework, which is planned for the full year, observing and monitoring the situation. And so we are able to respond really in an agile way and dynamically with our pricing if and when needed. However, it's too early to tell. And with all initiatives that Anastasis was mentioning earlier of productivity and continuous work on that front, we are managing the whole P&L, which informs the guidance that we gave.

Anything you want to add?

Yes. Well, I can be a little bit more detailed on the part. I covered the hedging programs. What I want to highlight is around our resilient supply chain, where we have a list of productivity initiatives, not only as a result of the current situation, which is something that we have been delivering over the years, and we continue to do that in 2026 as well with lightweighting initiatives, packaging optimization, energy saving efficiencies in the production lines with improvement on SLE and yields.

And even on the OpEx side, revisiting the route-to-market optimization, warehouse efficiencies and capacity improvements. All these not only to secure profitability as expected, but as we have demonstrated last year to create the space, which is also something we said this year to continue to invest in marketing and digital. So that's something that will still remain high on our agenda and will continue to do so, and therefore, driving such efficiencies. And we have proven in the past that we have navigated in such situations, which makes us very confident we'll do the same again this year.

Your next question comes from the line of Edward Mundy of Jefferies.

So my first question is really around the heightened volatile environment. And, Zoran, when you think about your scenario planning, clearly, there's still a lot of unknowns, but would love you to frame how you're thinking about the current consumer environment today relative to where we were back in 2022 going into that last period of huge inflation. It feels like the consumer is probably a little bit more fatigued after pricing over the last couple of years in consumer goods. But at the same time, pricing is probably going to be a little bit less than what you saw back in '22-'23 given where spot prices are. And then, how do you think about your capabilities and portfolio today to navigate through this volatile environment?

Thank you, Ed. Yes, look, it's a little bit old deja vu, which just reminds us that we've been already dealing with all kinds of situations and going through all kinds of crisis or whatever you call them. But if anything, we've learned a lot all that period, which we navigated and sailed through, I believe, really well, just helped us that we know that this scenario planning, risk planning, which constantly keeps us on the toes so that we can quickly react, really makes a difference.

Now, coming to consumer, we also see that consumers maybe unlike last time, of course, people are observing, but -- and what's going on and following. But there is also a desire from consumers that we see that they engage in the activations of the events. They are very receptive to innovations that we are introducing. So it's also visible that people really want to live and to the extent possible enjoy moments, and we have a portfolio that also helps that, whether that's out-of-home or in-home.

So I -- Ed, when I compare us, I think that every single year, we've been able to challenge ourselves to become better, further strengthening capabilities that we are extremely focused in a disciplined way, continuous investments behind those and behind our people capabilities. Also, digital technology, AI is part of the overall developments so that we are becoming faster and smarter enterprise because all this is equipping our people to react better and faster and in a more informed way. So I feel, and that gives me confidence, that whatever happens, we have tools and mechanisms and portfolio to react in an appropriate and adequate way.

Portfolio, I think we are very lucky to have such a broad and flexible portfolio that gives us the chance to react across the markets in a way and give propositions to various price segments in various drinking moments, various occasions and in line with evolving preferences and consumer needs, as we see in every single local market. So I think lots of learnings that we are applying and that you will see us executing.

My follow-up, if I may, is around the energy category, where there's still incredibly strong growth, and it's clear you're both taking share, but the category itself is quite buoyant. I'd just love a little bit of color as to sort of what's behind it. Is it distribution led? Is it broadening the consumer base? Is it broadening the consumption occasions? What is it that's really underpinning that growth?

Look it's -- there are a number of factors that really come here together. The overall category is clearly developing, and we do see that more people, more consumers are entering the category. When we see that in the last 12 months, 26% of the Energy drinkers have entered the category, then you see now that the profile of consumers gender-wise has equalized. So pretty much it's also 50-50 split of between male and female consumption.

Then, you see also that Energy is entering into more occasions. So beyond active leisure, if you can call it like that, you see now Energy being in -- at work, studying, learning, relaxing, routine moment. So simply, there is expansion. Even with food, you see Monster as well as competitors being more in that occasion. And then, connection with relevant passion points of consumers, with gaming, with football, with music. So -- and then almost to forget the most important, there is a continuously strong pipeline of innovation that is coming up.

I mentioned these 2 that we are just introducing, which, again, are performing really well. And then, you had strong execution, adding more coolers, relevant promotions where consumers can go into GP Motocross, Formula 1 racing that our partners are providing as -- so, Ed, in short, it's many things coming together, which simply continue benefiting from the category growth, but I'm very happy that we are growing faster than category, as we are gaining share across all markets, and we are now -- have overtaken a key competitor in 11 of our markets, and we continue in that direction.

Your next question comes from the line of Sanjeet Aujla of UBS.

A couple from me, please. I'd like to dig into a couple of markets. Firstly, Poland, can you talk through how the market and yourselves have performed during the DRS implementation? And how disruptive has that been, if at all? That's my first question.

Sanjeet, I heard first one on DRS. And what was the second one?

Sorry, second one is on just Italy, Zoran. I think the underlying performance seems to be still weighed by some discontinuation, I think, of some of the Water portfolio. But how are you seeing the underlying momentum in Italy build versus your expectations? And how would you characterize the consumer environment there, please?

Yes. Look, on DRS, first of all, this is a solution that, together with the industry, we are advocating for as and when it's also industry-led as a good systematic solution for the packaging waste solution, so that comes as a part of also our joint efforts. And we've seen last year in Austria start in Poland. We get prepared for these things really well. We know that temporarily, this does have an impact because introduction of the deposit impacts the price that consumers initially need to pay until they learn that they can get their deposit back. But it is out-of-pocket spend.

That's why this can have initially a bit of a slowdown, like we have seen in Austria or we have also seen that this is one of the drivers in Poland. But this is none of our concern, and we know that, that temporary slowdown is for the good reason. So we are fully ready wherever these new systems will come up, the soon is coming up in Greece sometime later this year. So we are ready for that. And also knowing that there is a better and bigger purpose for this for the wider industry.

On Italy, Sanjeet, I am -- I really want to call out that we are really pleased with that performance. Now, overall, market is a bit softer. We would wish that market is a bit stronger, and we do believe that as we enter into the preseason and season, we will see more of market. But in that market, we are now for 10 consecutive months are gaining share. So I'm very pleased that our winning performance is there and seeing that our strategically important Zero Sugar portfolio is performing really well, of which 0.0 is doing really well.

Then, you see also on Sprite performance that I talked earlier about. Then you see excellent energy performance. Then you see also Powerade performance, so -- but what's below the hood is development of our RGM and route to market in the country that's year-on-year very systematic, which makes our organization really strong there. So that gives me confidence that Italy is going to have a good year this year.

Your next question comes from the line of Laurence Whyatt of Barclays.

A couple for me. The first one, just on general consumers. Of course, you mentioned the geopolitical uncertainties at the moment. I was wondering if there's any markets where you're seeing that direct impact on consumers at the moment, whether that's the exit rate or otherwise, any sort of impact from the inflationary environment or uncertainty on consumer spend? That's my first question.

Laurence, look, one thing that we also said in the introductory remarks is that we don't see any significant change what we've been seeing last year. And that also relates to dynamics in a few markets. We said last year that Austria did have -- overall market had challenges. And we've seen also softer Austria in Q1.

We said that last few years because of a number of regulatory taxation, DRS, VAT in Romania, and this is a market where we do see -- we have a watch out even though Romania in Q1 had a really solid performance, but it is one of those markets where we are a bit more cautious.

On the other side, we see very good continuous performance of Ireland. Greece had a good performance. Very pleased about Switzerland bounce back. Then, Czech and Hungary continue really well, Serbia as well. So -- and needless to say that Nigeria and Egypt have been absolutely fantastic with performance. So all in all, to cut a long story short, no material change. And pretty much what we've been seeing last year, this is what we are experiencing also so far this year.

And just also in terms of pricing going into next year -- next quarter, of course, the Easter period will be a bit later. And I'm just wondering to think about your promotional intentions going into next quarter. You're going to have the Easter a little bit in the quarter, but also the start of the World Cup. So I'm just wondering, should we be expecting a materially different pricing environment in this Q2 versus last year?

Look, our promotional plans directly connect with the assets that we will be leveraging FIFA World Cup, where it's not only pricing promotions, but we have a number of value-added consumer promotions with which consumers can win tickets to the World Cup in a number of countries. And also, in Monster equally, there are other value-added promotions. So it's a whole variety of promotions that we are deploying in Q2 as part of our whole overall RGM plan.

And as I called out in my introductory remarks, we -- in a number of countries, we have or are doing price changes and price increases because we always said that's also part of the algorithm and perfectly normal that we are doing that depending on the local circumstances and our local plans. So in short, promotions are remaining an important driver of our volume and revenue generation, and that's what we will be seeing in Q2.

Your next question comes from the line of Charlie Higgs of Rothschild & Co Redburn.

My first one is just on Sparkling flavors, Sprite and Fanta, which picked up quite nicely, particularly around Sprite, where you mentioned some of the innovation coming and as a new global campaign. I guess from Hellenic's point of view, where are the key markets for Sprite? And how do you think about activating it better throughout this year as new flavors and campaigns come online? That's my first one.

Charlie, yes, thanks a lot for this question. So we had very good performance of both Fanta and Sprite. And for both of those, we have strong plans for the year. I particularly highlighted Sprite, where there are so many things that -- I would say it's a part of the reenergizing and reviving Sprite with a great tasting propositions that we have in both sugar and zero sugar variants. Great innovation with Sprite Chill, which is a great tasting lemon mint flavor. Then also, this really good new campaign and basketball assets that -- with which Sprite will be connecting really well. So Sprite is a focus in all our markets. And it's very encouraging to see that it already reacted very well in the Q1.

Now, some of the Sprite is important brand in all -- in many of our markets, but we see that in Nigeria, in Romania, in Poland, Ukraine, I mean, these are some of the very sizable markets that we have. But also, with Fanta, it's a huge brand in a number of countries. There are also exciting innovations that are ahead of us, also gaming, connection with snacking and meals. So you will be seeing a lot on that front.

And then, my follow-up was on Nigeria, where the last few years, there's been some pretty nasty FX devaluation. But actually, in 2026, it looks like you could see perhaps a bit of relief at last. How do you think about FX this year in Nigeria in terms of both revenue per case, but also potentially lifting local profitability?

Yes. Charlie, let me take that one. Yes, you're right, Nigeria, we have seen some significant volatility in the past, and we're very pleased to see that. Actually, starting from '25, we have seen some stability around the currency, which actually makes us feel more confident about how we'll be able to execute the activities in the market.

Look, we've been in Nigeria for 75 years now. So we have also learned that what is today may not be the same throughout the year. The volatility is still something, although as I said, there is more stability from also the activities that take place from the government and the investments that we've seen coming in the market.

Now, in terms of pricing, our pricing actions in Nigeria are set to address the current inflationary pressure, and they're adapted to, as you understand, the competitive environment as well as the overall RGM equation, as Zoran was highlighting, balancing both new packages, affordability and premiumization as well as the volume driver, which is a key driver in the whole RGM equation of the country. So overall, we remain very confident on Nigeria and optimistic on the performance.

Now, in terms of profitability and margins, one would expect that Nigeria is probably on the lower part of the group average on profitability compared to the group average, but we do expect that, that will continue to improve in the midterm, following the things I just mentioned as well as our focus on efficiency, productivity, which is already on a strong ground in Nigeria today.

Your next question comes from the line of Nadine Sarwat of Bernstein.

I wanted to ask on Egypt. I understand that there have been curfews implemented from about the very end of Q1 all the way through April on the back of energy constraints. Obviously, a big market for you guys with lots of volume drivers there. Can you comment on if you are seeing any outcome, any pressures from that in April on your performance? And sort of how are you thinking about Egypt given what is going on with global energy for Q2 and onwards?

Thanks, Nadine. So we -- on this curfew, just to say, you're correct, this has been implemented in the country. And then subsequently, the time extension has happened for the outlets and customers to operate. However, we did not feel the impact of that. Egypt had absolutely great Q1 with strong volume and revenue performance and continued share gains, both in NARTD and Sparkling. And I use the opportunity to also say how over the course of 2 years, we have been continuously narrowing the share gap versus the leader in the country.

And overall, that is a reflection of our strong commitment and investments that we are doing in the country with a very intentional portfolio development and also our capabilities development that we are doing in the country. That's why you see that Sparkling is performing really well, where Coca-Cola brand is leading the growth. I just talked earlier about Sprite that Charlie asked, and Egypt is second most important for -- country for Sprite. Schweppes is the largest global business, and that's in Egypt. And that's really, really strong business.

And then, the moment we came in, we introduced energy brands with Monster and Fury, which are performing really well. And to remind you, one of the things was correction on economics behind water, where we took a little slowdown to be able to then speed up that we are doing now. And that's why you see also Water, which is an important category in Egypt, is doing very well. So Egypt as well as overall Hellenic, we have not been impacted by what's going on at the moment in Middle East, but we remain focused in executing the plan. And I'm equally, as for Nigeria, but also very optimistic and confident about our performance in Egypt for the full year.

Your next question comes from the line of Richard Withagen of Kepler Cheuvreux.

Back on Egypt, but perhaps a bit more longer-term question. I mean, you mentioned your capabilities, execution in Nigeria and so on. Can you compare how that is in Egypt these days? Obviously, a business you've had for a shorter period of time.

Look, that's actually very good what you said, Richard, that the role model of how this development will continue is to go to follow that Nigeria path, which was a journey and is a journey of consistency and discipline in terms of our development in the country irrespective of the fact that sometimes you are faced with some headwinds, but we stay the course. And this is what we will be doing in Egypt.

And I think that in a more compressed time, I think we've done really a lot. And even when there were all kinds of headwinds happening in the last 2, 3 years, we really stayed committed to investing and developing the market. And we are very keen to share that also in our upcoming Bitesize live event that we will have on July 7 in Cairo, as we would like to demonstrate and share what we have been doing over there with our partners Coca-Cola Company and Monster and also what are we doing on the ground and also be able to show and walk the market together.

Great. And then my second question is really on the bond issue. You issued just over EUR 2 billion of bonds, I think, at the end of March for the cash outlay of about EUR 1.4 billion for CCBA later in the year. And you're increasing the guidance a bit on finance costs. So -- I mean, what are the let's say, the shifting elements there? Is the bond issue a bit bigger than you originally anticipated or the cost a bit higher? So some color on that, please.

Yes. Thank you for the question, Richard. Just to remind a little bit everybody that -- because you also mentioned the guidance, just to remind everybody that at the beginning of the year, when we issued our finance guidance of EUR 25 million to EUR 45 million cost for the year, we did not include any CCBA related financing with the exception of the bridge financing, which was already in place, as you understand.

And as you correctly said, we raised a bond of EUR 2.1 billion at the end of March, which I want to highlight here, I'm very pleased with the market reaction and a very strong investor demand, which also made the cost quite attractive despite the current environment that we were also experiencing at that time.

So, as you understand, we had to move in time. I would like to call it just in time as the situation was evolving because we didn't know how the overall crisis would evolve in the future and capture the favorable liquid market conditions ahead of the completion of the CCBA transaction, which we see to be finishing during the second half of the year.

Now, in terms of the value, EUR 1.4 billion is the cash consideration for CCBA. And there is another EUR 700 million, which is connected to our usual refinancing of the maturing bond that we have next year, which is a common practice that we do every year, capturing ahead of time the relevant refinancing. Now, the -- so as a result, that had an upgrade of our finance guidance to the range of EUR 45 million to EUR 65 million, which, of course, includes the cost of the CCBA financing, the cancellation of the current bridge financing facility. And, of course, the usual drivers of the finance cost, deposit interest as well as the extra EUR 700 million.

Now, in terms of the ranges, I would highlight that this is connected to an extent with the timing of the completion of the CCBA transaction. So what do I mean by that? Obviously, the finance cost is given, right, when it comes to the bond issuance, but in the meantime, there is an interest that we have as income until we wait for the final payout of the CCBA transaction. So, as you understand, the sooner this is completed the less this finance income will be. If it is completed later in the year, there will be more finance income, which will balance to that extent. I hope that clears -- yes.

I'd now like to hand the call back to Zoran for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. Well, I just want to thank everyone for taking the part in today's call and looking forward to catching up with you again soon. Wishing you all a good day. Thank you.

Thank you for attending today's call. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Coca-Cola HBC's conference call for the 2025 full year results. We have with us Zoran Bogdanovic, Chief Executive Officer; Anastasis Stamoulis, Chief Financial Officer; and Jemima Benstead, Head of Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions] I must also advise that this conference is being recorded today, 10th of February 2026.

I now pass the floor to one of your speakers, Jemima. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Good morning, and thank you all for joining the call. I'm here with our CEO, Zoran Bogdanovic; and our CFO, Anastasis Stamoulis. In a moment, Zoran will share the key highlights of 2025. Anastasis will then take you through our financial performance in more detail and discuss the outlook for 2026 before handing back to Zoran, who will discuss the strategic growth areas for the business. We will then open up the floor to questions. We have about an hour for the call today, which should give plenty of time for a good discussion. So please keep to 1 question and 1 follow-up, waiting for us to answer the first question before moving to your follow-up.

Finally, I must remind you that this conference call contains various forward-looking statements. These should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements in our results press release this morning and at the end of our slide deck.

And with that, I will turn the call over to Zoran.

Thank you, Jemima. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. 2025 was another strong year for Coca-Cola HBC. We've executed against our strategy and delivered a strong financial performance, all while operating through a mixed market environment and continuing to invest across the business for the long term.

Let me call out key highlights from the year. 2025 marks the fifth year of consistent strong growth and share gains. Both our revenue and EBIT growth was strong and high quality, underpinned by continued volume momentum despite a range of macroeconomic conditions. Importantly, volume growth continues to be led by 2 of our strategic priority categories, Sparkling and Energy. And we continue to win in the market and deliver value to our customers gaining a further 80 basis points of value share in non-alcohol ready-to-drink in 2025.

We also remain committed to investing in the business to unlock long-term growth. Throughout the year, we continued to invest in our 24/7 portfolio, in our bespoke capabilities, in our people and in sustainability, which we truly view as a growth enabler. In the year, we made further good progress in our most material areas: packaging, climate and water. And last, but certainly not least, in October, we took a significant step forward in our growth journey with the agreement to acquire Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, or CCBA.

Disciplined execution of our strategy enabled another year of strong financial performance. Let me share the key highlights before Anastasis goes into more detail shortly. Revenue grew by 8.1% on an organic basis with volume growth of 2.8%. Comparable EBIT was nearly EUR 1.4 billion, up 11.5% organically. We also delivered 60 basis points of EBIT margin improvement leading to strong comparable EPS growth of nearly 20%. Finally, we achieved free cash flow of EUR 700 million, drove a further increase in return on invested capital and increased our dividend.

As you know, in October, we announced the acquisition of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in Africa. This acquisition presents a highly compelling strategic rationale, which at its core is about growth. The acquisition materially enhances our presence in Africa by bringing together 2 leading bottlers in the continent with strong track records of growth and deep commitments to investing in talent and local communities. Together, we will represent 2/3 of Africa's total Coca-Cola system volume.

This combination further diversifies our geographic footprint, increasing our exposure to high-growth markets with compelling demographics, including sizable and growing populations and economies with significant potential to increase per capita consumption. The acquisition is consistent with the pillars of our growth strategy and vision of being the leading 24/7 beverage partner.

CCBA is the leading player in NARTD across its markets with a winning portfolio of over 40 global and local brands, further strengthening our exceptional portfolio. We also see a clear opportunity to leverage our strength of operating in dynamic emerging markets, we can share best practices, apply our best-in-class bespoke capabilities and invest further in CCBA to drive growth. Finally, we expect the acquisition to enhance value for all stakeholders. For shareholders, it is expected to be low single-digit EPS accretive in the first full year following completion, with a clear prospect of creating more shareholder value over the long term.

In terms of progress towards completion, let me outline where we are. On the 19th of January this year, we received approval from Coca-Cola HBC shareholders of the resolutions put forward at the extraordinary general meeting. Our teams continue to work through the customary regulatory filings and anti-trust approvals and preparations for the secondary listing of our shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Overall, we remain on track to complete the acquisition by the end of 2026 and are working on integration plans so we can hit the ground running. We look forward to sharing more details on the opportunities ahead for the combined group post completion.

Sustainability remains at the core of our strategy, enabling us to deliver growth while creating value for the communities we serve, our partners and the environment. In 2025, we saw further recognition of our progress, placing us among the leaders of the global beverage industry with top scores across major benchmarks.

Let me share a couple of highlights from 2025. We advanced our circular packaging agenda with the launch of a new collection hub in Nigeria and the expansion of deposit return systems to Austria and Poland. Recently launched systems in Romania, Hungary and Austria achieved average return rate of over 80% in 2025.

Partnerships continue to be a key driver of progress. As I mentioned last summer, together with Carrefour and the Coca-Cola Company, we initiated a sustainable linked business plan with Romania piloting a program that unites suppliers to cut emissions and improve packaging sustainability.

Supporting communities remains a central priority. In 2025, Europe faced severe wildfires and floods. And I'm proud that the Coca-Cola HBC Foundation was able to commit EUR 2.3 million in disaster relief. The group also announced an additional $5 million for the foundation to support communities starting from 2026. Overall, we've made strong progress towards our Mission 2025 goals with many targets reached ahead of schedule. Full results will be published in our 2025 integrated annual report in March along with details on the next phase of our sustainability journey.

With that, let me hand over to Anastasis to take you through the financial results of the year in more detail.

Thank you, Zoran, and good morning, everyone. So let me start with the strong top line performance. 2025 organic revenue growth was 8.1%. We delivered another year of good volume growth, up 2.8%, driven primarily by sparkling and Energy as Zoran has mentioned. I am pleased that all 3 segments achieved volume growth or maintained volumes despite an ongoing challenging backdrop. Organic revenue per case increased by 5.1% and normalization versus previous years as we expected. We continue to implement targeted revenue growth management initiatives while navigating lower levels of inflation across most markets.

Overall, pricing remained the largest driver of revenue per case. However, category mix and package mix were also positive, with continued improvement in single-serve mix, which expanded by 130 basis points in the year and is now 310 basis points higher on a 3-year basis. We achieved another year of double-digit organic EBIT growth with comparable EBIT growing 11.5% to nearly EUR 1.4 billion. Our comparable EBIT margin increased 60 basis points on a reported basis to 11.7% and 40 basis points organically. This marks a record high EBIT margin for our company, which is great to see, having navigated several years of inflation and currency pressures.

Let me break down the drivers of this. We improved gross profit margins by 70 basis points with good topline leverage. Operating costs overall stepped up by 10 basis points in the year. However, breaking this down a bit further, operating expenses, excluding direct marketing, improved by 30 basis points as a percent of revenue.

You may recall that in 2024, we faced headwinds in our operating expense line due to currency devaluation in Egypt, which we cycled this year. However, offsetting this, direct marketing expenses stepped up by 40 basis points as a percent of revenue as we invested in activations across categories, but notably the Share a Coke campaign, the Winter Olympics and the new Finlandia marketing campaign.

Let me now look to the drivers of performance by segment. I'm going to discuss these figures on an organic basis. In the Established segment, revenues grew by 2.3%. Volume was in line with last year, reflecting mixed trends across markets. Sparkling volumes were slightly ahead of last year with high single-digit growth in Coke Zero and mid-single-digit growth in Sprite. Energy continued to grow strongly, up high teens, still declined low single digits, although we delivered mid-single-digit growth in Sports Drinks.

On a country basis, volumes in Italy were slightly positive despite our decision to prioritize profitable revenue growth in water in the second half of the year. Excluding water, volumes in Italy grew low single digits. In Ireland, volumes grew low single digits with consistent growth throughout the year, whereas in Austria, volumes declined in a more challenging environment. Established revenue per case was up 2.3%, driven by pricing as well as positive package and category mix. Established segment comparable EBIT declined 2.8%, primarily due to a step-up in investments, as previously noted.

Turning to the Developing segment. Revenues were up 6.1%. Volumes grew 0.8% with Sparkling volumes slightly higher than last year, driven by Coke Zero and Sprite. Energy saw accelerating momentum with strong double-digit growth. Stills declined high single digits, driven by water and juices despite strong double-digit growth in Sports Drinks.

In terms of country performance, the Czech Republic was a standout performer, growing volumes mid-single digits despite a tough comparative. In Poland, volumes declined for the year, though we saw an improvement in the second half of the year. Developing revenue per case increased by 5.3%, driven by pricing actions taken to manage inflation supported by a favorable category and package mix. Comparable EBIT increased by 5.6% year-on-year with EBIT margin in line with the previous year.

In the Emerging segment, revenue grew by 13.2%, driven by both volume and good price mix. Emerging markets, volume grew 4.4%. Sparkling volumes increased by mid-single digits with mid-single-digit growth in Trademark Coke, Sprite and Adult Sparkling. Energy grew strongly despite cycling tough comparatives driven by affordable brands. Stills volumes grew low single digits, led by water and further supported by very strong growth in Sports Drinks on a small base.

At a country level, the performances of both Nigeria and Egypt have been very strong despite external challenges with volumes growing mid-single digit and low teens, respectively. Emerging segment revenue per case increased 8.5% and moderation compared to previous years, reflecting lower levels of inflation and currency headwinds for Nigeria and Egypt. We benefited from pricing actions as well as from positive category mix. Comparable EBIT grew 23.2%, a strong rebound due to organic growth as well as cycling the impact of the foreign currency remeasurement in Egypt last year.

Moving back to the group P&L. We saw comparable earnings per share grew 19.7% to EUR 2.72. This was supported by the strong EBIT delivery, lower net finance cost than previous year. As mentioned at the first half results, we have seen lower than usual finance cost this year due to several factors. We benefited from lower foreign exchange losses compared to 2024 due to greater currency stability as well as higher finance income in the year. As you will have seen from the guidance, we do expect a more normalized finance cost environment in 2026.

As expected, our comparable tax rate of 27.1% was in line with our guidance range. Our return on invested capital expanded by 100 basis points to 19.4%, driven by higher profit. We have seen very good improvement in ROIC over the last 5 years, and it remains a very important metric for us.

CapEx increased EUR 148 million in the year to EUR 828 million, in line with our plans, as we continue to invest in future growth initiatives, such as production capacity, ongoing automation and supply chain, digital and data solutions and energy-efficient coolers. CapEx as a percent of revenue was 7.1%, up 80 basis points year-on-year, but well within our target range of 6.5% to 7.5%. We delivered free cash flow of EUR 700 million. I'm really pleased that even in a year where CapEx stepped up materially, we have still delivered robust free cash flow.

Our balance sheet remains very strong, and we closed the year with net debt to comparable EBITDA at 0.7x. Clearly, this will increase, as we complete the acquisition of CCBA. However, we expect leverage post completion to remain within our medium-term target range of 1.5 to 2x. Importantly, we do not expect any impact to our credit rating, and we have a strong commitment to sustainably maintaining an investment-grade profile.

Leveraging this strong balance sheet, we have a robust and disciplined capital allocation framework, which remains unchanged. Our top priority is investing in the business organically to drive long-term growth for the company. We pursue a progressive dividend policy and target a 40% to 50% payout ratio. With another year of strong growth in comparable earnings per share, we are recommending a dividend per share of EUR 1.20, an increase of 17% from 2024.

When it comes to strategic M&A, as you know, in 2025, we announced the milestone acquisition of CCBA. The strategic expansion into African markets underpins our focus on driving long-term growth and will enhance value for shareholders. We expect low single-digit EPS accretion in the first full year following completion and more shareholder value in the long term.

Overall, when it comes to our capital allocation in 2025, I'm really pleased that we have delivered a combination of investment in the business, a value-enhancing acquisition, increased shareholder returns as well as a strong improvement in ROIC.

As we look to the rest of 2026, we expect the macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop to remain challenging with a mixed consumer environment across our markets. However, we have high confidence in our 24/7 portfolio, our bespoke capabilities, the growth opportunities across our diverse markets and most of all in our people. In 2026, we expect to make further progress against our medium-term growth targets with organic revenue growth in our medium-term range of 6% to 7% and organic EBIT growth in the range of 7% to 10%.

Thank you for the attention. Let me pass the call back to Zoran.

Thanks, Anastasis. Well, we are proud of our achievements in 2025. We are really proud of the consistency of that performance over many years now. We have now had 20 consecutive quarters of organic revenue growth despite many challenges along the way. If we look back over the last 5 years, we can see that our growth algorithm is working. We have delivered average organic volume growth of nearly 4%, a revenue growth of 15% and EBIT growth of 14%.

Our diversified country footprint, unique 24/7 brand portfolio, bespoke 4 capabilities and strength of our people have driven that consistent growth. What we've learned across many years operating in a range of markets and conditions is that there is no one size fits all approach. We strike a careful balance to focus on what makes the local market unique, staying relevant and tailoring our approach while aligning with the group strategy, leveraging our global scale, tools and capabilities, particularly with digital and data insights to drive personalized execution. It truly demonstrates the resilience of our business through a range of different macro and consumer backdrops and our ability to deliver results at the group level. This gives me the confidence that we can continue to navigate unpredictable environment going forward and underpins our guidance for 2026 as Anastasis set out.

Let me now take you through some of our biggest potential opportunities across our business for 2026 and beyond. Sparkling continues to be the core driver of our growth, contributing 2/3 of our group revenue. In 2025, we delivered organic volume growth of 2.5%. Coke Zero continued to perform strongly, growing low double digits and Coca-Cola 0.0 grew high teens. Together with the Coca-Cola Company, we executed locally tailored activations at key moments across the year, leveraging relevant passion points and consumption occasions.

In 2025, we also rolled out the Share a Coke campaign with local programs and initiatives tailored to our markets. We successfully executed customer and consumer activations across channels to drive transaction and further strengthen brand equity. We are pleased with the campaign's performance and the positive engagement it generated. We also accelerated growth in Sprite with volumes up mid-single digits, as we continued focusing on the Spicy Meals occasion, and we activated the Turn Up Refreshment campaign over the summer.

Adult Sparkling grew mid-single digits in 2025 with a strong performance from Schweppes in our African markets. We introduced new flavors, and the Flavour of the Quarter activation with promising initial results and plan to roll this out further in 2026. We also continued to roll out Three Cents, our premium mixer brand into more countries. In 2026, we will continue capitalizing on key occasions to create memorable consumption moments, including the Winter Olympics, which just kicked off last week and the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

Energy continued its strong growth trajectory. Volume grew by 28% against tough comparatives, making 2025 the tenth consecutive year of double-digit growth. We also hit a milestone surpassing EUR 1 billion of revenue for the first time with a category now accounting for 9% of our group revenue. All segments contributed to growth, reflecting the strength of our diversified portfolio, which enables us to address varied market demographics and affordability needs.

In Established and Developing, growth was driven by Monster supported by successful innovations such as Rio Punch and the launch of a new Monster drink with Lando Norris. Predator and Fury, our affordable offers in Africa, grew over 40%, supported by football partnerships and marketing activations that truly resonate with local consumers. We are confident we can continue to drive a strong performance in Energy and expect the category to reach a double-digit percentage of our revenues very soon. The category continues to see broad-based consumer demand, and we are excited for another year of innovation and planned partnerships, which we will complement by adding more dedicated coolers across our markets.

Moving on to Coffee. At the start to 2025, we announced we had made a strategic decision with our partners at Costa Coffee to prioritize the out-of-home channel because that is where we see the greatest potential for sustainable, profitable growth. I'm pleased to see that this decision is delivering results. We are seeing strong growth in the out-of-home channel, driven by both Costa and Caffe Vergnano with volumes up 26.5%.

This has been driven by growth in our existing outlets as well as recruiting new high-quality outlets. We remain very positive about the growth potential for our Coffee business. It plays a critical role within our 24/7 portfolio and helps us build stronger customer relationships in the hotels, restaurants and cafes channels. We are building a strong, credible business with unique capabilities and meaningful competitive advantages.

In Stills, volumes declined by 1% as growth in Water and Sports Drinks was offset by juices and Ready-To-Drink tea, where we faced a more challenging market environment. Water volumes grew low single digits, and we remain focused on profitable revenue growth, prioritizing premium waters. Sports Drinks continued its strong momentum with volumes growing low double digits. We launched new flavors of Powerade and leveraged local sports partnerships as well as football activations featuring global ambassadors to drive transactions. In 2025, we also launched Powerade in Romania.

Premium Spirits volumes grew by 12.2% with double-digit growth across all 3 segments and strong growth of Finlandia Vodka, our own brand. The new Finlandia campaign we launched in April 2025 has been positively received, contributing to increased brand awareness and share gains in key markets. Our distribution partnerships with Brown-Forman, Bacardi and Edrington also contributed to growth.

In our Snacks business, 2025 marked the return to full operations of our Bambi plant following the fire in 2024. In October, we also launched Bambi snacks in Nigeria, our first entry into the African continent in this category. We implemented a bespoke plan tailored to the local market and are pleased with the early feedback. Investing in our bespoke capabilities is critical to drive best-in-class growth and allows us to continue to gain share.

I want to call out the specific examples of progress in 2025. Revenue growth management is one of our core capabilities to drive profitable revenue growth. Affordability remained important in 2025, and we increased our focus on entry and smaller packs. Premiumization remains relevant for a large segment of the population, and we focused on expanding multipacks of single serves as well as driving mini-cans in relevant markets. We also continue to leverage our advanced promotion analytics tools, which led us assess the effectiveness of each promotion and make a quicker in-market decisions to drive more value for us and our customers.

Within data, insights and AI, we continued to leverage AI capabilities. Two great examples include our Ignite Naija initiative, where jointly with Coca-Cola Company, we are linking consumer and customer data in Nigeria, which Naya and the Nigerian team shared with you at our Bitesize event last year. Early results indicate that this more sophisticated segmentation approach is translating into higher volume and revenue per case.

We also expanded our segmented execution approach to wholesalers, leveraging shared data and outlet intelligence to provide our wholesale partners in Italy with tailored recommendations relevant to the outlets they serve. In 2026, we will continue to implement more advanced segmented execution across our markets, enhanced by AI and more -- most importantly, tailored to the local market dynamics.

We are increasingly digitizing our route to market. Our dynamic routing tool, which reduced its travel time by 15% is live in 22 markets, freeing up more time for face-to-face customer engagement. We also increased placement of our Always-On connected coolers by 20%. These integrated coolers continuously send data and analytics to our systems, giving our teams immediate insights to improve in-store execution and cooler profitability. Another example is our AI-enabled logistics project, which helps reduce out of stocks by generating automated data-driven fulfillment recommendations. We launched it in Poland in 2025 and have already seen efficiency gains, and plan to scale these to more markets in '26.

At the half year results, I shared with you about our digital transformation and how we've been investing in our digital commerce platforms to serve our customers and consumers who shop online. We are live with Customer Portal, our largest B2B platform, in 22 markets now. Partnering with our customers to drive value underpins everything we do at Coca-Cola HBC. In 2025, our Net Promoter Score increased to 78%, partially reflecting an increase in the number of resolved customer issues within 48 hours to 99%. This disciplined focus helped underpin a sixth year of market share gains in NARTD.

Finally, we couldn't do any of this without talented people. Our latest employee survey results showed overall engagement remained strong at 88%, which reaffirms the strength of our culture and the ongoing focus on high performance, learning and development. In 2025, we scaled the Metaverse learning environment to accelerate capability building for sales teams and improve in-store execution. This is now live in 7 markets with further markets planned for 2026.

To conclude, I'd like to reiterate the key messages I started with. We've had a strong 2025, the fifth year of consistent delivery with further strategic and operational progress and financial results. We've seen another year of growth in volumes, sales, EBIT, EPS and market share. Investing for the future remains critical. And in 2025, we invested across our portfolio, capabilities, people and sustainability initiatives.

Finally, we are very excited about the acquisition of CCBA, a great business with strong brands and the leading market presence across Africa. We have great confidence in the opportunity ahead of us to drive sustainable, profitable growth.

And before I close, I would like to sincerely thank all our colleagues, customers, suppliers and partners for their ongoing efforts and support.

Thank you for your attention. And with that, let us now open the call up to questions.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take the first question from the line of Sanjeet Aujla from UBS.

A couple for me, please. I'd like to dig a little bit deeper into Egypt. By my math, your volumes in Q4 are up around in the low mid-20% range. Can you just talk us through what's really driving that? I appreciate you're lapping some of the impact, but really keen to understand a little bit the impact of your commercial execution there and where your market share is now versus prior to the transaction. That's my first question.

My follow-up is around Established. You've had 2 years of flattish volume growth in Established. How you -- what's embedded in your outlook for 2026? Do you think volumes can get back to growth? And ultimately what's driving that?

Sanjeet, so on Egypt, really, really pleased with that -- with performance that came last year. First of all, just to say that we've seen in Africa, both in Egypt and Nigeria, more stable backdrop and environment. And that really then sets the good platform, where everything that we do there can be more visible.

Coming back to Egypt, what we've seen last year and then Q4 is just part of that is a result of us investing in a committed and disciplined way even while we were facing very strong headwinds over the last several years. Because we were focused from the moment we started 4 years ago to work on the enhancement of our portfolio and then investing in capabilities in a very fast way, leveraging data insights to better inform revenue growth management, route to market changes and enhancements, we've done a very wide investment into upskilling of people in sales and commercial capabilities.

We have changed and improved commercial policies with the way how we work with wholesalers. We have introduced new capacity, which enabled us to fulfill anticipated growing demand that we believe will come and brought new can line. We are just opening another line in like Alexandria. And then, not to forget something that's super important, Coca-Cola Company has really created some and done very strong locally relevant marketing programs in the areas that truly matter to Egyptian consumers. Those relate to music with the outstanding activation and partnership that works extremely well, driving transactions. Also football, which is a big passion point in Egypt with a partnership with a club that has the, by far, largest fan base and also more focus on behind meals.

You know that Egypt is the largest country globally in terms of the Schweppes business, by far, largest in Hellenic. And that's a phenomenal business, which worked so well last year with very intentional programs being -- with which the portfolio was supported. We introduced energy with 2 brands, Monster and Fury, and that also proved to be working really well, tapping into passion points. And all that, again, gets delivered through our evolved and more developed route to market, where we are fully scaling the market, segmenting it and really adjusting how we serve the market from at-home customers as well as to out-of-home customers. So all these blended together is coming very nicely and resulting in a very strong performance.

Yes, in fairness, we also know that we had lower comps, easier comps to cycle. But I think that this performance demonstrates as a good testament to the quality of work that we are doing, not for 1 year, but for many years to come, and I'm confident that Egypt is going to have another strong year in 2026.

Moving on to Established. With a stable volume performance that we saw last year, we are pleased with that performance as this happened in spite of a few challenges. We've seen a couple of countries really making good performance across the year. But I will start with Italy, which finished on moderately positive volume performance, which for us was really important. And we did say that Italy will be positive in 2025.

If you deduct Water, which we intentionally play in -- with selective part of customers and markets, our performance there was on a low single digit. Very encouraging to see sparkling performance of 2.2%, a strong performance of Zeros, excellent performance of new Zero Sugar Zero Caffeine, about which we have very high hopes how it will perform, not only in Italy, but much broader, and then continued strong performance also of Energy. All that resulting in a strong continued market share gains.

So then, we had a consistent performance in Ireland. We've seen a good performance in Greece in the second part of the year, as well as in Switzerland, where we didn't have the best entry into the summer in terms of the weather. And also, we had, like many other CPG players, specific situation related to retail negotiations. And once this was successfully resolved in a win-win way, we have resumed full performance with full listings. And that's why we are very pleased with the second half performance in Switzerland.

One country that consistently has been on a softer side is Austria, where industry also is in decline. We do see lower consumer sentiment, which is below the EU average, but in that circumstances, we see that our team has been gaining share there and has been doing some quality work, which is also reflected in single-serve growth.

So to wrap up, Established, we believe that this performance in '25 present a good base, and we do expect that we will see improvement in that segment in 2026.

We will now take the next question from the line of Andrea Pistacchi from Bank of America.

I want to follow up on established and -- on Established markets, mainly both with the first question and the follow-up. So affordability and consumer sensitivity has been a bit of a headwind in a few of your Established and Developed markets. You just mentioned Austria, I think even Romania and Switzerland. Are you seeing any signs of these pressures easing as we go into 2026? And how are you thinking about pricing and revenue management this year, specifically in these markets?

And the follow-up question is on EBIT in Established. So at group level, you've delivered very strong EBIT, again, mainly driven by Emerging, but EBIT declined a little, I think, in Established markets as you reinvested in the business. Last year, EBIT was flat. So the question is how -- going forward, how are you thinking about balancing reinvestment versus EBIT growth in Established markets? Would you expect profit in Established? Can it return to growth? Are there opportunities for incremental maybe cost savings in Established?

Good morning, Andrea. So I'll start, and then, I'll hand over to Anastasis for your second part of the question. So in Established, firstly, it's not one size fits all. It really varies. And we monitor and measure price sentiment and sensitivity in every single country, also dynamics with a certain level of private labels that can exist across the market. Even though I have to say that in Sparkling and in Energy, this is where private labels have the smallest share.

And even in Sparkling, the private label share is in decline. However, there are a few markets, and you mentioned Romania, even though it's not in the Established, either country where we have seen somewhat better performance of the -- of private label. All of this gets this input into the overall revenue growth management framework, which then on a country level is being designed and which then produces tailored specific things for affordability initiatives as well as premiumization initiatives in every of these markets. So somehow with our reading, we do see an opportunity for positive improvements in 2026.

And second part of the year in those markets have given us that time, and I have to also acknowledge that for Established as well as for all other countries, we have prepared very strong plans with additional investments behind many of the strong programs that are coming up in this year. Summer for us always is the biggest program we have. But also, there is a FIFA World Cup. There are many innovations that are coming up, and we see that being very relevant in the Established segment. And I reiterate that we are positive that we will make an improvement in the Established segment in '26.

Anastasis?

Yes. Thank you, Zoran. Yes, actually, to build on Zoran's point, for 2025, we saw a resilient top line performance with a revenue growth of 2.3%. Let me share a little bit more detail because you touched the profitability of the Established. Actually, the gross profit margin grew in the Established market, but as you rightfully pointed out, you saw pressure on the EBIT margin, which was mainly impacted by a targeted decision to step up our investments in the market, a joint decision with the Coca-Cola Company to accelerate further growth in the segment, and I can go over the big activations of the year, but predominantly it was a Share a Coke campaign with the investment ahead of the Winter Olympics in Italy, which is undergoing now as well. And also cycling extra investments in our people when it comes to field force execution in the market.

So with that in mind, we are very pleased to see that actually, our investment strategy has been paying off. In Italy, as Zoran pointed out, we had a low single-digit volume growth in Sparkling and strong double-digit growth in Energy and share gains in both Sparkling NRTD and Energy. And similar market was Ireland with continued volume growth and share gains across.

So if we look into 2026, what I can say is that we will continue to step up our investments in the market. Zoran already mentioned the FIFA World Cup, we have the Winter Olympics ongoing. We have also step up in the overall Finlandia Investment. But we do expect that all this will translate to positive volume growth that will also flow down the P&L with profitable growth and also margin expansion.

We will now take the next question from the line of Aron Adamski from Goldman Sachs.

Congrats on the results. I have 2 questions. First one is on your innovation pipeline. Can you give us a sense of the scale of the innovation and activation plans that you have for 2026 compared to the previous year? In particular, could you give us some color on the launch pipeline in Energy drinks? Is it comparable to the 3 big launches that you had last year? And perhaps in Sparkling, it would also be great to hear if you're seeing any uplift in Italy's volume during the January month from the Olympics activations? That will be my first question.

Aron, on innovation, innovation pipeline is one of the drivers of our growth, and we are very happy that with both Coca-Cola Company and Monster Energy Company, there is a rich pipeline. So we have a number of innovations lined up for this year. Those will be very exciting flavor innovations, which, in some cases, are also coming with some partnerships. You've seen Lando Norris launch last year, which worked extremely well, and that will continue into this year with also some -- a couple of other innovations that I think will be better that we discuss when they are done.

On Sparkling side, we are very excited with -- we think of it as innovation, which is Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Zero Caffeine with new graphics look and feel with excellent feedback from the market, and we see that performance of this variant within Coca-Cola trademark is igniting very strong growth. We've seen a strong growth last year, and it has been ramping up from quarter-to-quarter. Then, we will have further flavor innovations within our Adults, whether that's Schweppes or Kinley. Also, within Fanta, there are some very interesting things. And you will see some very exciting things in the way the activations will be for the Halloween, which becomes a very important part of Fanta activation.

So I can -- then Powerade will be also coming up with some innovations, especially as you see that now Powerade goes so well together with the Coca-Cola brand in the sports activations, and the exciting and largest ever FIFA World Cup is ahead of us. So I can say, Aron, that we are pleased and confident that we have the right set of innovations. For us, it's very important that those innovations are driving incremental transactions, which are all delivered through very, very strong execution across all the markets.

You asked also about Italy Olympics. Yes. Look, we started activating Olympics already last year in Italy. That gave us a great platform to activate and partner together with customers, driving joint programs. We've been just there last week and seeing excellent activation displays, consumer promotion, visibility, transaction driving mechanism. So I cannot single out how much is specifically because of Olympics, but I can really say that it's a very clear tailwind in what we have seen in Q4 and definitely what we will experience in Q1.

Great. That's very clear. And then my second question is on FX. Given where the current spot rates are, would you expect 2026 to see some transactional FX benefits in Africa? And in the context of easier COGS backdrop that we've seen more recently, how are you thinking about the balance of price with mix and volume following several years of very high pricing that you had in Africa?

Aron, let me take that one. As you have seen, we are providing our guidance. We expect a range of EUR 0 million to EUR 30 million of a headwind from translational effects. Obviously, we don't provide a transactional element, but that's well captured within our overall EBIT guidance.

Yes, you mentioned the spot rates. Obviously, that's one part of the element, but we actually provide a range in the back of trying to assess our experience of a quite unpredictable environment when it comes to FX volatility, especially in the African markets. We are seeing positive signs in both economies, and there is significant inflows of foreign currency in those markets, will make FX availability easier and good signs. But as I said, that's why we provide the range across.

Now, when it comes to balancing the pricing element in Africa, we always follow an adaptive and data-driven pricing strategy in those markets. We've also seen that this year, as we managed to adapt our pricing in relation to a lower inflationary pressure, a lower also FX volatility. We'll continue doing the same next year. And these are, of course, markets that we expect significant volume growth with a balanced pricing to adapt to the local market needs. So as always, nothing new.

We will now take the next question from the line of Matt Ford from BNP Paribas.

So my first question is just on the guidance, I suppose, the 7% to 10% like-for-like EBIT range that you've given for the year. I'd just be interested to just get your kind of take of the moving parts. How -- what do you see going right to get you to that 10% and potentially higher? And potentially, what could go wrong to get you to the lower end of that range? And then, I'll follow up with my next question.

Yes. Matt, yes, you're right. I mean, we're providing a range of 7% to 10% on organic EBIT. I think we need to remind ourselves this comes on the back of a strong EBIT delivery for 2025, which is the third consecutive year of double-digit organic EBIT growth and actually proves our capability to navigate in the environment and still consistently deliver despite what happens.

Now, given the timing of the year, we're a little bit early, and considering that we do believe that the markets will remain in a certain uncertainty on the macroeconomic and geopolitical landscape, we believe that the current range reflects any type of movements on other direction. So, for example, on the lower end, you would expect a worsening of the geopolitical environment, which we have a spillover effect on consumer sentiment and further FX pressures with commodity inflation. While on the upper end, it's built on the back of a stronger momentum across the markets that materialized through the year should deliver also a stronger bottom line.

Okay. Great. And then my follow-up is just on Poland, naturally. I mean, Poland saw sequential improvement in Q4 following a fairly solid Q3. And obviously, in the first half of the year, you were still being impacted by the reintroduction of a competitor in a retailer in Poland. So I just want to get your sense of how much of this Q4 improvement should we see continuing into '26? And how do you think about the outlook for growth in that market in '26 and beyond?

Yes. Thanks, Matt. So let me first say that we are very pleased with the performance of Poland. When you see on a broader horizon of last 4, 5 years, we've done excellent, excellent progress in terms of volume, revenue, profitability as well as significant market share gains. And understandably, with the return of the key competitor into the largest customer, of course, this would have a temporary impact. That's why, when we also see our market share performance, excluding particular customer, we do see that our performance and share gains are there. And we've seen that also in the country. We see a good -- very good performance of Coke Zero, which is up low teens. And also, just to say that in Q4, overall, we gained share in Sparkling.

We also see a very strong performance of Energy, which is driven by Monster. So all in all, we have strong plans, very strong team in Poland and at the back of this very good performance over the last couple of years. And in last year, what we've seen is a return to positive performance in Q3, and then, especially in Q4, we do expect and we will see positive performance and volume growth and revenue growth in Poland also in 2026.

We will now take the next question from the line of Simon Hales from Citi.

So my first question, Zoran, really is around the performance of the Premium Spirits business. It was very strong in the year, Finlandia, performing particularly well in a tough environment for the wider spirits industry. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about what's drove -- or driven that relative outperformance versus many of your spirits peers? And how do you think about that Premium Spirits opportunity as we look into 2026? That's my first question.

Thank you, Simon. Look, overall, on like a helicopter review, Premium Spirits plays a strategic role in the overall portfolio, as it also strengthens our customer leverage. It provides a great blend in mixability. And that's one of the reasons why really Premium Spirits portfolio is performing well because it's not stand-alone consumption and activation, but it is also how we blend that in combination with our nonalcohol beverage portfolio, which clearly drives incremental transactions, which benefit both our non-alcohol part of portfolio, but also, of course, it benefits the Premium Spirits part of the portfolio.

Secondly, we also are -- with all the partners, and I'll come back to Finlandia, with all the partners, we are increasing our penetration presence across the outlets, which means that we are increasing distribution and gaining share versus other brand companies in the market. We are also expanding a number of countries, where with Bacardi, we have increased when we started from 2, where we are now to 11 countries. So that scaling is also helping us to drive the business.

And then Finlandia, we always believed that this brand has a great overlap with our territories, having 60% of its global volume across our territories. So when we took it over, we really wanted to give it a fresh kick to refresh the brand, give it more support. And that's why carefully crafted marketing campaign has been launched in April last year. And it was very well received, and it really accompanied great strong execution focus across the countries. So all that blended comes together that we are having another year of very good growth of Premium Spirits, which I want to remind also has a collateral benefit in driving the rest of the portfolio.

Great. That's very clear. And then, my follow-up is really on the finance cost guidance for 2026 of EUR 25 million to EUR 45 million and if you could talk about the build of that. I mean, you obviously started 2025 with pretty high finance cost charge expectations of EUR 40 million to EUR 60 million, and you basically ended the year with almost a 0 finance cost line. Why is it going to be so different in 2026? I mean, how much of the guide that you put out this morning is related to the bridging cost finance for CCBA? How are you thinking about foreign currency losses for this year within that guidance?

Yes. Simon, so yes, I mean, we closed the year with EUR 1.1 million of finance cost, which was lower to our updated guidance and even lower to -- honestly, to our expectations. It was mainly driven by 2 key reasons. First of all, the greater currency stability that we had in the Nigerian naira as well as higher finance income. So if you look into next year and our guidance for next year, which is in the range of EUR 25 million to EUR 45 million, we expect a more normalization when it comes to the relevance of finance cost.

Now -- so first of all, we assume ongoing income from our cash balances in Russia, which is positively contributing to the finance cost, of course. And on the other hand, we factored some higher finance costs in relation to renewing our finance structure, not related to CCBA at this stage. And of course, you rightfully mentioned the bridge financing cost, which is captured within our finance cost for the year, as this is already there. I want to remind us that this guidance does not include anything in relation to new debt for CCBA acquisition. This, of course, will be reflected, and we'll provide further guidance subject to the timing of the completion of the transaction. But I feel overall comfortable with the range that we are providing at this stage of the year and the visibility that we have.

We will now take the next question from the line of Nadine Sarwat from Bernstein.

My question is on CCBA. You announced the deal. It's been a couple of months now. And so I'm curious to hear over that time period, have you learned anything incrementally that you're able to share that makes you incrementally excited or perhaps additional areas where you see opportunities for improvement in the business?

So after the announcement in October, we have immediately proceeded with application across countries where this is necessary to be done to seek the regulatory approvals for the transaction. So we are now in the period where, a, we are not the owner, and we need to wait for those approvals, which we estimate to be obtained by the end of the year latest. So during this period, what we can do, and we started doing, is integration planning. So our functional teams, together with functional teams of CCBA, started working together on the preparations and planning, which then will be executed only once we get all the necessary approvals.

But, to conclude, you said the word excitement. So that's exactly the right word with how we feel about CCBA. And if we felt excited at the day of the announcement, I would say that we just feel more excited now, and we can't wait to get started with these wonderful territories, which offer abundance of opportunities that -- behind which we want to invest to drive growth.

We will now take the next question from the line of David Roux from Morgan Stanley.

Just on -- I've got a question on CCBA, and then, a quick technical follow-up. So you've spoken about the deal accretion in year 1. And then, in your prepared remarks there, you went on to further note you expect it to create shareholder value in the long term. Can you remind us of how this deal will affect your medium-term targets of 6% to 7% organic growth, and then, the 20 to 40 basis points of margin expansion?

And then, just my technical question, on the phasing of organic growth for 2026, there was an extra trading day this past quarter. Can you remind us of the impact across the 2026 quarters from more fewer trading days?

Thank you, David. So on CCBA, very short, as we said last time, we will come back once the transaction is completed and approved. We will come back with our view on the guidance, and we will definitely take you through that. So for that, we simply need to wait that all the necessary things are done until then.

And on the phasing, look, we have in Q1 4 more days, and that was in January. And we have, I think, 4 days -- or 3 days less in Q4. So that's why you will see that in Q1, we will see -- this will be reflected in the performance of Q1 and also somewhat balanced in the Q4. And for that reason, I think that informs how also phasing will be.

I don't know if you want to add anything, Anastasis.

No, I think Zoran captured it well. You should expect to see a bit more -- that extra volume from the first half to flow down from the revenue to the P&L, not of course, to the full extent, as there is a level of investments that we mentioned before, like the Olympics. So a little bit more on the first half of the year. And just to add on the CCBA that we -- our assessment is that, of course, once the company -- the process is completed on a new rebase of margin, we do expect that we will be delivering within a line of our guidance of 20 to 40 basis points.

We will now take the next question from the line of Charlie Higgs from Rothschild & Co.

My first one is on COGS per case inflation, which I think was 3.8% in 2025. I was wondering, Anastasis, if you could give any thoughts for 2026 because European sugar is looking pretty good; PET, likewise; electricity costs are a little bit all over the place. But can you just talk about what you're seeing there? And how hedged you are on key commodities? And then I have a follow-up, please.

Charlie, yes, actually, looking ahead for 2026, we are currently expecting COGS per case to increase in the low single-digit level. There is still some inflationary pressure in commodities like aluminum and PET, while as you rightfully said, there is some moderating trend in sugar. But as you know, we always follow a very robust hedging policy. And our current hedging coverage on key commodities, as we speak, is above 55% with higher coverage in sugar and aluminum, which basically means that any positive -- further positive trends in sugar will not be floating fully in the P&L, as the hedging position covers that. But we remain always focused on this with the hedging strategy and long-term contracts, and we continue to do productivity, and we'll reflect that as the year evolves.

Great. That's very useful. And then, my follow-up is just on some of the leadership changes that are happening at KO. We've got James Quincey's last outing in a couple of hours after an amazing run. We've had in the last few months, a new Head of Europe and a new Head of Africa, and also recently, the company announcing a new Chief Digital Officer. So can you just kind of put all of these leadership changes together and summarize what you think it will mean for Coca-Cola Hellenic?

Charlie, so look, on the -- on that topic, I can say, first of all, we know very well all the leaders who are taking all the new roles. But let me first start to say that we believe that James has done phenomenal steering of the Coca-Cola Company and especially the way James and John and Henrique in their roles have done also gluing and bringing system so much closer together like never before. I really believe it is one of the reasons why the overall Coca-Cola system is working so well together and demonstrating such high performance.

So -- and then preparation of this succession with Henrique, I think it's an exemplary case. We know Henrique really well as another phenomenal leader that we had privilege to have him on our Board, and we still do. But obviously, he will be stepping down given his new role. But we know that gave also the chance to Henrique to see Hellenic from up close. And we know that we share a strong belief in the system, in the business that we are in. And we also shared very bold ambition of how we all should think about future and how much more opportunities there are. And we will do everything from our side to support and work together in a flawless partnership that we have.

And then, also 2 new leaders, both in Europe with Luisa and in Africa with Luis, excellent relationship, super strong leaders, growth mindset, drive to win, and above all, a great sense of partnership, attitude, approach that really inspires to do more better together. So -- I mean, you got me on a question that I could talk so much because we have really huge respect and trust and admiration for these leaders, and we are very privileged that we can work with them.

And not to forget also Sedef, great choice of such experienced business leader to take such an important topic as digital transformation. And we already started, where with Henrique and John, we are having a Global System Digital Council, where now Sedef plays a very important role. So very exciting. And I'm very sorry, I don't have more time because I could really go on. But thanks a lot. I hope I answered your question.

We will now take the next question from the line of Mitch Collett from Deutsche Bank.

You mentioned in the release some new AI capabilities that you've rolled out in 2025. And I think you say that it gives you better volume and also better revenue per case. So can you perhaps give a sense of the quantum of that uplift? And how quickly do you expect to be able to roll that out into other markets? And then, I have a follow-up.

Mitch, sorry, of all the AI because that's another one where I can go for hours, but -- did you ask specifically on the one that we do in Nigeria?

Yes. I think that's the one where you say it gave you volume and revenue uplift.

Yes. Yes, absolutely. No, that's -- you picked a good one because the beauty of that is that, as we and also Coca-Cola Company, we are all stepping up our data analytics and AI. But the beauty of that is when we come together, and this is an example of a case where we combine consumer data and our customer data. Bottom line of that is who shops where. And based on that, we are segmenting so that we can have segmented communication execution based on profiles of consumer segments in which type of outlets. That's the essence of that.

And we've seen based on the pilot, which was just under 4,000 outlets, gave us a very good performance, definitely a better performance in volume and revenue per case than the controlled set of outlets. And for that reason, we are expanding that throughout 2026 by more than tripling number of outlets where we will be spreading this. And more importantly, all the learnings that we get from this are the backbone of how we will be then taking this further to other markets together as a joint system team.

That's great. And then my unrelated follow-up is just going back to the finance charges for this year. I think you say it includes the cost of the bridging financing. Can you just quantify how much that is? Apologies if you gave that earlier and I missed it.

Yes. Mitch, you mean this year, you mean for '26, right? Yes. So in Q2, we expect it to be low single digit.

Millions, low single digits, euro millions.

Yes. Yes, yes. Very low single digit million.

We will now take the next question from the line of Richard Withagen from Kepler Cheuvreux.

First one is on RGM. As inflation normalizes, how should we think about your current RGM strategy? So what's the medium-term algorithm between price, pack architecture, promo intensity and mix to stay in a good balance between the revenue per case growth and volumes?

Richard, thank you for great question. So RGM, when I think of last 5, 6 years with everything we've been going through, I don't know how we would go if we didn't have RGM at the level that we have. This helps us in the situations of extreme conditions like we went with a very high inflation and how RGM carried us through all of that. And mind you, where on top of very strong price/mix, we have been able to deliver constantly positive volume, and that's attributed to the RGM, which takes into account so many things together.

So going forward, in situation of a more stable inflationary environment, both in Europe and in Africa, this is where exactly all 3 drivers that you mentioned play a role. RGM is accounting and using end volume and price and mix. And for us, package mix, category mix are important drivers of how we are driving overall price/mix. We said for the last year that you will see more balanced play between volume and price/mix. And this is what happened. And we also estimate for -- and that's also what we estimate for 2026, where you will see even more balanced ratio between -- a combination between volume and price/mix.

Now, just as the bottom line is that RGM, the core purpose, so it is to drive sustainable revenue and margin through well thought through initiatives that either tackle affordability or premiumization in every single market in their own unique way. And that's why this we call one of our prioritized bespoke capabilities behind which we are constantly investing just to get constantly better, better and raise the bar. I hope I answered your question.

Yes, that's very clear, Zoran. And then my follow-up, maybe more for Anastasis, but -- you made some investments in inventories in the past few years, which I guess makes sense given the volume growth of the business. Now, in 2025, inventories actually declined year-on-year. Did you have any specific initiatives around inventories or around the broader working capital? And what can we expect going forward?

Richard, thank you for the question. First of all, you mentioned the overall working capital cycle, and we are pleased how we are managing this in order to contribute to the overall free cash flow generation. Inventories have always been a focus area together with receivables, where we are making very good progress on actually keeping lowest possible overdues as a percent of receivables. But inventories as well has been a focus and part of the areas that we are working with supply chain to ensure the necessary requirement.

Of course, the priority is about delivering in the market and ensuring availability, and we'll continue to do that. But I want to underline that I'm very pleased with the free cash flow generation as a combination of what has been driven from the profitable growth, the working capital cycle, while we created the space to continue to invest in our CapEx that fuels the future growth. So, yes, good progress there, and we'll continue to focus on this and keeping these levels of free cash flow generation.

We will now take the last question from the line of Laurence Whyatt from Barclays.

Just one for me, please. Just following up on one of the previous questions. I think you mentioned that you're going to have a bit of a more balanced split between volume and price/mix as you look at your guidance this year. Just wondering if you could confirm that that's what I heard, if you're expecting it to be around sort of 50-50 between the 2?

Laurence, yes, you heard well where we say that it's going to be more balanced play between the 2. This really depends on every country. It may be that somewhere it's 50-50, it can be 60-40, it can be 40-60. So this is really hard to predict now. But in our algorithm, and as we think about '26, we do see that end volume and price and mix will play a role. And yes, it's going to -- we see it to be in a more balanced way.

Just to split it up between your 3 divisions, I'm assuming that the majority of the improved volume is coming from the emerging region. Or is there any other areas you would expect a material step up?

Yes, it's logical that more volume to come from the Emerging segment. Absolutely. You're right.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand back over to the speakers for closing remarks.

Well, thank you, operator. And I just want to thank everyone for taking the part in today's call and all the questions and good conversation, and we look forward to speaking with you soon. Thank you very much, and goodbye.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Coca-Cola HBC's Conference Call to discuss the acquisition of CCBA and Third Quarter 2025 Trading Update. [Operator Instructions] I must also advise that this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday, October 21, 2025.

I will now pass the floor to one of your speakers, Jemima Benstead, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call at short notice. I'm here with our CEO, Zoran Bogdanovic; and our CFO, Anastasis Stamoulis. We have just over an hour for the call today, and following the prepared remarks, we will turn the call over to your questions. Please keep to one question and one follow-up, waiting for us to answer the first question before moving to your follow-up.

I would like to remind you that this conference call contains various forward-looking statements. These should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements in our results press release this morning and at the end of our slide deck.

With that, I will turn the call over to Zoran.

Thank you, Jemima. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call at short notice today. This is a very exciting moment for us at Coca-Cola HBC and a huge milestone in our growth story. Today, I'm delighted to announce the acquisition of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, or CCBA, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in Africa. CCBA is a fantastic business, and I'm convinced this will be a strong combination.

I want to leave you with 3 headlines before getting into the detail. First, with this acquisition, we are creating the second largest Coca-Cola bottling partner by volume globally, with leading positions across 43 markets in Africa and Europe. Second, we believe this acquisition presents a highly compelling strategic rationale which, at its core, is about growth. CCBA operates across very attractive markets, and we see outstanding potential to further drive long-term growth in Africa and create value for stakeholders, and I'll share more detail a bit later. And third, we will be combining the expertise of 2 leading companies with strong track record of growth and deep commitments to investing in talent and local communities.

And speaking of talent, I want to take this moment to say thank you to all the people involved in getting us to this point. Today's announcement is the culmination of a lot of hard work and commitment of so many passionate people, years of strong committed work focused on driving growth, winning in the market, building strong capabilities and talent pipeline have enabled this milestone, and certainly, strong trusted partnership with the Coca-Cola Company. So truly a big thank you to our teams and the Coca-Cola Company.

I would also like to recognize the outstanding legacy of the Gutsche family and personally thank the whole family for their support and guidance during this time, and a big thank you to the CCBA team for working so collaboratively and diligently ahead of today's announcement.

So let me take a moment to walk you through the agenda of today's call. As you can see, we will mostly focus on the acquisition of CCBA. I will share an overview of CCBA and the strategic rationale of the acquisition, and Anastasis will take you through the financial effects of the acquisition. But firstly, I will touch on our Q3 results, which have also -- which we have also released today.

We have achieved solid top line growth in the third quarter, demonstrating how we continue to deliver quality growth in mixed market conditions. Revenues grew by 5% organically, bringing us to organic revenue growth of 8.1% in the first 9 months of 2025. We saw good volume growth of 1.1% despite a mixed consumer environment and less favorable weather in some markets. Sparkling volumes remained robust, up 0.7%, driven by trademark Coke and Adult Sparkling, and Energy continues to perform very well with volumes up 34.3%.

Organic revenue per case increased 3.8%, driven by both price and mix. We continue to leverage our revenue growth management framework to meet demand for both affordability and premiumization across our markets. I'm pleased that our focused execution through the key summer period enabled us to continue to gain value share in NARTD, increasing 80 basis points year-to-date. We continue to invest in our strategic priorities and our bespoke capabilities to deliver on our growth ambitions.

Throughout the summer, we executed the successful rollout of the Share a Coke campaign across our markets. We dedicated customer and consumer experiences. I'm excited that we have also just launched the campaign in Nigeria this month with an encouraging start. In Energy, we launched a new Monster drink with Lando Norris across 16 markets, which has received very positive initial reactions. And in Coffee, we saw strong growth in the out-of-home channel of 34%, driven by both Costa Coffee and Caffè Vergnano.

Finally, although we expect the broader macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop to remain uncertain, we have high confidence in our 24/7 portfolio, bespoke capabilities and our people. And today, we are reiterating our guidance for 2025.

So let me move on to the acquisition. Let me start by providing a quick overview of the key terms, but Anastasis will give a bit more detail later on. We have agreed to buy 75% majority stake in CCBA from The Coca-Cola Company and Gutsche Family Investments for a combined $2.6 billion purchase price. We also have a path to full ownership with an option agreement for the remaining 25%.

As a reflection of our commitment to South Africa and the African continent, we are intending to pursue a secondary listing of Coca-Cola HBC on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange after completion, which we are targeting for by the end of 2026. So as I said at the start, we believe this acquisition presents a highly compelling strategic rationale, which, at its core, is about growth. Africa represents a key growth opportunity for our business.

We have a long and successful track record of investment and growth in both Nigeria and Egypt. Today's model will materially enhance our presence in Africa by bringing together 2 leading bottlers in the continent, and together, we will represent 2/3 of Africa's total Coca-Cola system volume.

This combination further diversifies our footprint, increasing our exposure to attractive geographies. We are excited by the growth opportunities across CCBA's markets, which are very compelling demographics, including sizable and growing populations and economies with significant potential to increase per capita consumption.

The acquisition enhances our vision of being the leading 24/7 beverage partner. CCBA is a leading player in NARTD across its markets with a winning portfolio of over 40 global and local brands, further strengthening our exceptional portfolio.

The acquisition also plays to our strength of operating in dynamic emerging markets. It gives us a platform to share best practices, leverage our best-in-class bespoke capabilities and invest further in CCBA to drive growth. I am proud that the acquisition will further strengthen our long-term partnership with the Coca-Cola Company. This important milestone reflects strong mutual trust and shared vision with the Coca-Cola Company.

Finally, the acquisition also enhances value for all stakeholders. For shareholders, it is expected to be low single-digit EPS accretive in the first full year following completion with a clear prospect of creating more shareholder value over the long term. Today's acquisition is fully consistent with the key pillars of our growth strategy. Many of you will be familiar with this, as we first set them out in 2019. Everything we have done to grow and strengthen the business since then has been built on these pillars.

In brief, the acquisition of CCBA will enhance our unique 24/7 portfolio with a strong portfolio of global and local brands, allow us to further develop and deploy our bespoke capabilities to win in the marketplace, fuel growth and enhanced competitiveness as we continue to invest across the combined business, enable us to build the best teams in the industry and cultivate local talent. And importantly, we will continue building our license to operate as a leader in sustainability and drive a positive impact in the communities in which we operate.

Let me take a few moments now to give you an overview of CCBA's business. CCBA is the 8th largest Coca-Cola bottling partner in the world by revenue, and accounts for about 40% of all Coca-Cola beverages sold in Africa by volume. CCBA has a strong track record of performance with net sales revenue in 2024 of more than EUR 3.4 billion and EBIT of EUR 246 million. Growth has been strong with a 3-year volume CAGR of 4.5% and currency-neutral revenue growth of over 12%.

CCBA has a range of markets varying from the more developed, namely South Africa, which accounts for 60% of volume, to markets that are emerging, for example, Ethiopia. These markets have very attractive demographics, both in size of population and average age with low per capita consumption, offering significant upside potential. And the balance of South Africa with steadier growth and significant consumption levels means we will still maintain a diverse mix of markets.

CCBA has a strong portfolio of over 40 global and local brands across categories. Its 2 largest categories are Sparkling Soft Drinks and Water, which account for 81% and 9% of total volumes, respectively. The combination will result in a broader, stronger total portfolio, enhancing our vision of being the leading 24/7 beverage partner. And like Coca-Cola HBC, CCBA holds market-leading positions in NARTD across its markets, including in its 5 biggest territories. So a formidable business across Africa in its own right. But what excites us so much is the huge potential to unlock growth by combining our 2 businesses.

Adding CCBA's 14 markets to our existing operations in Nigeria and Egypt means that combined, we will be the largest Coca-Cola bottler in Africa, serving over 800 million consumers or over 50% of the continent's total population. In volume terms, that's 1.8 billion unit cases in Africa or 2/3 of Africa's total Coca-Cola system volumes, and we will cover 60% of Africa's GDP. This alone would give us huge opportunities for growth. But as we look further into the future, forecast suggests that Africa's population is expected to grow by 2% per annum through to 2050. And GDP per capita is set to grow 4% per annum as well. This gives us access to a large and growing consumer base and economies from which to recruit new consumers. It will underpin our future growth, and it's a proposition that we are very excited about.

As a business, Coca-Cola HBC is already fortunate to have a diversified footprint across established, developing and emerging markets in Europe and Africa. The acquisition of CCBA strengthened their footprint by increasing our exposure to markets with extremely attractive demographics.

Let's take a closer look at the consumer recruitment potential across CCBA's largest markets. In each of these key countries, not only is the population projected to grow steadily, but crucially, it's a predominantly young demographic. In fact, over 60% of the total population is under the age of 30, highlighting a significant opportunity to engage a new generation of consumers.

Added to this, there is a huge potential to grow per capita consumption, 4 out of 5 of CCBA's largest markets currently see Sparkling per capita consumption below Nigeria and well below the current Coca-Cola HBC average. In Nigeria, where per capita consumption is at 72 servings, we have seen growth of nearly 20% in the last 5 years. In close partnership with The Coca-Cola Company, we look to continue CCBA's work of recruiting consumers and building brand equity across its NARTD portfolio.

The combined business brings together 2 companies with strong operational and financial foundations. I won't read out all the figures on this slide. But on a pro forma 2024 basis, the combined business would have generated volumes of 4 billion unit cases, revenues of EUR 14.1 billion and EBIT of EUR 1.4 billion with a healthy margin. One of the reasons we are confident we are the right partners for CCBA is because we have proven our ability to successfully operate and consistently deliver in emerging markets, and Africa is no exception.

Our experience in Nigeria and Egypt has created a deep understanding of how to play to win in the dynamic, fast-changing environment. Our business was born in Nigeria, and in the nearly 75 years since, it has gone from strength to strength. Nigeria now represents 15% of our total volume after delivering 10% compound volume growth and significant market share gains in the last 5 years. That's a result of the consistent investment that we made in the business over the years.

We are also very pleased with the good progress we've made in Egypt. Having acquired the business in 2022, we have integrated it over the last 3 years, and I'm really pleased that we've seen strong market share gains, a testament to the joint investment with the Coca-Cola Company and our teams on the ground.

We have substantially expanded our cooler network in the country and invested in production facilities. We've expanded the portfolio, introducing the Energy category in the market, which has seen phenomenal growth. Importantly, we have also invested in our bespoke capabilities, ramping up the revenue growth management framework, overhauling the route to market and launching new digital and data-driven tools.

Our experience in Egypt has taught us a lot, and we will take these learnings when we start to integrate CCBA as well. And in Egypt, we are now in the position to move to the next phase of growth. With this experience in Nigeria and Egypt, we are uniquely placed to bring our commercial excellence, our best practices, our bespoke capabilities and our high-performance mindset to CCBA's markets. We are also very respectful of CCBA's long history in Africa and the knowledge of their markets. Therefore, we view this as a 2-way opportunity and are excited to share best practices and learn from the team at CCBA as well.

We would also like to invest further in CCBA jointly with The Coca-Cola Company to support long-term growth. You heard us talk many times about our bespoke capabilities, revenue growth management, route to market, customer management, digital commerce, data insights and analytics and talent development. These are critical tools for us to drive sustainable, profitable growth across our markets, increase market share and drive joint value with customers.

Our experience in Nigeria and more recently in Egypt has shown us that it's critical to make sure our bespoke capabilities are purpose built to win in Africa. Nigeria has been where many of our best bespoke capabilities come to life. It's often selected as the test country for pilot projects in areas such as route to market, RGM and data and AI initiatives before being rolled out more widely across the rest of our business.

When it comes to RGM, we make sure that we balance affordable offers such as the returnable glass bottles with premium offerings as well. We make sure we are using the latest data-driven segmentation tools to address customer and consumer needs. With our route to market, we have an omnichannel approach to cover 100% of the market with a sizable skilled sales force, and we have developed locally relevant digital tools, such as our WhatsApp chatbot. All these help us drive high Net Promoter Scores in the market.

And last, but certainly not least, our talent, our unique sales and supply chain academies and our high engagement scores reflect our long-term commitment to developing talent and strengthening capabilities. Driving growth in a responsible way is a core to our approach at Coca-Cola HBC. Much like CCBA, we also believe in creating value and sustainable growth for everyone who touches our business. For us, that starts with our people. We believe in cultivating local talent by accelerating capability development to fuel growth.

We are committed to serving local communities through local production and distribution, and we work locally with suppliers. We can see CCBA has done a lot of work to be a good community partner, and we look forward to working with them on the outstanding progress already made. And I'm proud that Coca-Cola HBC is one of the founding members together with the Coca-Cola Company and CCBA of The Coca-Cola System's Africa Water Stewardship Initiative. The system effort aims to invest nearly $25 million by 2030 to support water solutions across 20 African countries.

And finally, as I said earlier in the presentation, our commitment to Africa, including South Africa, will be underpinned by our decision to seek a secondary listing for Coca-Cola HBC on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Let me now hand over to Anastasis to talk you through the financials and structure of the acquisition.

Thank you, Zoran, and good morning, everyone. As Zoran mentioned, we have agreed to buy a 75% majority stake in CCBA for a $2.6 billion purchase price. That equates to a $3.4 billion implied equity value for 100%. The acquisition is in 2 parts. The purchase of 41.5% from the Coca-Cola Company for $1.3 billion, and the purchase of 33.5% from GFI for $1.3 billion, comprising USD 308 million in cash and issuance of shares equating to a 5.47% stake in Coca-Cola HBC.

In addition, we have a path to full ownership through an option agreement with The Coca-Cola Company for the remaining 25% of CCBA. We intend to finance the cash consideration of the acquisition through entering into a EUR 1.4 billion bridge facility.

Zoran has set out a strategic rationale and why we think this is such a compelling acquisition to drive long-term growth. I'm also pleased that we expect the acquisition to be low single-digit earnings per share accretive from the first full year following completion, which is expected to be 2027. We expect leverage post completion to be towards the top end of our medium-term target range of 1.2x to 2x net debt to EBITDA. Importantly, we are not expecting any impact to our credit rating, and we have a strong commitment to sustainably maintaining an investment-grade profile.

As a reminder, we currently have invested great ratings with both S&P at BBB+ and Moody's with Baa1 ratings. As always, we will focus on deleveraging and the repayment of our debt obligations. As a combined business, we will continue to focus on free cash flow generation as evidenced through our strong track record in recent years, and our balance sheet remains strong with well-balanced debt maturities that we can repay throughout our cash flow. The acquisition is fully consistent with our capital allocation priorities, which remain unchanged.

Our #1 priority remains investing in the business, and we maintain a progressive dividend policy. And as we demonstrated today, we will pursue strategic acquisitions when they are value enhancing to shareholders. And so with these priorities in mind, and as a consequence of today's announcement, the existing share buyback program, of which we have completed around 60%, will be canceled with immediate effect.

In summary, we believe this is a great deal for all the shareholders, and we look forward to driving continued value creation alongside our partners at the Coca-Cola Company. As Zoran mentioned earlier, this deal has growth longevity for Coca-Cola HBC, is earnings accretive and is consistent with our capital allocation priorities.

Finally, let me share a picture of the shareholder base for both Coca-Cola HBC and CCBA post completion. As already mentioned, GFI will own 5.47% in Coca-Cola HBC, and Kar-Tess Holding and The Coca-Cola Company will continue to own large holdings in Coca-Cola HBC. Meanwhile, CCBA will be owned 75% by Coca-Cola HBC with 25% held by the Coca-Cola Company with a path to full Coca-Cola HBC ownership post completion. Full details on this are in our press release.

Thank you very much. Now, let me hand back to Zoran to summarize.

Thank you, Anastasis, and thank you all for joining us today to hear about what we believe is a fantastic development for Coca-Cola HBC. CCBA is a great business with strong brands and leading market presence across Africa. This acquisition will materially enhance our presence in Africa and its exciting growth market and allow us to leverage our experience in emerging markets and our bespoke capabilities. We are very excited about the combination, and we have great confidence in the opportunity ahead of us to drive sustainable profitable growth.

With that, let me hand back to the operator to start the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Laurence Whyatt of Barclays.

A couple for me. I'll start with the first one. When you've given us your estimate of low single-digit EPS accretion in the first year of ownership, what have you assumed there in terms of cost synergies that you expect to gain from this transaction? And do you think there are going to be any costs associated with getting those synergies? That's my first question.

Laurence, this is Anastasis. So let me take this first one. And let me also reiterate how excited we are about this strategic opportunity for further growth expansion, which is actually, as we have outlined, the main driver of the acquisition, which is top line growth. Obviously, in CCH, we have a history and a culture of driving efficiencies and looking through our processes, especially in supply chain, production and logistics, and we look to identify opportunities to optimize costs. So there is a certain element of that captured in our expectations. But let me reiterate that it's a top line growth rather than cost synergies that are the key driver of this acquisition.

Okay. And then secondly, with regard to the put and call option, I was wondering if you could just run us through how that's going to work. Are there any hurdles that need to be hit? Is there an established sort of valuation principle around those options? Any just further color you can give us on the put and call options would be very helpful.

Yes. Look, there is actually no restrictions or no kind of clear like targets or requirements for them to be met. It's mostly in our decision that with this phased approach, it allows us to have a more effective liquidity management, and it will also allow us to have more time as we gain more opportunity to learn about CCBA in the market and work, of course, closely with the Coca-Cola Company in order to have a smooth handover to the full ownership and transition in the business.

Could you tell us is there any sort of established valuation principles around those options? Or is that going to be done at the time that they're exercised?

No, no, there is no such a valuation principle.

Question comes from the line of Sanjeet Aujla of UBS.

Zoran and Anastasis, congratulations on this. A couple of questions from me, please. Firstly, a lot of emphasis around growth surrounding this deal. I appreciate CCBA has been growing. I think the volume is mid-single-digit, organic sales around low double digit. But is the opportunity to accelerate that and invest upfront to accelerate that pace of growth or to sustain that sort of growth? I'm just trying to understand a little bit better, what do you think is a more sustainable growth trajectory for the asset you're requiring? That's my first question.

Sanjeet, thank you. Look, this is about growth and driving growth. So I think you have seen that our approach is when we believe in something very strong like we do in this, then we do all the necessary things, and that can include also front-loading our investment to drive that growth and to build all the necessary fundamentals where we see that such need to be either built or further strengthened. And by that, I mean, immediately the assessment of our critical growth capabilities and to see how we can further support. And those kind of things usually mean that we invest in advance, whether that's in the teams, their expertise, knowledge, systems, tools. And we are very convinced that, that is always money very well spent. So that's an important part behind the way how we see igniting long-term growth there.

Got it. And my follow-up question, just looking at the -- some of the financials you provided, I see CCBA's EBIT margin is around 7.5% in 2024. I think a number of years ago, the business was delivering margins maybe closer to CCH levels. So I appreciate your comments about investing upfront, but I guess, over a medium term, let's say, 3, 5 years' time horizon, is it conceivable for those margins to perhaps get back up close to where CCH is operating? Or do you think with a longer duration investment horizon?

Yes, absolutely. We do see the opportunity to drive margin expansion in the medium to long term. But as Zoran was highlighting, this will come mainly from the top line growth of those markets. But clearly, we will also see any operational efficiencies, especially when it comes with our investments, as Zoran was highlighting in production efficiency and digital.

Now, let's not forget, as you said, that CCBA is already a profitable business. The line was not very good. So if the question was also coming from a little bit of the margin development over the last years, if I got it right, let's not forget that through this time, the last time they came in public with expectations, we were in the COVID period, then there were significant global inflationary pressure in commodities, and then, they faced certain currency volatility, right? So -- but from the exercise we have done and the view that we have is that we believe that we can continue to see a recovery of the margins going forward.

Question comes from the line of Nadine Sarwat of Bernstein.

One for me. It's great to hear all of the enthusiasm regarding this deal. And clearly, there are a lot of opportunities that you've highlighted, both top line, but also profitability. Maybe we could touch on maybe some of the challenges that you might anticipate facing prior to the deal completing, but also post the deal completing. What are you anticipating some of those challenges might be? And how do you plan on tackling those particular challenges? What's your approach?

Thank you, Nadine. Look, first of all, it is a strong confidence. And as you said rightly, it's excitement that we feel because this is truly something transformational for our growth and future. But of course, emerging markets do bring a certain level of risks. However, we believe and see from our experience that we have already from Africa, both in Nigeria and Egypt, is that this is much more outweighed with the opportunities that these markets bring.

In my introductory remarks, I shared things about demographic, size, per capita, overall economic development opportunity that exists across these markets. So those opportunities give us huge confidence that with the experience that we have, with the knowledge and experience how we operate and play and our play to win attitude in these markets, we really think that we can navigate through all types of situations.

And based on Nigeria and Egypt, just to mention those 2, in Africa, we've seen all kinds of situations. And with strong people on the ground, that's the biggest guarantee, how to act with agility and speed and do the right things for the business. And we are always mindful of not only of the short term, but always building fundamentally strong business for the long term. And we do have the very robust planning, scenario planning, contingency practices that we are all the time exercising for all of our markets, but even more to the emerging. So with all this, I just want to say that, yes, clearly, there can be risks, but we are much more guided by the opportunities that this presents to us.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrea Pistacchi of Bank of America.

Yes. Congratulations. My first question is on South Africa, which is the largest market of the business. Per capita in Sparkling is, I think, quite high already in South Africa. So where do you see the main growth opportunities there? I mean, in the other markets, Ethiopia, et cetera, it's very clear, low per caps, excellent demographics, et cetera. But what do you see as a growth driver in South Africa, please?

And the second question, when you -- as you combine the 2 businesses, are you able to give any perspective on how your -- the growth algorithm of the company changes, if at all, 6% to 8% top line whether you think you'll be able to grow slightly faster and maybe a slightly different mix between volume and price mix.

Andrea, so on South Africa, yes, indeed, very exciting and critical market for CCBA. We have seen that there is a strong business there. But we believe that there are a number of opportunities. One is the overall increasing the pie, if you will. And then for sure, there could be opportunity in further portfolio fine-tuning and development that we would explore. On top of that comes the revenue growth management, which we are extremely passionate about when we know how much it means in converting the potentiality of the portfolio into profitable revenue growth.

So what we will do, and we see opportunity in assessing the overall OBPC, where we clearly want to understand what are the key occasions, which brands are tapping there, with which packs, at which price and at those channels. So we would be doing that to also understand how further we can support and develop all the affordability options with possibly relevant entry packs, which clearly play a role in every market, and South Africa is no exception.

And then also, we do see opportunities with premiumization offerings. So we are very excited with South Africa. First of all, it's a great business already. And we are just excited how to support and invest behind this business to take it further, and we are confident that we can do that.

On the next one, I can just say that, look, Andrea, we are just at the point of announcing, and we will be coming back in due course where we will be sharing more of how we think about the combined entity or combined business, and we will be very happy to share those.

Can I just add a quick thing? I may have missed it, but did you give us a coupon at which you're financing the deal, the bridge loan? Or could you, please?

Yes. I mean, look, the financing of the deal, as you have seen, is on -- structured on issuing of bonds. Well, you would expect that the cost of finance should be in -- within the prevailing market rates, the CCH prevailing market rates, so yes.

Next question comes from the line of Aron Adamski of Goldman Sachs.

Zoran, Anastasis, Jemima, congratulations on the deal. My first question is on coolers. I suppose that having a wide cooler footprint is critical to succeeding CCBA geographies. And when you look at CCBA's footprint and penetration of the cold drink equipment, do you think it's a well-invested business on that front? Or after the completion, should we expect the CapEx to step up?

Aron, thank you. So this whole case has been built on how to drive growth where commercial strategy and commercial pillars play a significant role. Next to the revenue growth management I talked earlier, this is then backed up and executed with a very robust comprehensive route to market. And within that is also a cooler strategy. We've seen so far a solid cooler positioning across the markets. However, we do see more opportunities, and cooler, overall, strategy for us is Hellenic is one of those that really matters for all our categories. So that is part of our overall plan for sure.

Aron, to come to your CapEx question -- yes, to come to your CapEx question, Aron, as you understand, as you rightly pointed out, that we would expect that we would invest ahead of the curve in CapEx and OpEx at the first 2 years in order to support the growth that has been as Zoran was highlighting. And that CapEx investment definitely includes cooler placements in line with the route to market opportunities.

As I said earlier, production capacity to ensure the growth and modernization of our facilities and digital tools and technology to support the overall growth. But I want to reiterate also that we have a good -- we have a very good record on having a playbook actually that delivers successfully implementing investments in the markets over the years while delivering profitable growth, free cash flow generation and a very strong balance sheet while gaining share. So -- and that's what we plan to do here as well.

Very clear. And then my second question is on transactional FX. It has definitely been a key topic in your African markets over the past few years. So I was wondering if you can give us a sense of what percentage of CCBA's cost of goods sold are denominated in hard currencies. Does CCBA currently hedge that exposure? Or is that an opportunity for you? And just going forward, is there an opportunity -- do you see any opportunities to reduce the exposure to hard currencies in Africa as a whole going forward?

Look, we're not going to go through that details for the call. I'm sure that you can connect with Jemima and the team to get any support you need. But obviously, I want to reiterate, as Zoran said, we have a big experience in operating in Africa. I have to say that Nigeria and Egypt has given us quite a big level of developments with currency volatilities and inflationary pressure. And I think we have demonstrated that we have navigated very effectively in these markets, and our learnings and our experience will be put in place as well in the new markets.

Next question comes from the line of Simon Hales of Citi.

Congratulations for finally getting this deal done, guys. I've got 2 questions, please. I mean, firstly, Anastasis, can you just talk a little bit about the cost of capital you're assuming on this transaction and how we should think about perhaps the payback period or the time frame for that to covering your cost of capital? That's the first question.

Yes. Simon, first of all, again, I have to repeat that the rationale of this acquisition is on long-term growth opportunity that we get from CCBA. And you have seen that over the year, we have very good progress on ROIC as a group, even we reached 18.3% last year. However, we have always said in many calls that for the right strategic acquisition, and the case of CCBA is exactly that. We are prepared to see our ROIC progress slow down in the short term.

At group level, we expect to continue to generate ROIC above our cost of capital post-acquisition of CCBA. And of course, I will be working through the plans now with The Coca-Cola Company to deploy more in the market. We will come back, and we will clarify more about the specifics on the CCBA ROIC development. So -- but let me reiterate that again, this is about the long-term opportunity that Africa has, and we're very excited about it.

Got it. And then secondly, just on the profitability of CCBA. Obviously, you've disclosed the EBIT and EBITDA numbers going back over the last sort of 3 years. Some of those numbers look quite volatile, and I think EBITDA over a 3-year period has been broadly flat. Is there anything particular we should take into account when looking at that recent historical trajectory?

And then second to that, when we think about the translational FX impact that we've seen across CCBA over the last sort of few years, how much of a headwind on average has translational FX been to you?

I think that the second part of the question, I'll repeat what I said earlier that from what you've seen over the last years, there was a certain negative impact from FX volatility that resulted to other remeasurements or pressure on both transactional and translation to those markets. And that has been the main driver, considering also, as I said before, the significant inflationary pressure on key commodities following the developments of what we've seen globally, right, over the years.

But what we can say now is to the extent that we can disclose that since we are not in control yet of the business is that they're on a good recovery trajectory. And as I said before, in our assessment, in combination with the top line growth and the RGM exercises we are seeing, we believe that they will get back on a good track to recover margins in those markets.

Next question comes from the line of Fintan Ryan of Goodbody.

Two questions from me, please. Firstly, on a slightly different note, within your sort of -- within the core CCH business, organic sales growth slowed to 5% in the quarter. I appreciate that a quarter is a short time frame, there's a few dynamics in specific markets. But could you give us a sense of what the run rate trajectory of that was towards the end of the quarter? And on a stand-alone basis, could you -- would you still be hopeful to see an acceleration towards the 6% to 7% current midterm guidance for FY '26 on top line? That's the first question.

Fintan, yes, on the third quarter, as I said in the intro, we are pleased with that quarter, especially as after first 9 months brings us to 8.1% of the organic revenue growth. And especially important is that we are consistently delivering that with a positive volume. Yes, with, of course, price mix and continuously gaining share.

As we highlighted, Q3 has been characterized with not so good weather in a number of markets, and that left some impact. And also, we've seen a mixed bag of some more resilient markets, some of them coming back actually to the positive performance, like, for example, Poland and Switzerland.

And then you see some of the more stable backdrops for Nigeria and Egypt, where we are continuously performing well, very pleased with that. Also, we see good Ireland, stable Hungary. And then, look, there are some couple of challenging markets, Romania, which feels the effect that last several years, we've had taxation and regulatory changes continuously. And somehow that cumulatively does have an impact on the consumer. We've seen also, unfortunately, some of the in-market turmoil in Serbia, which also has an effect on the consumer.

So this is just to give you a little bit of the flavor as we've been this time more short on the Q3, but to reiterate the confidence that we will be having the higher growth rate in Q4 than Q3. To remind you that Q4 is the quarter with the most favorable cycling rate, we do see also technically even one more selling day. We see also that Share a Coke in Nigeria, which is an important campaign in an important big country in -- when it's the season there. And also last, but not least, is also the revival and now fully operational Bambi biscuits business, which is coming back on stream.

So we feel confident to be where we guided for. And then I would just shortly, Fintan, reiterate that we do see our midterm guidance of 6% to 7% as being valid and what we will be really shooting for, and we believe that we can and we will do that.

Great. Very clear. And just a follow-up. Could you give us a sense of what -- within the CCBA business, could you give a sense of what the current capacity utilization is, the assets -- production assets and I guess how that benchmarks versus Nigeria and Egypt? I think on the slide, you also mentioned that you've got 100% channel coverage within the Nigerian market, obviously, that's your best in class, where does that metric sit for some of the key CCBA markets?

So look, we wouldn't go into any specifics or details now on CCBA. We will come in due course where we will look -- present how we think about the combined business. But we know that at the moment, business, I can just say that there are no constraints for the business there. And for the performance that is delivering, we have seen that there are a couple of capacity expansions happening this year. So we have seen that the business there is actually well -- having initiatives, which are supporting well the capacity expansion to be able to deliver the growth rates that, that business has -- that business is shooting for. So we don't see any issue there.

Your next question comes from the line of Charlie Higgs of Rothschild.

Zoran, Anastasis, congratulations. I just had a question on management intention with this deal because if I think back over the past few years, what CCH had to dealt with, it's probably the most of any bottler I've seen with currency devaluation, conflict, commodity inflation, the fire at Bambi. So how do you think about successfully integrating CCBA in the context of what historically was quite a volatile world? And then I have a follow-up, please.

Charlie, thanks for this question. That gives me the opportunity to say that when we make a decision like this, obviously, it has to be based also on our own true assessment of the in-house capability, talent and people we have. And that's one of the driving forces why I believe that the time was great and right for us to step into this new opportunity. I'm very proud of the bench strength that we have.

And for everything that you said, what we've been dealing through, is a great testament to the skills and expertise and knowledge of our teams that have been dealing with both locally on the ground, which I emphasize as a #1 priority, but also on a regional and group level, which provide critical support for our teams on the ground. So we feel we are well equipped with this.

But also, I would add that we see lots of talented, capable people in CCBA, and we see that it's just a matter of a good blend. And our intention is to support local talent, and we will do every effort and investment to support people across countries in CCBA. And we are all excited to learn the teams and people there to greater extent and incorporate them in all our talent management and development programs. And I'm sure they will bring a breadth of experience and knowledge from their markets, and we will primarily leverage and capitalize on that.

And then my follow-up is just on kind of the way that you report at the moment, you have Egypt and Nigeria in your emerging segment, should we expect that going forward you perhaps dedicate a segment purely towards Africa to help try and bring in more focus and accelerate the growth there?

Charlie, yes, as you can understand, we are still working on the best approach on how this will be the most appropriate way to see our segmental reporting and, of course, being compliant with our financial reporting requirements. So bear with us a little bit, and we will communicate in due course once we're closer to completion on the best way to see this new structure.

Next question comes from the line of David Roux of Morgan Stanley.

Congratulations on the deal. And as a South African, I certainly look forward to a site visit there at some stage to see the assets. My question is just on the production footprints of the CCBA portfolio. How much of production is local for local? Or is there a large component that is produced in South Africa for exports to other African countries?

David, actually, CCBA network is quite well widespread across countries. And big majority of everything that's sold across the countries is sourced and produced within respective countries.

Your next question comes from the line of Mitch Collett of Deutsche Bank.

Zoran, Anastasis, congratulations on the transaction. And I know you've been asked this a few times, but maybe I'll try and ask it a slightly different way. What would be the appropriate organic growth algorithm to expect for the acquired business? And would it be safe to assume that it's above your current 6% to 7% medium-term ambition?

Given what you said about the scope to improve profitability, does it do anything to your 20 to 40 basis points of annual margin expansion? I mean, are there any structural reasons why those markets -- why the acquired markets would be less profitable?

And then thirdly, you've said it takes you towards the top end of your target gearing range, given your growth algorithm and the cash generation, what is the cadence of de-gearing you expect to see going forward?

Mitch, thank you. So look, while we said that we will come back in due course where we will be more specific how we see the growth algorithm, but obviously, we are talking here about more growth opportunities and to drive more growth. So to which extent and how that will be translated in the algorithm, we will come back on that. But for sure, it just solidifies and strengthens the guidance that we have, and then, we will see what potentially this can imply more going forward.

However, I would rather emphasize the opportunity and to say that with that per capita situation that we see currently, that's a fertile ground to recruit more consumers with a relevant portfolio with really working through sound revenue growth management, which really takes into account affordability needs because realistically, we know that all these countries and markets really need affordability propositions. And it's up to us together with CCBA team to further develop and offer those things that will really ignite more recruitment, driving more transactions.

Particularly, we see that there is a quite relevant segment across countries, where more premium propositions also play a role. I'm very confident that also with our data insights analytics, we will be able to work through the data to uncover more opportunities based on which we will design the plans. So I'm just saying all these things, Mitch, just to reiterate more, how, in substance, we are looking about the construct of that growth, for which specifics, we will come back later because we believe that at this stage will be just too early. But let me close with strong optimism and confidence that I believe that this offers for more growth.

Anastasis?

Yes. Mitch, let me start a little bit now on the debt structure and the leverage impact. But as we have clearly highlighted that this is an acquisition that is structured in a way that the funding is designed in a way to mitigate any potential deterioration to our credit metrics and ratings. And we do expect that our current credit worthiness to remain as is.

As you have seen that the funding is quite balanced with both the use of debt and using also of shares with a very clear focus to maintain the acceptable leverage performance that we have. And I will share a bit more in the second. And of course, the work with the rating agencies that has taken place has actually performed several stress tests of all scenarios you can imagine to make sure that we maintain a very good credit level.

Now, with that, the acquisition is expected to bring our net debt to EBITDA ratio close to our top end range of the 1.5 to 2x, as I said earlier. And if you are considering the deleveraging, we would expect that to start from 2027 onwards, as we progress following the acquisition.

Just to add one more thing, Mitch. For us, it goes without saying in the algorithm of driving growth, it's also very important the marketing and then consequential market execution that we do with Coca-Cola Company. And we've seen some very strong relevant passion point activations that in these type of markets really work very well, and that gives us also a good confidence that we will have a great platform that we will then activate with our customers and across the trade. So I just didn't want to miss the opportunity to emphasize that. Thank you, Mitch.

Yes, very helpful. And just on the margin piece, maybe not a lot you can say, but does it change your 20 to 40 basis point margin aspiration? Is there any reason, any structural reason why CCBA's markets would be less profitable than your existing CCH markets?

Look, I think as you can understand, Mitch, when you compare it to what we've seen in '24 to today, you would expect that the average margins are lower to the overall CCH rate. But what I can reiterate is that we expect that we will continue to be able as a group to drive margin expansion to what we have provided as guidance already. So that will not slow down our opportunity to grow margins.

Next question comes from the line of Philip Spain of JPMorgan.

I just had a follow-up around the organic growth a little bit because in -- you've clearly shown in Nigeria, your ability to leverage very strong data and analytics capabilities to drive your volume growth as well as your strong RGM management. And you've obviously referenced that as being something you look to bring into CCBA to drive that top line opportunity. But just wanted to get a sense of how long you think it would take to roll those systems into CCBA, if it's something you do quickly across all the markets or if it's something you have to do market by market over time, just to get a sense of when we can expect that benefit to start to accrue?

Thank you, Philip. Look, I first of all want to acknowledge that CCBA already has fairly solid systems and the tools that they are using, and so it will be for us to assess, okay, where and how we build from that base. So for sure, from the experience of Egypt, we've seen that implementing our revenue growth management framework, additionally upskilling, training people to really work with it gave us the excellent impact and effect.

And from whenever we will be allowed to do so, we really plan to help and support local teams with the knowledge and experience from our centers of expertise that we have across the group. That's exactly the template that we have done also in Nigeria that you referred to, as I mentioned, same was in Egypt. And so we will apply the same winning proven playbook, which always leverages the talent capability in the local countries, just additionally supported from the center as a capability building.

That concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd now like to hand the call back to Zoran for final remarks.

Thank you, operator, and I'd like to thank everyone for taking part in today's call at a short notice. Let me just briefly conclude. We are very excited about the combination, and we have a great confidence in the opportunity ahead of us to drive sustainable, profitable growth. Thank you very much, and wish you all a great day. Goodbye.

Thank you for attending today's call, you may now disconnect. Goodbye.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks again for joining us on the last day of the Barclays Global Consumer Conference. I'm very happy to have Zoran Bogdanovic here from Coca-Cola Hellenic to talk us through their recent trading and results and what's next for the future. So Zoran, thank you very much for joining us.

Thanks, Laurence.

So if we just have quick overview questions on the business. There was quite a big reaction to the latest set of results. Were you happy with the achievements? And how would you describe the highlights? What are the key areas that you're trying to improve?

Yes. First of all, thanks for having me here. Very happy with the results that we reported in August for the first 6 months with 9.9% revenue coming both from price/mix and from volume as we are really focused that all levers of the revenue generation work and 6 months have really demonstrated that together with the share growth. Seeing that focus -- disciplined focus behind strategy really works and our work on capabilities underpins that. So that was a good testament to the hard work that really happened.

So -- also at that time, we -- as you remember, we clearly said that in the guided range, both on the top line and bottom line, we made a clear point that we see ourselves at the top of that range, which reflects the confidence in that result delivery, in spite of a mixed environment that we are seeing and that we really have to respect.

So you mentioned you're going towards the top end of the guidance range, but I think you delivered 11.8% in the first half, which was ahead of the guidance range. So what's the key concerns as we go into the second half of the year?

Look, second half of the year is a big period. As I said, in the mixed environment where we see that there are a number of markets where we see more consumer softness, more -- I think this is a red thread that everyone has been talking about here. We do see in several markets that there is more of a price elasticity, need for the affordability. So we know that there is still a good number of months that simply we have to be mindful of that. And to be at the top of guided range, we really think it keeps us at the top of the game. So that's really what was in our mind.

Equally encouraged that there are a number of markets, to say, where we see increasingly good performance. We said that Italy will be positive after the first 6 months. Very pleased to see that, that really happened. Czech is continuously performing well, Ireland. So when I say mixed combination, that really means that on the other side, there are some markets where inevitably, there is some slowdown, but we are used to that. We've seen this kind of periods, but we have complete variety of tools, how we can really sail through that.

I would really want to highlight the fact that we have such a vast portfolio like probably no other company with so many categories that we have in our 24/7 strategy of total beverage company, which really helps us that with various categories, we can tackle various segments of consumers, both the needs in various segments within affordable proposals as well as in the premium one. So we see that working really well. And we just cannot rest. We have to constantly be on our toes to monitor what happens in every single market and quickly adapt. And that's exactly what we've been doing this year, which keeps us busy.

You mentioned a couple of the markets there, but one of the key themes around this conference has been the various levels of consumer confidence around the world. But specifically within your markets, how are you seeing the current level of consumer confidence?

Look, we -- for the last couple of results calls, we've been indicating that there are various pockets where we see that it's clearly softer. So cumulative year-on-year increasing pricing levels across not only CPG products, but overall cost of living for people over the last couple of years has gone up. So one has to really have very strong capability in the revenue growth management to take all that into account. And that's why I'm very happy that from 2016, we've been working very hard in bringing that capability to the very strong level. I can't imagine how we would go through last years without that level of capability and teams that we have in every single country.

So we have to respect the state of consumer as a reality. But that's -- I wouldn't call that as something which is uncontrollable. Actually, it is controllable as long as we read, honestly, with facts, good insights, the situation on the ground. This is where I see that our data insights, analytics really helps us so that our capabilities, primarily RGM and route to market, customer management, this really helps us to play smarter and faster.

We're going to go through a few of the markets in a bit more detail later on. But first, let's chat through some of the categories that you're in. And I think energy has been one of the most dynamic categories for you. What's really driving that growth? And are you confident that, that will continue?

I am. Look, this year will be 10th consecutive year that we are having a strong double-digit growth of energy -- in energy category. That can only happen, first of all, with very close, constructive, well-working partnership that we have with Monster. Our teams are working on a weekly basis quickly, fast. Continuous stream of exciting innovations that Monster gives us works very well, not only such a cool flavor combinations, this year, Rio Punch, Ultra Strawberry. But now Q3, we are rolling out Lando Norris flavor. I don't need to say that this creates such an excitement, more to come.

Reformulations also on the Zero variants, very important. These guys have been tapping into well-chosen assets, which are touching consumer passion points. We know that Monster has been for long in GP Motocross. The work that Monster has done with Formula, which is booming in terms of interest and awareness and appeal to younger population and exploiting that very well in promotions and what we do.

And look, people sometimes ask why energy? I just have to say that we do observe that in the lifestyles that happen in people's lives, people need energy. And somehow people connotate that energy primarily comes from these kind of energy drinks, even though in our portfolio, Coke Original taste or coffee also give you that boost. Interesting is that this consumer base is increasing. 26% of energy drinkers have entered the category in the last 12 months. I think that's a good indication that consumer base is increasing. And energy as a category is being consumed in more occasions.

So on top of that, our teams are executing very strong, continuously every year increasing number of coolers, which is important for energy, which majority of purchases are impulse purchases, and that's correlated with our cooler purchases and placements. So I'm very confident as well as the whole team that we will continue with energy performance, which will be above our average rate of growth.

Okay. Well, let's move on to coffee. There have been a few reports recently that Coca-Cola is looking to sell -- potentially sell the Costa business. How important is coffee to your growth? And how does Caffe Vergnano fit into that portfolio as well?

Yes. Well, let me first say that these headlines that were there, I really can't comment on that. I'm not part of that, and so I really cannot comment on that. But more importantly here, I would say that we recognize that in what we aspire to be as a company, as a 24/7 strategy total beverage company, coffee is very important strategically because -- why? Because coffee is such a big profitable revenue pool in any country. For our customers, especially in out-of-home, coffee is a great important generator of their revenue and even more profitability.

So to have in our portfolio coffee and not only one proposition, but options, we thought it's an essential part of the strategy. That's why we call out coffee in three enterprise-wide priorities next to sparkling and energy. And just to remind maybe for those who don't know, even before Coca-Cola Company has acquired Costa, we've been already 3 years in coffee with another brand, which then we discontinued for obvious reasons that we go with our partner, which is Costa. And then as we recognize that you need to simply have multi-brand strategy these days because you can't be same proposition for every segment of customers. That's why we recognize that Caffe Vergnano as a premium coffee with a strong family heritage of 140-plus years, Italian type of coffee, really fits well so that we have a portfolio and choices.

And this is what we see on the ground that customers sometimes prefer Costa. The other types of customers prefer Vergnano because people are very picky, and they are very demanding when it comes to coffee taste and profile of coffee and also different segments. So I want to say that we, as Coca-Cola Hellenic, we are -- we see the value, importance, and we are committed to coffee category, and we continue building and developing it.

Innovation delivered quite a lot of growth to your system over the past few years. What are the key innovations that you're launching at the moment? And how do you expect them to drive both volume and mix over the next few years?

Yes. Every year, there is something in that space. So firstly, with the Coca-Cola Company, we are very pleased to see that every year, there is something that in almost every category brings excitement and news. Whether -- now, one cluster is the flavors, innovative flavors, whether that's in Fanta, this Tutti Frutti Zero Sugar. In Schweppes, we had a very exciting tasting and looking Purple proposition, which with mixability creates something very exciting. That's why the experiential segment that we are focused in out-of-home is very important in how we deploy that.

Coke Zero, which per se is not innovation, but it's good to see the -- what used to be called then innovation continues to perform very strong. But now there is another version, which is Coke Zero, meaning zero sugar, zero caffeine, is really performing very well, and you will see us doing more behind that as people recognize that after a point in day, maybe they don't want to have caffeine. And we have a proposition for them, which is so well tasting.

In Powerade, also more innovations in a category -- sports category, which is working extremely well. I think zero sugar, Blackcurrant. Then in juices and lemonades, which are better performing part of the category. We also have lemonade zero sugar.

So there has been a number of things there. And that's complemented with exciting activations, which are part of innovation. Share a Coke, with names, I think it's one of those things that only Coke can do. And our teams have been so excited to do it, but even more to see acceptance of consumers. I'm saying that because these type of things really create excitement and affinity and closeness to brand. And I'm super excited to see what it will do in Nigeria where soon we start to launch it, believe it or not, with a variety of 1,000 names.

I just talked about Monster, various flavors that we are getting there. Finlandia that we bought in April this year, we started with new campaign. And I would say maybe it's not innovation, but it's innovative approach in the way we have repositioned the brand to be closer to the lifestyle of younger adults and to a little bit depart from very serious way of positioning to a little bit more creative, witty, not so serious. And it seems that, based on the feedback, that this has been received very well. So every year, there is -- there are things that we do. And I'm also happy that the pipeline not only for the next year, but the years to come, I'm not worried about that.

You just -- you mentioned Finlandia, and I suppose that's a different approach to your spirits portfolio, owning the brand itself. Could you let us know what you learned from actually having that ownership and how that interacts with your existing portfolio of brands that you distribute to others?

Yes. It's good to clarify that in the whole premium spirits space, first of all, why? We see the opportunity and how much premium spirits can be leveraged in driving more transactions of our non-alcohol portfolio because through blending, mixability, we have more opportunities to activate portfolio. And we clearly see how that's driving transactions, how that's increasing the leverage with our customers. They really appreciate that. So it's very complementary and goes well together.

Secondly, majority of our business in the premium spirits space is that we are exclusive distributors to our chosen key partners. And that's the core. Finlandia came as a very unique and relevant opportunity for us because 60% of the global volume is in our territories, whereas before acquisition, we were distributing only 12%. So with acquisition, we have immediately unlocked that in 60% of the global volume could be activated in all our countries. And then, of course, there are some well-selected markets outside of the Hellenic territories where it's exported.

So what we learned is that it gives us the opportunity to really creatively activate it, to test what more we can do in mixability, working closely with customers. And I can only say that following the very successful integration that has been done last year, we are very pleased how it's performing. But we only see that as the beginning. There is a lot more work to be done, but we are very excited how much we can push the needle with that.

Do you think we should be expecting any more transactions like this in the future?

Look, I said for Finlandia that, that was something very specific and unique where we recognized the click. While I am not saying no, however, we are primarily focused on distributing brands of partners and really taking Finlandia to the next level. That's our focus. And we are not actively looking for anything else.

Okay. Well, let's go into a few of your regions and a few of the countries. We start off with the Established space. Volume growth has been pretty tough in that part of the world for you and for a lot of other people as well. And you mentioned Switzerland and Austria seeing a bit of weak consumers. What are the key reasons behind that? And do you expect that to improve as we see a bit of an improvement in consumer health?

Starting with the end of your question, the answer is yes, we do expect. We really expect that the Established segment is going to be a contributor to volume growth as well as the other two segments. Now countries in that segment, all of them have certain reasons of what currently we've been seeing. But starting with Italy, as I've said, very happy that -- we are very pleased what Italy has been achieving and doing over the last several years, where we primarily intentionally focused in Italy and in other markets on price/mix for the obvious reasons. But to see now positive volume in Italy performance, that's what we really expect and what we want to see.

Then Ireland, as I said, really working well. Switzerland, we did have, I would say, a temporary situation with one of our big customers that eventually has been resolved, and we have been resuming full cooperation. So I'm optimistic of Switzerland. Austria started with the DRS. Usually, when that starts, that always impacts the price of the product because deposit is embedded in the price of the product. So that's one of the reasons for some of that. However, we are very pleased with overall performance of the Established segment.

And when I see what we've done over the last 3, 4 years in that segment in all these inflationary commodity situations that we went through and how much price mix we've been able to achieve in that segment, I mean, if you ask me 7, 8 years ago, I would be doubtful if we would be able to do that. But exactly because of what I was saying at the beginning, because of revenue growth management and capability that we have, I think we have sailed through that well. And that's why just staying with two feet on the ground, looking what more and better we can do in that segment as well as the other two.

You mentioned that Austria put a DRS system in, and I think Ireland did one last year as well. Can you just run us through what happened and how you responded to it? And if there are any other countries that are considering these sorts of schemes?

Yes. DRS is already in 9 markets, Poland and -- so Austria started. Poland, Greece are soon to come, maybe end of next year, beginning of next. And then there are other 9 countries which are preparing. So we actively advocate together with other industry players that to -- for well-designed DRS systems in the countries because we've seen that, that's best proven way how to ensure return of the packaging to collection points, which are mostly with retailers, but not only because that's the starting -- that's the first step of the whole positive cycle of returning, collecting and then recycling, producing recycled material, which we then buy and in-house, mostly already, producing our own preforms from recycled PET material, and that's how we are achieving all the targets for the recycled PET.

So we really advocate and I think we are probably already by now recognized in -- for sure, in the system, also in the industry among the best, if not those, how we prepare for DRS. And then how do we adjust our pack price architecture, recognizing that introduction of deposit is almost like a price increase. Because initially, it's increasing your price of the product until you get your deposit back. So it takes a while until people really learn how that works. But we fully advocate for the DRS as a sustainable good solution that is good for us, but the whole -- as well as for the whole industry.

You mentioned Poland as well, and I think there's quite a big change of the competitive landscape there. But are you seeing any more fundamental concerns in that part of the world? And how is your market share in the region, even if we exclude what's happening in Biedronka?

Look, it was expected that our key competitor will sooner or later return in that customer. It was unrealistic to expect that they would not be back. But irrespective of this period when key competitor was not in that customer, our team in Poland has done phenomenal job with the fact that over the last 4, 5 years, we have strengthened our position, continuously gained share, established a very well working relationship with customers with our joint value creation programs that we do together with customers. So even now, if you exclude this customer outside of the pool of customers, we are gaining share in the country, both in the NARTD as well as sparkling, which just is a testament that quality work continues as well as deeper and even stronger relationship with the customer itself.

So I don't have concerns. Actually, we remain very excited about the potentiality of Poland as a very big market, very well developing. We just had in June our Board meeting in Warsaw because we really wanted to demonstrate to our Board members and let them see how Poland is developing. And I have to say some of them have never been in Poland. Some of them have not been for 20 years. Everyone left impressed how Warsaw has changed and how the whole country is evolving. So Poland will be an important driver of growth for Hellenic.

If we move on to the Emerging space, I appreciate the macro in Nigeria has been pretty tough for yourselves and a lot of other people as well. But I think we are seeing some signs of lower inflation there. But how have you navigated these pretty challenging conditions, especially given the number of price increases that you've had to take? Has that made an impact on demand?

On demand, yes. Look, operating in Nigeria, learning is the cradle of this company. So we've seen, I believe, all kind of situations. And that gave us the experience, knowledge, how to operate in this kind of market. That's why 4, 4.5 years ago, acquiring Egypt, source of confidence was how much experience we have from Nigeria.

Nigeria is a market where when we introduced some of our biggest initiatives, when we started with RGM, when we did serious evolution in route to market, when we start with data, insights, analytics, Nigeria is first or among the first two markets where we go because we know that in such a challenging market, having stronger capability enables us to perform better, and we have to be at our best in this type of market.

So that's why last several years, seeing the progress, how much share gain we have achieved, the way we work with customers is reflected in the Net Promoter Score, which I think in Nigeria now is the highest in our group. And I could now talk much more about Nigeria, but I would only point to the recent Bitesize event that our Chief Operating Officer, Naya, and Nigerian team have done together in July. So it's there on our website, and we really wanted to demonstrate what and how we do things in Nigeria.

Also, what's encouraging, I have to say also with the current administration that runs the country, we see that they are doing smart step-by-step moves which -- now it's visible that there is more hard currency inflow in the country. So there are some structural refinements evolutions that give us confidence.

And if I can say immediately with Egypt, it's not been easy the last couple of years. But if anything, many things that came together as a headwind just gave us the preset to do things faster and bolder. And irrespective of the challenges that we faced with, one learning is to -- if we believe in the strategy, it's very -- it's important to stick to that consistently. And all the investments that we planned when we did acquisition case, we did not pause or stop. So everything that has been going on, we proceeded with executing everything that we imagine that we have to do. And we see very good results over the years. And this year, particularly, Egypt is performing really well. And we are absolutely certain that this market is -- offers abundance of profitable growth in the future.

So just to complete the Emerging division then, I guess Russia has been a very different business than it has been over the past 3 years. But since you've come out of the Coke brand there, what have you learned within Russia from building a business on entirely local brands?

Look, very difficult, complex situation, but kudos to very capable team with expertise and knowledge that has rewired the business on leveraging already existing local brands and doing the extensions just to have and maintain healthy business in the interest of protection of our people and assets. And I have to say that they've been doing a good job in this self-managed, self-financed way where we, as a group, are not doing any investments into the country, as we've said many times. And just hoping and waiting that this absolutely unfortunate crazy situation hopefully finishes as soon as possible.

Well, very much fingers crossed. We've only got a few minutes left, and I want to touch on a few of the financial questions here. Margins have been generally on an upward trajectory for you. What's really been driving that? And should we expect that to continue sort of over the medium term?

Primary driver is our orientation that we see ourselves as a growth-focused company. So we see that we have so many opportunities in driving growth represented in the revenue growth and secondarily verified by our market share progress. So it's volume and it's price mix. Those are the key drivers that drove our P&L and cash flow. Every year, we don't lose sight on productivity, cost efficiency, that's deeply embedded in continuous reviews and work. So that's been there as well. Third, last 4, 5 years, we have almost tripled the rate of investments that we are doing behind digital technology. And that also has contributed that we do a number of processes faster and cost-wise, more efficient.

So when you blend all that together, so I can't call out one big thing, but putting that all together, enables us to drive these improvements and in line with how we guided that in midterm, we see the opportunity to drive margins forward.

Your balance sheet is one of the strongest within European beverages. What leverage levels are you comfortable at? And can you describe what your main capital allocation priorities are?

Yes. We guided on the leverage of 1.5 to 2. We are -- we finished last year at 1. And that demonstrates that we have the capacity and firepower. We always remind that, first of all, investing in the -- organically in our business. Our range of CapEx is 6.5% to 7.5%. And we see ourselves being at the upper end of that. So we are keen to continue investing to increase the capacity and also our technical capabilities to do more and better.

Secondly, we have a progressive dividend policy of 40% to 50% that we've been sticking to and delivering on that even during COVID years. And then lastly, we see the opportunities that strategically can make sense, either in the bolt-on space or in the geographical expansion. I mean it's logical that for us as the strategic partner of the Coca-Cola Company, it's logical that if the opportunity comes up to discuss more territories that -- of course, that we would be interested. Any successful and growth-focused bottler will be keen to do that, and we are. So among these areas, I'm sure we will find ways to deploy that balance sheet in a smart way.

Well, I think we've done a pretty good run round of the key parts of the business. But is there anything at CCH that you think analysts or investors just don't focus on, that we really should spend more time on? What question should we be asking you?

That's not an easy question because I have to give credit that even in short meetings of 35 minutes or -- people cover a whole variety of things. So however, if I would highlight one thing that is deeply embedded also in the way we do business, and it matters is the focus on sustainability. In the Dow Jones now called Best Practice (sic) [ Best-in-Class ] Index. For 13 years, we are in the top 3 globally. And 8 times, like last year, we are a global beverage leader.

It's not about the ranking per se. It's how we constantly evolve the business that we achieve the results, but in a good way. And why does it matter? It matters because you've seen recently what James has done with Carrefour, first partnership of such kind in the sustainability space. And one of our countries, Romania is in the first wave.

So we like to be at the forefront of doing things right in a rational and meaningful way because we do see that it positively impacts the business. We do see that customers really want to partner with us. And sometimes that's a deciding factor why they work with us on a given initiatives or more and better than with others. And I could talk for -- a lot about that. But that's one area just to remind. And as much as recently, there have been some question marks. For us, there is no question mark that we want to do things in an ambitious way but done in the right way.

Well, Zoran, thank you so much for spending your time with us, and...

Thank you for having me. Thank you, Laurence.

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Coca-Cola HBC's Conference Call for the 2025 Half Year Results. We have with us Zoran Bogdanovic, Chief Executive Officer; and Anastasis Stamoulis, Chief Financial Officer; and Jemima Benstead, Head of Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions] I must also advise that this conference is being recorded today, 6th of August, 2025.

I now pass the floor to one of your speakers, Jemima. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Good morning, and thank you all for joining the call. I'm here with our CEO, Zoran Bogdanovic; and our CFO, Anastasis Stamoulis. We have about an hour for the call today, which should give plenty of time for good discussions. [Operator Instructions].

I will also remind you that this conference call contains various forward-looking statements. These should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements in our results press release this morning and at the end of our slide deck.

And with that, I will turn the call over to Zoran.

Thank you, Jemima. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. This morning, I will start by sharing our operational review for the first half with updates on a few strategic areas of the business. Anastasis will then take you through our financial performance in more detail. I will then come back to touch on the environment and discuss the outlook for 2025.

I'm very pleased with our progress in the first half of 2025. We've continued to execute our strategy, delivering a strong performance in a mixed market environment, while investing in our portfolio and capabilities. I'd like to call out 3 things that stand out for me in the period. First, the high-quality top line growth we have delivered. Organic revenue grew 9.9% with good volume growth of 2.6%. Growth was led by 2 of our strategic priority categories, Sparkling and Energy, and I'm pleased that we saw an improved volume performance in the second quarter.

Second, the strong EBIT performance, both in terms of organic growth and margin expansion, and even better, delivery of EPS, growing nearly 26%. Anastasis will get into more detail here shortly. Third, we continue to win in the market and deliver real value to our customers.

We gained a further 100 basis points of value share in NARTD year-to-date, and we remain the #1 contributor to our retail customers' absolute revenue growth within FMCG in Europe. The numbers we have reported today show that our growth strategy is working and give us the confidence to update our guidance for 2025 as well. More on that later.

Let's get straight into the drivers of our strong top line performance from a category perspective, starting with Sparkling. Sparkling remains the most important engine of growth for our company and has performed well this half with organic volume growth of 2.3%, supported by our focused in-market execution of campaigns and innovations. In April, we launched the Share a Coke campaign across most of our markets with locally relevant consumer and customer experiences across all channels. This campaign has had a great start and will continue throughout the summer. We are looking forward to launching the campaign in Nigeria in Q4 during their peak season with a record 1,000 popular first names on bottles.

We saw good ongoing performance from Coke Zero, up high single digits. Sprite delivered an improved performance, up mid-single digits. The reformulation we had at the end of last year is seeing good results, and we continued with the Sprite Spicy Meals campaigns. Fanta grew low single digits, and we launched a new limited edition flavor across several markets, Fanta Tutti Frutti. In Adult Sparkling, we also delivered mid-single-digit growth with a good performance from Schweppes, particularly in Nigeria and Egypt. In the second quarter, we launched a new Purple flavor with a strong market activation.

Energy continues to perform very well, up 30% even against increasingly tough comparatives. All segments saw strong growth with our segmented portfolio allowing us to tailor the offering to different markets, demographics and affordability needs. Monster performed well, helped by successful innovations such as Rio Punch and Ultra Strawberry. Predator and Fury, our affordable offers in Africa, also continued to perform strongly, supported by locally relevant marketing and partnerships that resonate with consumers. The innovation continues, and we are really looking forward to the launch of the new Monster drink with Lando Norris, which we've started rolling out already and is coming to most of our markets in Q3.

Moving on to Coffee. As I mentioned in the last few sets of results, we have made a strategic decision with our partners at Costa Coffee to prioritize the out-of-home channel. Now with both Costa Coffee and Caffè Vergnano, we are putting our full focus behind this channel because that is where we see the greatest potential for sustainable, profitable growth. This means we are seeing an impact on total coffee volumes this year and in the first half, volumes declined 7.6%. That said, I'm really encouraged that we are seeing good results from the out-of-home channel with volume growth of 17% from both existing outlets and newly recruited outlets.

Stills volumes were broadly flat. We are focused on capturing growth in the highest value parts of the portfolio. That means prioritizing premium water, sports drinks and ready-to-drink tea with offers tailored to the local markets. In ready-to-drink tea, we launched Peace Tea in Switzerland in Q2 with activations focused on GenZ consumers. Sports drinks continues to be a standout performer, delivering mid-teens growth. With Powerade, we leverage a relevant global football activations featuring new ambassadors, Barcelona's Yamal and Real Madrid's Rodrygo.

We also executed many local activations to drive growth across summer sporting activities such as running events and in local gyms. We launched Powerade in Romania in the period and rolled out flavor innovations such as Mountain Blast Zero. Premium Spirits volumes grew by 24%, with good growth across all 3 segments. I'm pleased that we saw growth from both Finlandia Vodka and our brand distribution partners. In April, we launched a new marketing campaign for Finlandia Vodka. While it's still early days, we've had a positive feedback from consumers and customers. We are also investing in our team and capabilities with a refreshed Premium Spirits Academy for our salespeople, and we are building stronger marketing capabilities. We also launched Bacardi and Coca-Cola in 11 markets in the first half with encouraging initial signs.

One area of the business we don't talk about every quarter is our digital data and AI transformation in Coca-Cola HBC. These capabilities are truly an accelerator of business growth and transformation, and they are constantly evolving. Our investment is focused in 3 key areas to drive growth and transformation. Firstly, consumer and customer centricity. This is how we use data, digital tools and AI to power our commercial capabilities like revenue growth management and route to market. We continue to enhance our ability to drive personalized execution for every outlet with suggested orders, personalized marketing and optimized promotions, to name just a few.

Secondly, operational productivities within our enterprise. We've been investing ahead of the curve in this area for a number of years. For example, we've been live with SAP S/4HANA across 28 markets since 2021 and added Egypt last year. This gives us the latest capabilities from SAP, including real-time reporting and is, we believe, a real competitive advantage. And across our supply chain, we are driving Industry 4.0 transformation, which basically means leveraging automation, computer vision and advanced analytics. Thirdly, transforming and digitizing the employee experience to drive collaboration, productivity and foster a digital workplace.

Let me touch for a moment on digital commerce. We've been investing and developing our digital commerce platforms to better serve the growing numbers of consumers and customers choosing to shop online. We broadly split these opportunities between route to customer and route to consumer. In our route to customer, customer portal is our largest B2B platform, which allows our customers to buy CCH products through our platform any time of the day. This platform is most relevant for our direct sales delivery customers, and we are live in 20 markets. We continue to see good growth in the number of active customers, orders and revenue generated.

We also have serviced our B2B marketplace for the HoReCa channel, which is mostly relevant for indirect customers. As well as offering our own 24/7 beverage portfolio, the platform also offers a range of products from our wholesale partners and a range of services. After piloting this in 2022 in Italy, we've seen a great increase in its share of orders. Service is now live in 5 markets with Croatia having launched earlier this year and more markets coming.

And in Nigeria, as you might have seen in the Bitesize event a few weeks ago, we have developed a WhatsApp chatbot, a tool made specifically for customers in Nigeria to effortlessly place orders directly via the platform. When it comes to route to consumer, we are partnering with e-retailers and food delivery platforms. This area of our business grew by 25% in the first half and is margin accretive.

At Coca-Cola HBC, we believe sustainability is key to our business growth. Let me share some of the highlights during the first half. We are pleased to be part of a co-developed sustainable-linked business plan announced by the Coca-Cola Company and our valued customer, Carrefour. This is the first time that a retailer and a manufacturer have formalized joint goals in sustainability with an aim to reduce packaging waste and cut carbon emissions. Our team in Romania will be one of the first markets to implement this. It is collaboration with our partners that can help us deliver our sustainability targets and drive value for our customers and consumers.

Packaging circularity remains at the top of our agenda. Deposit return schemes, or DRS, are one way to ensure both high packaging collection rates and supply of feedstock for recycling. DRS went live in Austria in January this year with a promising start. In general, we are finding that the transitions to DRS are progressing in line with plans and customers and consumers are responding positively. For example, both Romania and Hungary have seen average return rates of around 80% this year.

Achieving our decarbonization targets requires innovation. We started using biomethane, a clean and renewable source of energy at our Knockmore Hill plant in Northern Ireland. This should contribute up to 25% of the energy at the plant by the end of 2025. Finally, it's great that we have retained our A list position in CDP's 2024 Supplier Engagement Assessment and the highest score in the FTSE Russell ESG report of the soft drinks category.

Let me now hand over to Anastasis to take you through the financial results.

Thank you, Zoran, and good morning, everyone. In the first half, we delivered strong top line growth with organic sales up 9.9%, driven by both volumes and revenue per case expansion. We also drove organic EBIT growth and margin improvement, leading to strong comparable earnings per share growth of nearly 26%, which was also supported by better net finance costs. Finally, free cash flow increased by 10% to EUR 243 million, driven by the EBIT delivery while also increasing CapEx.

So let me start with the strong top line performance. As Zoran mentioned, the quality of our organic revenue growth of 9.9% remains high with 2.6% volume growth and with volumes accelerating in quarter 2 and growing in all 3 segments. Organic revenue per case increased by 7.2%, a slowdown versus quarter 1, but as expected. Overall, pricing remained the most important driver of revenue per case. Carryover pricing drove over half of this, largely due to the pricing in Nigeria and Egypt over the last 12 months, as we mitigated inflation and currency devaluation. In line with our plans, we saw this impact reduced in quarter 2 compared to quarter 1. Category mix and package mix were also positive with continued improvement in single-serve mix, which expanded by 120 basis points in the first half.

Comparable EBIT grew 11.8% on an organic basis in the first half to EUR 650 million. Our comparable EBIT margin increased 70 basis points on a reported basis to 11.6% and increased 20 basis points organically. Let me break down the drivers of this. We improved gross profit margins by 60 basis points with a strong recovery in the Emerging segment, which benefited from pricing leverage, easing COGS pressure and efficiency initiatives. Operating costs, excluding direct marketing expenses, improved by 50 basis points as a percent of revenue.

You may recall that last year, we faced headwinds in our operating expense line due to the foreign currency remeasurement of balance sheet items in Egypt following the significant devaluation of the Egyptian pound. This gave us a cycling benefit this year as expected, since we did not face additional currency headwinds. This improvement in OpEx was partially offset by an increase in direct marketing expenses. We invested in the Share a Coke and the new Finlandia marketing campaigns as well as investments ahead of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Italy in February 2026.

Let's now look at the drivers of performance by segment. I'm going to discuss these figures on an organic basis and for the first half of the year. In the Established segment, revenue grew by 2.5%. Established markets volume was broadly in line with last year and with a return to growth in quarter 2, partly helped by a later Catholic Easter than in 2024. Sparkling volumes decreased low single digits despite mid-single-digit growth in Coke Zero and high single-digit growth in Sprite. Energy saw good momentum with volumes growing mid-teens in the period. Stills grew low single digits with sports drinks growing high single digits.

On a country basis, it was good to see better volumes in Italy, up low single digits in the first half. The return to growth in quarter 2 was supported by later Easter and better start to the summer season compared to the prior year. In Greece, volumes grew low single digit in half 1. In the second quarter, we saw a slowdown in volume growth against a tough comparative and with less favorable weather resulting in a later start to the season. Established revenue per case was up 2.4%, driven by pricing as well as positive package and category mix. Established segment comparable EBIT declined 7.2% due to the accelerated marketing investments and operating expenses in the period.

Turning to the Development segment. Revenues were up 6.4%. Volumes were flat, but returned to growth in quarter 2, supported by later Catholic Easter. Sparkling volumes declined by low single digits despite growth in Coke Zero, Fanta and Sprite. Energy grew strongly on a soft comparative. Stills declined mid-single digits, driven by water despite strong double-digit growth in sports drinks. In terms of country performance, Czech was a standout performer, growing volumes high single digits despite a tough comparative. Poland declined, but saw an improvement in quarter 2 as we expect a better second half. Developing revenue per case increased by 6.4%, driven by pricing actions taken to manage inflation, along with positive category and package mix. Comparable EBIT was down 0.6% year-on-year due to higher operating and marketing expense in the period, mainly due to the new Finlandia marketing campaign.

In the Emerging segment, revenue grew by 17.4%, driven by both volume and good price mix. Emerging markets volume grew 4.1%. Sparkling volumes increased by mid-single digits with mid-single-digit growth in Trademark Coke, Sprite and Adult Sparkling. Energy grew strongly despite tough comparatives, driven by affordable brands. Stills volumes grew low single digits with a very strong growth on a small base in sport drinks.

In terms of countries, the performance of both Nigeria and Egypt has been really impressive in the first half of the year, with volumes up mid-single digit and high-single digit, respectively. I'd also like to mention Ukraine, where volumes grew high single digits in what continues to be a tough market to operate in. Emerging segment revenue per case increased 12.7% with a step down in quarter 2 relative to quarter 1 as we started to see inflation come down in Nigeria and Egypt, which also had more stable currencies. In the first half overall, we benefited from pricing actions taken throughout the last 12 months to manage the impact of currency devaluation and cost inflation as well as from positive category mix. Comparable EBIT grew 31.3%, a strong rebound due to organic growth as well as citing the impact of foreign currency remeasurement in Egypt last year.

Moving to the group P&L. We saw comparable earnings per share grow 26% to EUR 1.31. This was supported by the strong EBIT delivery and lower net finance costs than the previous year. The better finance cost was due to several factors. We delivered better cash flow than we expected in Nigeria and Egypt, meaning we hit lower financing needs as we've seen greater currency stability this year, which meant lower foreign exchange losses compared to the previous year, and we also benefited from higher finance income.

This performance has allowed us to upgrade the finance cost guidance for the year. We also improved our FX translation guidance. The first half saw a year-on-year step-up in CapEx, in line with our plans. CapEx was 5% of the revenues in the period, up 100 basis points compared to the same period last year, in line with the planed phasing. For the full year, we expect CapEx to be within our guided range of 6.5% to 7.5% of revenue. We continue to generate strong free cash flow of EUR 243 million, 10% higher year-on-year, reflecting higher EBIT and improving working capital, partly offset by the higher CapEx.

Let me now hand back to Zoran to share more perspectives on the market environment and our expectations for the rest of the year.

Thanks, Anastasis. As Anastasis has laid out, we've delivered strong results at the group level in the first half of the year, building on what has been a good performance in the last few years as well. This performance has been achieved despite operating in a mixed market environment. We have seen and continue to see a range of trends across our diverse 29 markets with some areas that have been more challenging and sensitive to the consumer environment.

What we've learned across many years operating in a range of markets and conditions is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. We strike a careful balance to focus on what makes the local market unique, staying relevant and tailoring our approach while aligning with the group strategy, leveraging our global scale, tools and capabilities, particularly with digital and data insights to drive personalized execution.

In some of our emerging markets in Africa, particularly, we manage volatility proactively with rigorous scenario planning and empowered local teams. I'm particularly pleased that despite the external challenges, Nigeria and Egypt have both delivered strong volume growth and share gains in the period and improvements in profitability. In some of our European markets, consumer sentiment has remained a bit softer. But in these markets, we remain agile in adapting our plans, investing more in marketing and stepping up promotions and affordable offers. We expect these conditions to persist in the second half, and we will continue to take these steps to drive growth. We've demonstrated our ability to adapt to local market dynamics and consistently deliver at the group level, which is why we remain confident in achieving low-single-digit volume growth in 2025 with all segments growing.

Moving to the outlook for the year. As we progress into the second half, we do expect the broader macroeconomic and geopolitical environment to remain challenging with the consumer environment still a mixed picture across our markets. Having said that, we have high confidence in our unique 24/7 portfolio, in our bespoke capabilities, in the growth opportunities across our diverse markets and in our people. Given our strong first half performance, we now expect to deliver growth in organic revenue and organic EBIT at the top end of our guided ranges.

To close, I'd like to finish on the 3 areas I highlighted at the start. First, the strong and high-quality top line growth we've delivered in the first half of the year; second, the strong EBIT performance and even better delivery of EPS; third, our ongoing investment in our strategic priorities is allowing us to continue to win in the market and deliver real value to our customers. And before I close, I would like to sincerely thank all our colleagues, customers, suppliers and partners for their ongoing efforts and support.

Thank you for your attention. And with that, let us now open the call up to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Will now take the first question. This is from the line of Laurence Whyatt from Barclays.

First one for me on Finlandia. Just you've had that brand now for a couple of years. I'm just wondering how you're thinking about your portfolio of alcoholic products. Would you increase your number of spirits that you own? Would you expand into ready-to-drink products? Of course, you've got some with the Coke brand already, but using your vodka brands, and you can imagine things like vodka tonics or Coke and tonics using the brands that you've got.

And then also the nonalcoholic products that would be adjacent to that. With Costa, you could have something like espresso Martini nonalcoholic or nonalcoholic products using the Coke and brand that you own. Are these being considered? And how would you think about that sort of merging of categories?

Laurence, thanks for this question. First of all, we are very pleased with the addition of Finlandia into our portfolio from the angle of us being the owner. And let me just say that the fact that we are seeing very good and very strong growth now is a result of the fact that the whole transition and integration into Hellenic has gone very smoothly, very well. And as we highlighted last year, we took the time to develop marketing campaign, which started this year, and we are very pleased how it is progressing. And Finlandia proves its role as a fantastic mixer with our core portfolio of non-alcohol -- non-alcohol portfolio, driving clearly transactions.

To remind you, on top of this, we have a range of high-quality premium brands in partnership with Brown-Forman, Edrington, and Bacardi, and to some extent, Campari. So a very strong portfolio. And this is where we see ourselves primarily as the partner and distributor of these brands. As a reminder, Finlandia was a unique opportunity and fit because 60% of its global volume is in our territories. That's why it was a great strategic fit, and we are now focused on working with that primarily, and supporting and working with all other partners for their brand. So that's where we stand now as our priority.

In terms of the ready-to-drink things, this is where we partner with our, of course, key partner, Coca-Cola Company, and beyond Jack and Coke, now also with Bacardi Coca-Cola, which is performing -- both of those are performing very well. And this is where we plan extensions, as those might be coming in the future.

Just to say on Espresso Martini, for example, we actually do that already in the channels of out-of-home, where we are really leveraging portfolio, our Coffee presence. So mixability is a great part of our strategic focus, how we drive transactions in the out-of-home channel. So we are actually doing those, whether they are alcoholic or nonalcoholic, as we call them mocktails. So all of that is fully activated and used. And just to close to say that we really feel excited about the growth prospect that we have with this part of the portfolio and how it perfectly blends with our non-alcohol portfolio.

Super. And as a follow-up, I'd just like to talk about the guidance in the second half of the year. Of course, you delivered EBIT growth ahead of your guidance range in the first half. And so just what's giving you the caution in the second half of the year not to sort of raise that top end of the guidance range? Are there any circumstances in which that could happen? Or what particularly are you concerned about?

Laurence, Anastasis. First of all, let me reiterate that we are very pleased with the strong performance in the first half of the year when we saw a delivery of 11.8% of organic EBIT growth. Now actually, we have updated our guidance to the top end of what we have already provided of 7% to 11%. This, as you understand, assumes a slowdown in the second half of the year, but that's in line with the expectations of the phasing we had for the year. And that's something we had already communicated at our earlier calls.

I mean, if you recall, we were also cycling the currency devaluation remeasurement impact we had in Egypt in the first half of 2024. So obviously, that's something that is reflected in the guidance. Now as you understand, we're in the middle of the peak trading season. We had ahead of us big 5 months. And considering the external environment with a certain level of unpredictability, the macroeconomic movement, the geopolitical landscape, we believe that the current guidance captures very well what we see outside. We will continue to invest in the market as we have done so far, and we feel strong about delivering another strong year.

We will now take the next question. This is from Aron Adamski, Goldman Sachs.

I have 2. My first question is on the share buyback program. I believe you have not been executing on the remaining portion of the buyback program since September last year. Therefore, I was wondering what are your plans with respect to those funds? And would you consider returning it to shareholders in a different way, perhaps a special dividend, as you have done in the past?

Let me take that one. Well, overall, we have progressed strongly with the share buyback program. We have repurchased about EUR 226 million worth of shares since the start of the program, with about 60% of the top end -- of the target of the program. Now having said that, we always said that we have full discretion over the program. And we have been very disciplined on how we use our capital allocation priorities, particularly in times of volatility as we've seen going on over this year. So the program remains in place, and we are flexible on how we will execute it as we see through yet, adapting the current market environment as we see appropriate.

That's clear. And then my second question is on the retailer landscape in Europe. I think in the release, you highlighted your #1 position when it comes to generating the FMCG revenue growth for retailers. So I was wondering if the recent increase in the number of retailer purchasing groups we've seen in Europe, if that concerns you in any way when it comes to next year's price negotiations? Or do you see yourself as being relatively more immune than other FMCG companies given the value you create for those retailers?

Aron, look, in short, we've been dealing and partnering with such various retailer groups for a number of years. So they are not new to us. And we have a very strong capability within the house from our key account teams that is working on this. So I can say that so far, we've been partnering very effectively, and we have always come to win-win agreements, creating evidently value. And in short, I believe this is going to be such case also for the future.

We'll now take the next question. This is from Nadine Sarwat, Bernstein.

Two questions from me. First, comparable EBIT margin was, I think, quite weak versus expectations in the established and developed markets. I know you called out higher marketing and operating expenses as a driver, both in the release and your prepared remarks. But could you unpack that a little bit further? And crucially, how are you expecting those line items to play out in the second year?

And then maybe as a follow-up, in Established markets, I know you commented on what you're seeing in Q2 versus Q1 and improvements there for the top line. Are you able to comment on any exit rates in Q2 and perhaps what you're seeing in July?

Nadine, let me start, and then Zoran will take the second part of the question on the trading. So let me give a bigger view over the segment movement, and particularly on the Established, as you referred to, right? So as we said earlier on the call, that we had stepped up on our investments across the group with the Share a Coke campaign and the new Finlandia marketing campaign launch.

So specifically in the Established, the performance was broadly in line with expectations, and especially when it comes to the gross margins, but the stepped up on investments with the Share a Coke campaign as well as some particular market activities like the Fanta 70 years anniversary in Italy or the Winter Olympics step-up on the investments ahead in preparation of the Winter Olympics in Milano, which had even 40 basis points on the margin as an effect are some of the key drivers. In addition, I would like to call out that we had increased investments when it comes to our field force in the out-of-home channel in markets like Greece, cycling the incremental field force that we saw in the second half of 2024.

I think on the second point on the Developing markets, the performance was in line with the expectation. And again, the incremental investment in marketing was the key driver. Here, in addition to the Share a Coke campaign, the other big driver has been the new Finlandia marketing campaign. Well, it's a relaunch of the whole brand out on a global basis. And considering the fact that in the Developing segment is where we have the biggest turnover in business of Finlandia. In Poland, in particular, you see a bigger weight out of this marketing allocation expense being driven there.

On top of that, operating expenses, similarly, as I said before, on Established was on the upper end, in line with our expectations. Now if we look into the second half of the year, we do expect that both segments will continue to improve profitability, and they will be adding to the overall organic EBIT growth, as I guided earlier.

Yes. Nadine, related to Q2, and to your question, first of all, we are very pleased that Established performed positively in Q2, bearing in mind that it was cycling solid Q2 of last year. And I would particularly highlight a very good performance of Italy, which had a very nice Q2, bringing Italy to be at the end of first half on a positive note, exactly as we were anticipating and planning.

So in that regard, also, you see Ireland performing quite well, Greece staying positive for the first half. Yes, we also have some markets like Austria and Switzerland, where we did see some more consumer price sensitivity and softness. However, all in all, we are positive that Established for the full year will be positive in the second half. And we remain very much focused on the execution. We are in the middle of the season. So if you will, the game is on. And I just reiterate that all 3 segments, we anticipate to be positive to land overall with a low single-digit volume positive performance for the full year, as we said from the beginning of the year.

Next question is from Edward Mundy from Jefferies.

So my first question is around your comments in the release around stepping up promo activity to drive volume growth. And I know that this is part of your normal playbook to balance affordability with premiumization. But perhaps a few comments on sort of what you're seeing with regards to external environment. Are you seeing it deteriorating? Or is this just the standard practice that you carry out to drive volume growth?

Ed, let me start saying, I would rather see that as a quite standard practice, and promo is one of the excellent tools to drive value together with customers. And this is part of that agile approach that we talk about and quickly, swiftly adapting as the circumstances in the countries evolve. I just mentioned good performance in Italy, for example, where we have seen some more positive recovery.

And you might remember how I said already in the last 2, 3 calls, how we have been rewiring the algorithm in Italy where to support more of the volume performance because we were also adjusting the promo investments as part of the overall RGM. And similar is being done as we speak in other markets. And those are not necessarily only price promotions. We equally focus on value-added promotions, leveraging on a number of excellent assets that we have in our hands. One of those is already Olympics, where we have our winning ticket promotions. So it's a variety of things.

So just for the sake of saying it clearly that when we say promotions that we don't only think price promotions. And promotions are also helping us to drive mix. You've seen that our mix, again, has been quite positive. In Established, every single country has, for example, a positive mix. And with promotions, we are driving transactions. So just a little bit longer answer, but basically to say that, that's where we are and what we are planning for is in the frame of a standard approach.

Understood. And Anastasis, just on the finance charges, which are coming in slightly lighter than we've seen in the past. And I think you highlighted the cash flow in Nigeria, Egypt, some greater currency stability, perhaps a bit more finance income from certain markets. But is this the right level of finance costs going forward, assuming currencies stay where they are, there's no big M&A. There's no special divvy or incremental buyback. Based on what we're seeing today, is this the right level of interest that we should be modeling going forward?

Yes. I mean, look, as you rightfully highlighted, yes, I mean, the first half of the year, we benefited from the environment, especially in Nigeria and Egypt normalizing and less currency volatility, good cash generation, better than expected in this case or less need for capital and better income from finance, right? Now for the second half of the year, and this is on the back of this performance, we have updated our guidance to EUR 15 million to EUR 25 million, right?

Now on the second half of the year, that would imply that there is a step-up, and that's because, considering that, we think that it's a mix of environment out in the market. And also including the dynamics from Russia as well as the cost we have, we believe that this range is capturing for this year the needs on finance cost. If you're implying about longer term, like '26 onwards, what I can say, even if we don't provide guidance at this stage of the year, what we can say is that directionally, we would expect finance costs to normalize at a higher level in 2026 than 2025, but probably not as high as we had in 2024, given the current situation of the available income from this case and the stability we see in the particular markets.

Next question is from Sanjeet Aujla from UBS.

A couple from me as well, please. Firstly, Zoran, can you just talk to what you're seeing in established and developing between away-from-home and the home channel performance, please? And particularly, I'm curious to get a sense of to what extent the investments you put in, in OpEx is already paying back in the away-from-home in particular?

And my follow-up question is just on the cash pile that's building up in Russia. I think that's got up to over EUR 700 million now, Anastasis. Is there any update on your ability to be able to extract that cash or upstream that cash out of Russia? What needs to change for that to happen?

Sanjeet, on Established and Developing, first to highlight that both of those in Q2 had a very good progress versus Q1. And as from intro remarks, you've seen that we really have a number of markets performing well, while also having a few where we see watchouts. And for those, we've been adjusting quickly plans. But overall, I'm very positive that both in developing and established, we will have a positive volume performance in the second half. And good to see that overall for us, as the whole company, we had growth coming from both away-from-home and at-home.

And I'm very happy that out-of-home has been positive across all 3 segments. Same goes for at-home with the only exception in Developing for Poland, and that's for this particular specific situation of a key competitor reentry into the largest customer in Poland, which we know that is going to have just a short-term impact. We are not concerned about that. We anticipated that. And just to highlight that when you take out and exclude this event and situation in the rest of the Poland market, we are gaining share, both in NARTD as well as in Sparkling.

Yes, Sanjeet. No, nothing has changed to what we have previously communicated in relation to the cash positions in Russia, apart from the amount, as you said. So as per the current requirements and legal obligations, we're not able to currently upstream dividends out of Russia. Now let me remind that the cash there is covering the operational needs of the business, which is being fully self-sustained and there is no cash injections coming from the group to Russia. And I would really like to stress out that our balance sheet remains strong and the cash position in Russia does not limit our ability to pay dividends or invest in the group, and in general, execute our capital allocation strategy.

Next question is from Charlie Higgs from Redburn Atlantic.

My first question is on Energy drinks, where I think volumes accelerated in Q2 and Q3, you've got some pretty exciting launches coming. So could you maybe just talk a bit more about the Energy drinks performance in Q2, maybe split between Monster and then Predator here in some of the Emerging markets, where are you seeing particular strength? And should we expect that to continue in H2? That's my first question.

Charlie, hope you are well as well. So Energy, as expected, has performed very strong. I highlighted in the intro remarks several, again, very good innovations that we had in our portfolio of activities, and that really worked very well. Then very excited with the fact that we already started launching the Lando Norris new flavor and initial reactions are excellent, as one would assume. Great thing is that all the brands are performing very well in their own segments, delivering on their own purpose and positioning. Very happy that Fury and Predator in Africa are really kicking extremely well, but also Monster overall, leveraging excellent assets that those brands are bringing that we are activating through the promotions.

But also emphasizing that there is a lot on the experiential part, the way the brands are activated throughout the countries. And this is what the target consumers really want. So I think that the overall performance of Energy just is a testament to strong plans, multi-brand strategy, which allows us to play across all segments, leveraging on strong assets, and coupling it with a very disciplined focused execution in the market, fueled also by continuously increasing number of cold drink equipment, which is important for this category as well.

So all in all, we continue to be very positive and confident about the performance of Energy, which, just as a reminder, 9 years in a row, we've been delivering at a very strong double-digit growth, and this year will be no exception. And we remain positive that also in the years to come, Energy will be more than average contributor to our overall growth algorithm.

And then my second question for Anastasis on COGS per unit case inflation, 4.8% in H1. Are you able to maybe provide a bit more color on commodity inflation within that and transactional FX? And then how you see COGS per unit case trending for the rest of the year and some early thoughts perhaps on 2026 given current hedging?

Yes, Charlie. Okay, for the first half of the year, we benefited from lower sugar costs versus prior year. Aluminum and PET remained inflationary. We also faced certain higher COGS when it comes to finished goods like the Energy, Premium Spirits being part of the portfolio and the mix effect, and also a certain level from impact from taxation like the sugar tax in Slovakia.

Now this year, you're right, we did not benefit from translational FX impact as much as we had last year. I remind you that last year, for example, the COGS per case, which have been double digit, around 10% if it weren't for the currency devaluation in Nigeria and Egypt, right? So this year, we don't have this type of volatility. So we expect for the remaining of the year and the full 2025 to keep the COGS per case in low to mid-single digit.

Now where we see the commodities, as I said, we've seen some moderation when it comes to sugar and oil, but aluminum and secondary packaging materials remain relatively elevated. But to this point, I want to highlight that we have a very strong hedging coverage against our key commodities. We are above 85% covered with most coverage in sugar and aluminum above 90%, which pretty much means that regardless of any possible movements on the year to go, we wouldn't see any significant impact on the cost, whether it's on the positive or negative side, even if we are looking for any improvements.

To your question for 2026, it's a bit too early to comment on how we can guide on the COGS for next year. What I can say is that we already stepped up on our hedging coverage. I can say that we are significantly better covered at this stage of the year compared to the same period last year. But we'll provide more guidance on '26 at a later call.

Next question is from Matthew Ford, BNP Paribas.

I've actually just got one question. It's on the volume performance in Nigeria and Egypt, clearly, very strong, as you alluded to. Can I just get your thoughts around the kind of H2 progression on volumes? I think looking at the comp base for markets like Nigeria, I think we're about to start cycling some easier comps mainly in Q4. But yes, any sense of what you're expecting? Would you expect a kind of underlying improvement in H2 in both these markets versus what we saw in Q2? And then just your overall take on the volume outlook going into '26 in these markets.

Matt, look, we've seen, in both of those markets, Nigeria and Egypt, more stable environment over the last 6 or even more months. And that is one of the also reasons that such environment and backdrop creates a better environment for us to perform and to demonstrate all the strong plans that we have in both of those countries, which is reflected in the very strong revenue growth delivered by also positive volume growth in parallel with very strong price mix for the obvious reasons.

But also, I really want to highlight that in both of those markets, we have a very good and strong and consistent share gains, both in NARTD and Sparkling. So expectation is that in both of those markets, we'll have a positive volume in the second half of the year. Both of those markets are robust growth markets with a very strong potential. And that's how we are thinking about both of those for the years to come. And we have very strong plans for the rest of the year. I already mentioned Q4 with Nigeria, Share a Coke, which I'm very confident that this is going to be a very strong driver and that is going to have a very strong appeal for the consumers there. So in short, very excited and confident for both of the markets for the rest of the year and for the years ahead.

Next question is from Simon Hales from Citi.

Zoran, I wonder if I could just come back to trading as we've started into Q3 again. I wonder if you could just provide a little bit more color, perhaps what you've seen as you've come out of July. I think the weather has clearly been okay across maybe your Established markets, but maybe a bit more mix still in some of your Developing market footprint. Just interested in what you've seen specifically Q3 to date. And with regards to the developing markets and particularly Poland, what's really giving you the confidence of that acceleration in H2 volumes in that key market? That's my first question. I'll come back with the second.

Simon, so first of all, you said about the trading and Q3. I can say that Q3 started in line with our expectations with what we really say is a dynamic environment, which I truly mean that because what I said earlier, you see that in some of the markets, there is more positive development. In some markets, there is something slow. But overall, it started in line with our expectations and within the guidance that we have provided, where we felt confident to say that we see ourselves really being at the top end of what we guided for so far.

To be fair, for the weather, which, of course, we don't control, however, we fully control what we do in the circumstances that we have. Overall, we can say that weather was varied. And let's say, in general, for the majority of our countries, we saw less good weather year-on-year. Q2 was similar. May was not easy in many markets, then June was quite better. And then we've seen the very varied picture in July. But look, this we also don't take as a surprise. We know that weather patterns have been evolving over the years. So this is also part of our contingency planning. And so we are ready for all kinds of eventualities. And so in short, overall in line with expectations and fully focused on our relentless execution in every country.

Got it. And then just my second question was just coming back to the Russian cash pile that Sanjeet referenced. I think there's a 50% increase in that Russian cash to EUR 730 million from where we were at the end of December. That's quite a big move in the first half. I think you talked about Russian volumes in the market being up mid-single digits in the first half of the year. What's driving that massive step-up in cash flow?

Yes. Simon, this is Anastasis. Yes, there is also a certain element of phasing compared to the same period last year, right? So it was also a different phasing and also the currency has an impact on the ruble translation. But what I can say is that if we were to look at the emerging segment performance on an organic basis, if you exclude Russia, it will be even faster than what you see today on the segment. So...

We will now take the last question, and this is from Philip Spain from JPMorgan.

My first one was just on Sparkling volumes. So they were in decline, I think low single-digit decline, both in the Established and Developed segments in the first half. I just want to understand, firstly, was this driven mainly by Trademark Coke? And if it was, what do you think you need to do to drive Trademark Coke back into growth in these segments? I'm thinking particularly given this came at the time when you were doing the Share a Coke campaign from the second quarter as well.

Yes. Philip. So listen, on the overall trademark Coke, we do see that very strong performance of Coke Zero. Really love to see ramping up also a stronger and wider performance of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Zero Caffeine. On the original, yes, this is where we have seen a slight decline. But we are confident that with the Share a Coke campaign, which only de facto started in Q2 and goes through the summer, even in several selected markets, we have extension of that campaign amplified with some local specificities and also with the strong plans that we have for the rest of the year.

That's part of the whole plan, which I would rather say that it's quite intense plan that we have for the Coke. A reminder that in Developing, because of that specificity of the key competitor entering in the largest customer, this is where I would see just a short-term impact. But overall, no doubt about expectation for Coca-Cola trademark to perform and deliver based on the very strong calendar that we have for the year to go and also shaping up plans for the next year.

And then my follow-up was just on -- you spoke earlier on the call in the press release about the very strong single-serve mix you'd be seeing. I wonder if you could just give us a bit more color on what drove that in the first half, be it cooler rollout or things you're doing by channel as well, that would be really helpful.

Yes. Look, single-serve is for us, as we always say, in the RGM, apart from price and volume mix is a very important element. And we've been consistently, for now, many years, focusing on driving single-serve mix to constantly strengthen the quality of the revenue we generate. That is supported by, you are right, coolers, then types of promotions that we are doing. I just mentioned single serves -- sorry, Share a Coke campaign, which is done both on multiserve, but even more is amplified in the single-serve part of our portfolio.

Then you have also our intentional drive with multipacks of single serves in the at-home channel, where we are creating the habit of single-serve in-home consumption, which also is showing good results. So I mentioned at the beginning of the call, mixability programs, which are also supporting the single-serve. We have constant focus on our glass bottle across the market. So there is a whole suite of things that are serving the need of driving growth with single serves.

We have no further questions at this time. So I will now hand back to Zoran for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. And I'd like to thank everyone for taking part in today's call. Let me just very briefly conclude that we are very pleased with our performance year-to-date, and we feel very well positioned to continue delivering in 2025 and beyond. Thank you very much, and goodbye.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Coca-Cola HBC's Bitesize Investor Series. Today's event is Nigeria Deep Foundations: long-term growth. [Operator Instructions] I would like to remind all participants that this call is being recorded. I will now hand over to Jemima Benstead, Head of Investor Relations.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the second in our series of Bitesize investor events at Coca-Cola HBC. Before I hand over to our speakers, let me quickly remind you of what our Bitesize investor series is.

The aim of these events is to provide deep dives into areas of the business that are important drivers of our strategy and investment case and especially the ones you've told us you want to hear more about. The first event of the series took place in October last year on one of our key capabilities, data insights and analytics. And today, we shift our attention to one of our key markets, Nigeria.

We have with us our Chief Operating Officer, Naya Kalogeraki. And from the Nigerian business unit, we have Goran Sladic, our General Manager for Nigeria; and Dayo Adefulu, our Trade Marketing Director.

Quickly on the format today, we will have a presentation from the team, followed by Q&A. As you just heard from the operator, we can take questions live on the call, which I will; or if you joined in listen-only mode, you can enter questions into the platform, which i will then ask the team.

I also must remind you that this presentation and Q&A session may contain various forward-looking statements, which should be considered along with our cautionary statements at the end of the presentation.

With that, let me pass the call over to Naya.

Thank you, Jemima, and hello, everyone. It's great to be back with you for another one of these Bitesize events. Today, I'm excited to be joined by Goran and Dayo as we take a closer look at the Nigerian market. We will delve deeper into why Nigeria is an exciting opportunity for CCH, what's driving our success there and the growth potential we continue to see in the future.

As you'll see in today's session, Nigeria is not just one of our largest markets. It's a dynamic, fast-evolving landscape, where we're seeing real momentum. It plays a central role in our growth ambitions and is a key pillar of our strategy. But first, let me provide a bit of context for those of you who might be newer to the CCH story.

We benefit from a diverse portfolio of 29 markets with strong growth potential. We see this as one of our key strengths, covering a wide span of countries, all the way from our established markets across Western Europe to developing and emerging markets in Eastern Europe and of course, Africa.

In the past few years, our execution excellence enhanced by our capabilities building in a range of macroeconomic and consumer conditions allowed us to drive good financial progress across all of our 3 segments. The Emerging segment has been an important driver of growth, and we're excited for what's still to come.

So why are we talking about Nigeria today? Nigeria is where it all began for Coca-Cola HBC. In 1951, A.G. Leventis founded the Nigerian Bottling Company, which today is CCH Nigeria. It's where we started. And importantly, it's where our emerging market strategy comes to life in full color.

Today, we're the #1 player in both sparkling and nonalcoholic ready-to-drink, with our brands deeply embedded in local culture. As of 2024, Nigeria accounted for 15% of group volumes, making it our largest market by volume and in the top 5 when it comes to revenues.

But what really excites us about Nigeria is the future value we still plan to unlock. Demographically, Nigeria stands out with a population of around 230 million, the largest in Africa. Culturally rich, Nigeria is a unique market, and it is fast evolving. The country is undergoing a significant cultural transformation with GDP growing and its economy diversifying and a strong focus on digital.

For us, the scale of the market, combined with its vibrant diversity gives us a clear opportunity to continue recruiting consumers and deepen our connections with customers. Goran will share more on how we will capture this opportunity later in the presentation.

I hear from [ Zoran and Anastasis ] and the IR team that the question investors are often asking is this, how is it that we succeed in emerging markets? There is not one simple answer or one data point I can point you to. It's a combination of many factors underpinned by our bespoke capabilities. I'm confident we have built a winning formula for success in emerging markets, and Nigeria serves as a prominent example of this.

What truly sets us apart is our mindset. We don't wait for perfect conditions. We act on what we see as potential. This isn't just about boldness, it's about having a clear, repeatable strategy for winning in complex environments. Let me walk through some of these key elements.

We strike a careful balance, focusing on what makes the local market unique and staying relevant, while aligned with group strategy, our global scale, tools and capabilities. As you know, we don't impose a one-size-fits-all model across our markets. We adapt to the local realities where it matters. We manage volatility proactively, turning challenges into opportunities. This isn't improvisation. It's grounded in rigorous scenario planning and empowered local teams.

Our ability to accelerate comes from being ready to activate different paths based on a deep real-time understanding of the market. The team will share some Nigeria-specific examples of how we do this later in the presentation. Having a best-in-class leadership team to execute this strategy is critical, and Nigeria is no exception. I'm excited for you to meet some of them today.

Our long-standing presence in Nigeria reflects our deep belief in its potential. Over the past decade, we've made meaningful joint system investments across our supply chain, but also in talent and our brands.

Nigeria has also been a pilot market for capability building, such as revenue growth management and segmentation through data insights and analytics before we've rolled out the capabilities across our business. And as our track record shows, we have been consistently delivering strong volume growth and share gains and driven efficiencies. I'm really proud of this team and our leadership in Nigeria.

Speaking of them, I hand over to Goran and Dayo to get into more detail.

Thanks, Naya, and hello, everyone. Very happy to be here today. I've been at Hellenic for 22 years, and my experience in Nigeria started exactly 10 years ago during the Premium Spirits business rollout. Since then, I've been National and Regional Sales Director and General Manager for the last 2 years.

Today, Dayo and I will take you through the Nigeria story in 3 chapters that you can see on the slide here. Let's start with the attractive market opportunity.

Nigeria is a unique market, and that gives us abundant opportunities for growth. With over 300 tribes and more than 500 languages spoken, Nigeria is one of the most diverse countries in the world. As we'll show you, this makes our digital tools and segmentation capabilities especially powerful here, allowing us to precisely tailor our approach with customers and consumers.

Culturally, Nigeria is now a global powerhouse. Afrobeats, which originated here, has become a dominant force in the global music, with streaming growing 5x versus 2017 and globally recognized artists with millions of followers such as Burna Boy, Asake or Wizkid. Nollywood, the country's film industry, is the second largest in the world, producing over 2,500 films annually.

And football is a national passion. Some premier league clubs have more fans in Nigeria than in the U.K. We actively tap into these cultural passion points to connect with consumers in a meaningful way and drive brand love and recruitment.

Nigeria's position as a digital-first economy reinforces the need for scale, tech-enabled execution. Consumers are increasingly purchasing through smartphones, with platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram becoming vital for small business sales. Digital payment adoption is also accelerating the shift away from cash, while AI tools are improving customer engagement.

Small- and medium-sized businesses contribute approximately 50% of Nigeria's GDP. And so we make sure our strategy prioritizes digital tools, route-to-market expansion and tailored support for small businesses to enhance customer experience.

On top of this, the market has very attractive demographics. As Naya mentioned, Nigeria has the largest population in Africa, and it's forecasted to grow by around 2% annually, which means adding 30 million consumers in the next 5 years. Crucially, it's a young population. Nearly 70% of Nigerians are under the age of 30 with a median age of just 17. This results in a powerful engine for a long-term growth and sustained consumer recruitment.

The consumer base is economically diverse and evolving with distinct consumer segments that are different in size and purchasing power. For instance, for the majority of the population, we know there is a strong demand for affordable products. However, Nigeria is also home to roughly 15 million affluent consumers. That's larger than the total population of Greece, for example, and it presents a clear opportunity for premiumization.

We remain focused on serving all segments of the market, which is why we tailor our pack-price architecture and offerings to meet the diverse needs of consumers across all income levels.

There's also significant headroom for growth in per capita consumption. Nigeria's sparkling per cap consumption currently stands at 72, well below our group average of 139, but it's moving in the right direction, and we've seen growth of nearly 20% in the last 5 years.

The industry is expected to continue to grow volumes at a solid mid-single-digit rate, as you can see on the right-hand side, and this will help drive further acceleration in per capita consumption.

So how do we leverage these demographics and market characteristics to drive growth? We do it through our leading 24/7 portfolio, tailored to win in Nigeria across segments and occasions. Sparkling is our core driver of growth. We have a strong and growing leadership position with our well-balanced portfolio across PET, RGB and cans.

We lead with affordability through our returnable glass bottles. We are 1 of only 2 sparkling players competing in this format. And with our unique infrastructure, scale and reach, we are the clear market leader.

At the same time, we drive premiumization through, for example, Schweppes in Adult Sparkling, but also different package formats, for example, cans. A great example of how we tailored our portfolio to Nigeria is with the Schweppes Chapman flavor, which was an innovation rooted in local taste preferences.

Energy is our growth engine with a very strong 5-year volume CAGR. It now contributes double-digit percentage to our revenue, driven by a smart dual-brand strategy, positioning Monster as a premium lifestyle brand and Predator as an accessible high-quality affordable option.

Juices and Premium Spirits are also important parts of our offering as both categories have high NSR per unit case, it helps us improve our portfolio profitability. We started distributing Premium Spirits in 2017 and have since scaled out our offering with brand partners to capture value in this premium segment. As a result, Nigeria is now the largest [ Macalar ] market across CCH countries.

This balanced approach, affordability, premiumization and diverse category exposure positions us to win in Nigeria's diverse market.

I will now hand to Dayo to explain more about how we are driving growth and leveraging passion points authentically in our 2 largest categories, sparkling and energy.

Thank you, Goran, and hello, everyone. I'm the Trade Marketing Director for Coca-Cola Hellenic in Nigeria, where I lead a team that works hand-in-hand with the Nigerian marketing team for the Coca-Cola Company to drive end-to-end marketing execution in Nigeria. Before joining CCH, I was the VP of Strategy for the Coca-Cola Company's Africa operating unit for 4 years until 2023. And before that, I was a consultant at Bain & Company.

When it comes to sparkling, Coke Studio is a truly powerful example of how in close partnership with Coca-Cola Company, we engage with cultural momentum in a way that resonates with young audiences. Launched in 2023, Coke Studio in Nigeria has become a multiyear music platform, designed to connect with Nigerian Gen Z consumers through co-created culturally relevant content.

We signed 3 local artists with global following, 18 million Instagram followers. We reached 10 million consumers through live experiences and delivered significant transactional value through value-added promotion on bottles of Coke, giving consumers the opportunity to win prizes.

In 2024, together with the Coca-Cola Company, this strategy helped us add over 1 million weekly plus consumers, drive further market share gains in sparkling, deliver best-in-class engagement and be awarded the #1 Coke Studio market across the Coca-Cola system. It is a great example of how we contribute to the evolution and global reach of local culture while driving value for our business.

Now when it comes to energy and Predator in particular, we're seeing phenomenal momentum. Since launching the brand in 2020, we've delivered a 150% volume CAGR, which is a standout growth story. The secret, it's all about locally relevant marketing that really resonates with Nigerian consumers. And nothing connects in Nigeria quite like football does.

A great example is our Chelsea FC sponsorship. Nigeria has millions of passionate Chelsea fans. So this partnership instantly builds relevance and emotional connection for the Predator brand. At the same time, we're also deeply invested in grassroots engagements. We partnered with the World Freestyle Football Association to launch national tournaments like the Predator Energy Nigerian Freestyle Football Championship. This allows us to build real consumer engagement in a market where brand experience is key.

This is a great illustration of what Naya spoke about earlier, combining global brand power with local insight and execution to drive relevance, loyalty and sustained growth. Back to you, Goran.

So we've shown you how we are driving growth in our 24/7 portfolio and tapping into the many opportunities for growth in Nigeria. To really demonstrate how we do it, we have to talk about our bespoke capabilities.

We recognize that emerging markets cover complexity, and Nigeria has absolutely faced significant challenges in the recent years. But for us, we view these as opportunities to win in the market and drive a stronger competitive position. Despite the high levels of inflation and currency devaluation over the past 3 years, we've delivered volume and share growth, along with improvements in customer NPS.

Our ability to navigate this environment comes back to what Naya was describing about our winning formula for success in emerging markets, the powerful combination of local knowledge and talent while benefiting from CCH culture and group strengths.

Our dedicated and unique sales and supply chain academies reflect our long-term commitment to developing talent and strengthening capabilities. Through these platforms, we are building a highly skilled workforce that drives growth, enhances efficiencies and sharpens our competitive edge.

We are also intentional about building leadership capabilities through both global and local programs with the aim of strengthening our succession pipeline. We build a flexible and adaptable mindset, empowering our people to manage volatility proactively with a constant scenario planning. We can activate different parts quickly and effectively, depending on real-time conditions on the ground.

Let me share with you a few examples on how we do this in Nigeria. We collaborate closely with the group treasury on proactive ForEx scenarios planning, ensuring we have multiple pricing scenarios ready to roll out as currency conditions evolve.

We've shifted from monthly to weekly P&L simulations, giving us a sharper, more continuous view of performance and enabling faster decision-making. And we significantly increased price transparency with key suppliers, allowing us to manage input costs more effectively.

And in terms of the current macro environment, we are beginning to see signs of the improvement, including easing inflation, greater ForEx stability and meaningful government reforms. I don't want to overstate this, but we are certainly more positive about the external environment than we have been for a few years.

As we build talent and our culture, we also relentlessly evolve our other bespoke capabilities. You've heard Zoran and Naya discuss the importance of our bespoke capabilities when we discuss overall CCH strategy. For Nigeria, it is no different, and it's a key element of how we drive our competitive advantage and navigate volatility.

These capabilities aren't generic. We purpose built them to win in a complex market like Nigeria. Each one makes a tangible difference for our customers, our teams and our performance.

Starting with revenue growth management. As you know well, RGM allow us to improve revenue per case, focusing on three priorities: pricing, mix and promo optimization. In Nigeria to address the high levels of inflation and currency devaluation, we executed 16 pricing actions across 2023 and '24 combined. As highlighted earlier, our approach consistently balances affordability with premiumization, ensuring we protect volumes as well as revenue per unit case.

A great example of this is the performance of the affordable returnable glass bottle portfolio, which was the key driver of our volume growth in 2024, for which we saw [ 90% ] growth. At the same time, last year, we accelerated premiumization, delivering 40% growth in Schweppes.

Moving to route-to-market. In Nigeria, we operate in a highly fragmented retail landscape with nearly 1 million outlets, with 94% of those being traditional stores. To navigate this, we have 8 plants located across Nigeria, including in Maiduguri, making us the only player in the industry to have a significant presence in the Northeast of Nigeria.

Our supply chain infrastructure supports our omnichannel approach, allowing us to cover 100% of the market. How do we do this? With our direct sales team, which is the largest in Nigeria, we visit the most important 280,000 outlets, driving high execution discipline and achieving leading customer satisfaction. We then serve the remaining outlet universe through our leading large network of wholesale and distribution partners. This allows us to serve our customers day in, day out, which is a key competitive advantage.

In a digital-first market like Nigeria, having the right digital tools for our customers is important. Our WhatsApp chatbot is a great example of where we have responded to the local dynamics to build a tool specifically for customers in Nigeria. This tool uses daily for order taking showcasing how smart, simple tech can transform customer experience and drive sales execution. Let's show you the tool in a short video.

[Presentation]

Finally, I'll touch on data insights and analytics. As Naya mentioned at the start, Nigeria was one of the pilot markets for DIA at Hellenic. Through DIA segmented execution, we provide suggested orders tailored to each outlet, enabling our sales teams to proactively recommend the most relevant product mix.

We also apply segmentation to personalize in-store activations, ensuring we focus on the right levers for each customer. This level of personalization is essential in a market as diverse and dynamic as Nigeria. And Nigeria continues to lead the way when it comes to new initiatives, which is where Ignite Naija comes in.

And I will hand back to Dayo to cover this in more detail.

Thanks, Goran. So what is Ignite Naija? As we've spoken about before, in collaboration with Coca-Cola Company, we are leveraging our data, insights and analytics capabilities to segment consumers and customers. Ignite Naija is a new initiative that was started by the system in Nigeria, where we link consumer and customer data, enabling end-to-end segmented execution to accelerate profitable growth.

Zoran spoke about this at the Q1 results on how it is helping us activate our premium portfolio, but it's broader than this. For targeted cities in Nigeria, we now have custom-built segmentation, and we're able to categorize affluency per outlet per city. Lets play the video.

[Presentation]

As you've seen from the video, this new approach is allowing us hyperpersonalized consumer communications by linking consumer and customer data sets to then drive execution in store. We're enhancing our existing sales force tools such as suggested orders and recommended activities to be included in the pilot, empowering our business developers to drive change.

The initial results from pilot show that when compared to previous year performance for test versus control outlets, volume per outlet was 7 percentage points higher and NSR per unit case was 4 percentage points higher. It's a great ample of the many ways the Coca-Cola Company team and our team can drive recruitment together in Nigeria.

It is also particularly exciting as this collaboration was the first of its kind within the Coca-Cola system, and we are confident in its potential to be scaled. Now we don't have you with us in Nigeria, but we would like to give you a bit of a flavor of our country. So please let's watch this video.

[Video Presentation]

Hopefully that gave you a sense of the culture and execution and excellence and execution we strive for Nigeria. And so what's next? Rebuilding Nigeria is just the beginning, and we are confident we can continue to unlock future value. For the medium term, we aim to continue delivering double-digit organic revenue growth. We also expect margin recovery after a few challenging years and overall improvement from here.

Let me take a bit of time to take you through the drivers of these ambitions. Unlocking per capita consumption across our whole portfolio remains a key lever. We'll continue to recruit consumers, building brand equity and recognition, especially in our big category bets of sparkling and energy.

A great example is the upcoming launch of the Share a Coke campaign in Nigeria in Q4 this year, which we're very excited about. This version of the campaign will feature over 1,000 names, celebrating the rich diversity of our country. We'll also drive NSR per unit case through premiumization and improving category mix, also exploring the launch of new categories, such as coffee, which we are trialing as of last month, and snacks.

We will continue to win in the market by expanding our route-to-market to reach more consumers more effectively. In 2024, we added 55,000 more retail outlets that we directly cover, and there is more to go for. We also continue to step up our sophisticated segmentation approach and sales capabilities.

And as a system, we will continue to invest. We've committed to invest a further EUR 1 billion over the next 5 years, we'll focus on expanding our manufacturing footprint. By the end of the year, three new production lines will go live. And we will continue to build and cultivate talent to maintain our edge because our people are the foundation of our success.

I just mentioned the investment with the Coca-Cola system and its critical we play a leading group in investing in sustainability in the country, too. In January this year, we launched the first ever Coca-Cola system owned and operated state-of-the-art plastic packaging collection facility in Nigeria.

This investment is a major step forward in our commitment to reducing waste. It supports a circular economy by enabling PET collection, processing clean PET bales with the ability to process up to 13,000 plus of plastic bottles per year and ultimately, fostering rPET production through partnerships.

Through these efforts, we aim to reduce our reliance on higher-priced virgin PET. By investing in hub, we are also supporting local communities and creating jobs. Sustainability is a key priority for CCH. And while Nigeria is a different market to our others, sustainability is no less important as a growth enabler for us.

I'll now hand back to Naya for some closing remarks before we go into Q&A.

Thank you, Goran. To close, we hope today's presentation has made one thing clear. We don't just operate in Nigeria, we lead. We built a model that not only works but wins, wins in one of the most dynamic and attractive markets in the world. Through our mindset, our people and our purpose-built capabilities, we turn complexity into performance.

And we're just getting started. With continued investment in our culture, capabilities and partnerships, we are confident in our ability to unlock even greater value in Nigeria.

Thank you for your time and interest. And with that, let me hand back over to Jemima.

Thank you very much, Naya, Goran and Dayo; for the presentation. We will now start the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] And I'll also remind you that we are in close period ahead of H1 results, so please consider that when you're thinking of your questions. While we are assembling the queue of live questions, let me take the first written question from the platform, and then I'll hand over to the operator to take live questions.

And it is a question for Goran. So on pricing in Nigeria, can you explain a bit more how you navigated the last few years and still gained market share? Can you talk a bit about how you approach pricing is in the next 5 years? And if inflation came down, would you roll back your pricing?

Yes. Thank you for the question. Absolutely happy to confirm that -- I mean we navigated quite a complex currency and inflationary context in Nigeria in the year in the last few years, but also happy to confirm that in that period, we have been able to grow our shares. And we did that by leveraging on our dynamic and agile RGM framework to drive the pricing.

Now the framework has several principles, and I can cover some of them here. The overall principle is that we are aiming to cover 100% of the input cost or the COGS inflation that we are seeing in the business, which also includes any impact that can come from the currency devaluation as well.

We do that by constantly working with the group treasury team and the local treasury team, having multiple ForEx scenarios, ready to adopt different pricing plans, depending on the context on the ground. When we develop the pricing plans, we have a very clear structure of the pricing that we keep, we stick to.

For example, making sure that our returnable glass bottle always remains the most affordable choice for the consumers. And then once when we go into the pricing implementation, it is staggered or phased, so that we don't take the prices -- price increases on different packs at the same time. We rather do it in the phase, enabling consumers, for example, to switch from PET to RGB if they want.

Finally, we are always making sure that for the post-pricing periods, to ensure that we have a consistent and strong sellout trend, utilize promotions in a strategic way to drive the sellout with our consumers.

I think one last element I wanted to add is the fact that we have the advantage of having a large sales team in the country that are visiting our customers on a weekly basis. And this was a competitive advantage, I would say, because we had this opportunity to take our customers through and explain each of the pricing moves that we have been doing.

And it absolutely helped because if you even look at our customer satisfaction or NPS score, it grew in the same period, which was quite encouraging for us. So I hope that covered your question.

Great. I can hand over to the operator now. We've got a few questions coming in.

We'll take our first question from Charlie Higgs of Rothschild & Co Redburn.

I was curious if you could talk a little bit about how the consumer environment has trended over the last few years and how you've adapted to expand weekly plus consumers by 1 million. Have you pivoted more toward affordability? Or has it been more of a case of getting your products in front of consumers with the help of the Coke system? And then I have a follow-up, please.

Okay. I can start. So first, I mean, we definitely want to acknowledge that the consumer environment in Nigeria remains challenging. I mean the fact is that the inflation has been growing ahead of the disposable incomes in the last few years.

Now said that, we have been able in Q1 to grow our volumes low single digits, but faster than the industry performance. And we believe that we are excellent -- I mean, that we are a great position to do that, also because of our strong affordable offers, in our specific case, the RGBs. And so that absolutely helped us to drive the performance in the environment when the consumer environment remains challenging.

But at the same time, we are driving the premiumization, as mentioned before. And the examples we shared were the examples of the Adult Sparkling with Schweppes, but also with the cans as a different or more premium pack type and ultimately with the Premium Spirits portfolio.

Now said that about the affordability and the consumer sentiment, I think I also would like to share that we are driving the recruitment at the same time. We believe that we have at least two fantastic passion points that we are exploring. One that was mentioned in the presentation, is music, where we talked about Coke Studio that helped us recruit -- acquire a record number of the people or consumers in that period.

But also looking forward, we are extremely excited to recognize that in Q4, which is a key trading season in Nigeria, we are bringing Share a Coke, which is another great example or a great campaign that we believe is going to help us to further recruit more consumers.

And then finally, maybe one example that is outside of the sparkling category, which we also presented today, which is football and the example of the Predator energy brand that we have, where we are leveraging on a global partnership, but also activating at a local level, at a grassroot level, as we like to call it.

So I think my point is, from a portfolio perspective, with our affordable choices, we believe that we are perfectly positioned to respond to the current consumer sentiment in the country. But at the same time, we do believe that we have a great assets, the passion points to continue recruiting the new consumers.

Great. And the follow-up was just on margins in Nigeria, where you spoke about wanting to improve for over time. Can you maybe share some color, what are the key drivers of that? And with regards to transactional FX, how much of the cost base is in U.S. dollars and how that's trended over the past 5 years with all the currency devaluation?

Yes. I think one thing we can say is that in 2024, we have seen a recovery of the margins, including the absolute EBIT. Our expectation is that, that recovery continues in 2025. Now, in specific case, we are absolutely focused on driving our top line. We believe that there is both volume, but also other elements of the NSR mix opportunity in Nigeria.

I would like to remind that in Nigeria, our pack mix is approximately 95% immediate consumption. And because of that, we are very much focused on the elements of mix that are category mix. And I think we mentioned today energy category and Adult Sparkling, but also channel mix, where we are seeing quite the emerging modern trade, specifically premium HoReCa that is also bringing better margins.

So we are absolutely focused on driving the NSR per unit case and continue to driving our volume as a key element of our revenue growth. But at the same time, we are absolutely using and we are going to manage any opportunity on the cost side.

I would like to also use the opportunity to say that our OpEx as a percent of the NSR is at a best-in-class level within the Coca-Cola [ clinic ]. But as I said, we are still going to continue exploring any opportunity to further improve our cost management. But the absolute priority is on growing the top line.

Our next live question come Aron Adamski of Goldman Sachs.

I have two questions. First is on the recent 60, 70 liter packaging [ upsize ] in Nigeria that I think you launched. Can you please give us some color on what consumer insights have prompted you to launch this format and also, if you expect this to become a permanent feature of your package architecture in the country? And it would also be great to hear what has been the feedback from customers on this launch.

And the second question is on returnable glass bottles, which have been mentioned a few times, and they have been growing very strongly. Can you give us some color on how the economics of a returnable glass bottle versus a PET bottle are different for you in Nigeria?

So let me start. Yes. So if I go back to what I said a few minutes ago is that our Q1 performance was ahead of the industry growth. So we saw the opportunity to further trigger or accelerate the industry growth by offering more value to the consumers. And that's exactly what we did at the end of the Q1.

We launched or upsized from 50 to 60 CL PET in some of the regions in Nigeria, while at the same time, some of our competitors already did that or they are doing that as we speak. And we did that because we understood that the consumer sentiment is still impacted by the fact that the overall inflation has been growing ahead of the disposable income.

Now we are obviously going to stay agile and open and flexible in our decisions of going back to the 50 CL or remaining in the 60 CL, depending on the future industry performance, which we are optimistic about. And we do -- as I said, we do expect to stay open for a change in the pack size.

Now moving to the second part of the question that was about the RGB, I'm happy to confirm that together as the overall profitability in 2024, our RGB profitability improved, and we have the same expectations for 2025. I would like to point out here that from the foreign exchange exposure, RGB is also one of the levers because it has a lower foreign exchange exposure comparing to some other pack types that we do have that is also ultimately helping the profitability of the pack.

So I think the key point is that it is an affordable choice for the consumer, but at the same time, it is profitable and improving on profitability pack type for us.

Our next live question comes from Sanjeet Aujla of UBS.

My first question is just really coming back to the level of profitability in Nigeria. I appreciate it's been a challenging couple of years, but what's the sustainable medium-term margin level for this sort of business where your first priority is really to prioritize top line growth? Is it too demanding to see Nigeria ever reaching group-level margins? Is that realistic whilst you're trying to divest a period growth? That's my first question.

As already, I mean, discussed, we've seen quite a number of currency headwinds in Nigeria in the last few years, and that created some near-term pressure on our profitability. I think the outcome of that is that today, our EBIT margin in Nigeria is below our group average. But at the same time, probably repeating myself, we have seen improvements in the margin and the absolute EBIT in 2024, and we expect to continue improving in 2025 and beyond.

Again, our biggest opportunity really is to drive this through the top line more than the cost side, but not excluding the cost side. So absolute focus is on growing volumes and improving the quality of our NSR per unit case, where we really do have the opportunities on category mix, on channel mix.

And always, I must say, in a country like Nigeria, price is going to remain the important part of the NSR per unit case equation. So I think the best I can answer is that we are expecting a consistent improvement of our profitability in Nigeria with absolute focus on the quality of the mix.

Understood. And my follow-up question is just going back to revenue per case, clearly, a lot of pricing has been taken the last few years. From here on in, should we think about revenue per case growing ahead of inflation with pricing in line with inflation and all of the mix benefits you spoke about category, et cetera, kind of been incremental to pricing in line with inflation? Is that the right thing about it?

Yes. I mean so far, where the currency devaluation was even ahead of the inflation, our approach was to always cover for the input cost or COGS inflation. Now given the fact that we are seeing more of a stability, especially in the ForEx context in the country, I think it is fair to assume that we are going to have less frequent price actions in the near-term future.

And in terms of the driving principles for us, what we are really aiming for is to strike the balance between volume, mix and pricing when it comes to our NSR per unit case progress in the future. But at the same time, we are staying extremely agile and looking at the macroeconomic indicators in order to trigger any other part that I mentioned that we always have ready because we are working in a scenario mode, and we always have a multiple pricing scenarios ready, depending on different items.

Our next question comes from Fintan Ryan of Goodbody.

First question for me, please. I appreciate that Nigeria is huge market geographically and in terms of population. Could you give us a sense of how your market share does vary across the various regions, like particularly urban versus rural consumers?

And when you think about the volume growth opportunity, is it more about getting existing consumers? Do you see more incremental upside from getting existing consumers to consume more of your products or expanding sort of the overall consumption base?

Thank you for the question. First, I think, Nigeria is quite a sizable country, and we do have a different share dynamics in different parts of the country. One of the areas where we see the opportunity to improve our share performance is in the Greater Lagos area, where we see quite a competitive landscape.

But we also see the opportunities to improve the share not necessarily only in different geographies, but also in different category segments like, for example, [indiscernible]. But at the same time, where I see as the biggest opportunity for us to drive the share are, for example, our affordable options, the RGB that we mentioned because we are investing in the further returnable glass bottle capacity. And at the same time, there is a strong consumer demand for the returnable glass bottle.

Given the fact that we still have the opportunity to position RGB to the level of the distribution of our PET that is close to 100%, we absolutely believe that this is one of the key opportunities for us to continue driving share.

I do believe that we do have an opportunity to drive share both by the further recruitment, but also by improving the -- our sellout or the frequency of the sellout with the current consumers. So I think the opportunity is really -- it is really across, and it goes both in the rural and in the urban areas.

I think the fact that we have quite a large and developed market and the supply chain footprint helps us to really accelerate outside of the urban because as mentioned before, we have the 8 plants that are perfectly positioned with a very large route to market, reach any outlet or any customer in Nigeria. So the opportunities are quite across.

And if I can just add on what Goran just said, the program that we shared earlier, the Ignite Naija that we're doing together with the Coca-Cola Company, is actually showing the beauty about going segmented and in that way, are surfacing macro opportunities when it comes to that to go and crack what Goran just mentioned.

So we do see that this enhanced and sophisticated customer, but most importantly, consumer segmentation; translates into specific opportunities in different types of areas in Nigeria.

And just a follow-up. The Coca-Cola company owns -- has control of a stand-alone juice business within the Nigerian market or it has for several years. Is there any talks about integrating that more fully with the Coca-Cola Hellenic distribution?

No. The answer is, no.

Our next question comes from Richard Withagen of Kepler Cheuvreux.

First question is back on packaging. Apart from RGBs, you mentioned obviously that a lot, but what kind of packaging is a key focus in your RGM strategy to drive both growth and profitability?

We are well positioned across RGB, PET and can, and each one of them has a role to play. As mentioned, RGB is a great affordable choice. While at the same time, PET is the product that is distributed at almost 100% distribution across the country. And it is, at the moment, the biggest part of our overall sales. At the same time, the same -- as for RGB, we have seen the improvement in our profitability in 2024 on that pack, and we have the same expectations for 2025. So it is an important part of our RGM framework.

And then finally, the can that has the highest NSR per case, is from the pack mix perspective, absolutely the opportunity because, as mentioned, we are already 95% immediate consumption country, but the can itself comparing to the other [ IC ] packs has a higher NSR per unit case and is helping us drive the NSR per unit case mix. So each one of them has a role to play.

That's clear. And then maybe one for Naya. Nigeria aims to be an example, I think, for other countries in terms of segmentation, RGM, et cetera. And can you confirm that? And how do you make sure that the learnings are shared across the group? Any specific countries that come to mind that could benefit from how Nigeria is operating?

Yes, indeed. As we said, many things start from Nigeria, and we're very proud to see how then anyone could lift and shift certain practices there. Then it gets the way we are sharing that across our markets is literally via best practice overall sessions that we're having, number one. Number two, we're getting a lot of the learnings and insights, and we are incorporating them in the academies.

Number three, the way we are tracking overall -- each of our bespoke capabilities is surfacing also the specific examples and case studies that are happening. So it's an always-on interaction and sharing across our markets to make sure that whatever happens and we see success in Nigeria, it goes into different types of markets.

And that's the beauty, I think, about our bespoke capabilities while the frameworks and the blueprints are the same across. Then from the different examples in the countries, we see what is working and what is not working. And then we allow the markets who are fully empowered to bring them to life in their own specific locally relevant way.

Our next question comes from Robert Ottenstein of Evercore ISI.

First, a big-picture question. I think you mentioned that per cap consumption in Nigeria was below the Africa average by about 10. Is that a function of the weight of South Africa? And how do you think about where the per cap consumption in Nigeria makes sense? Where do you benchmark it? So that's the first question.

And then the second question on the energy side, I think you mentioned that energy is now 12% of sales. Can you talk about what percentage of operating profit it is and what part of the overall value chain for Monster that you capture?

So on the per cap point, I will start. So we believe the per capita consumption opportunity in Nigeria is evident. I mean, we mentioned the opportunity versus the average of Africa, but also we can recognize the fact that comparing to the other 28 Coca-Cola Hellenic markets, there is quite an opportunity.

So we believe that what we are doing with recruiting consumers in a meaningful way by building the brands, especially behind the sparkling and energy, with the program that we presented some of them today is the way to go to continue driving the per capita consumption.

And again, just to remind, in Q4 this year, we are launching Share a Coke campaign, which we are extremely excited about because we are going to have more than 1,000 names in Nigeria, which is the highest number of any market in the world, we believe. And together with other passion points, we believe that this is going to help us further accelerate the per capita.

Speaking about the energy, energy is extremely attractive category at the moment in Nigeria. And our performance within the energy has been extremely strong. We believe that that's the outcome of the fact that we first have a fantastic portfolio where we are perfectly positioned in both premium, with the Monster as a premium proposition, but also with the Predator as an accessible high-quality proposition.

And at the same time, we have a fantastic passion points that we are -- that we presented one of them today with the football, that is helping us to recruit more energy consumers, and we plan to continue recruiting more consumers in the energy.

Now said that, it is also fair to recognize that per capita consumption of energy drinks in Nigeria is also very low, even comparing to the SSDs and definitely comparing to the energy drinks per capita in our other markets. So despite the fact that it is one of our growth drivers, we still see quite an opportunity also to accelerate the energy.

Now on the final part of the question, what I can say is that, first, yes, it is currently contributing 12% of our share in the revenues. We are quite optimistic that with the current rates, it will even increase, especially having in mind that we have a bold vision or long-term aspiration to become the leading player in the energy. So we do believe that a mix of contribution in our revenues from the energy even increases.

Our next question comes from Sanjeet Aujla of UBS.

I just had a couple of quick follow-up questions. You outlined a lot of investment going into the market. Can you just give us a sense of what sort of CapEx is required in Nigeria to deliver the growth aspirations? And can we think about the business being free cash flow positive for Hellenic? Or is it really a high investment market supported by the free cash flow generated elsewhere in the group?

So first, I can say that, yes, Nigeria is the investment market at the moment. We do believe that we are in a good growth and a good investment in a good investment phase. As an outcome of that, our return on investment capital in Nigeria is of the group levels because we are investing ahead of the curve.

So ultimately, we know there is a balance to strike as we don't want to reduce the investment and see the return on the investment capital improving and then have to step up the investment to fuel further growth in the future. We believe that this may be more expensive and harder to catch up.

Today, the Nigerian ForEx market is functioning well. And there is also an improvement in ForEx liquidity, which allows us to source the hard currency. And in case we would need to repatriate cash, we will be able to do so. But as mentioned, since Nigeria is in a good growth and it's in an investment phase, the cash in the country funds the operational and the CapEx investment needs of the business. And for that reason, there is no need to expatriate the cash out of the country.

And just a quick follow-up, please, on RGB. So a lot of discussion around this today. You spoke quite a bit about further investments in this pack format being a competitive advantage.

Can you give us a sense of what sort of distribution you have in RGBs today relative to PET? And what the plans are with the investments that you put in to be in the next 3 to 5 years?

So RGB is currently the fastest-growing part of our business. And there is still a large opportunity, as mentioned before. We do have the opportunity to probably increase our distribution for approximately 20 to 25, I would say, percentage points comparing to the PET, which is the outcome of us continuing to invest further in the capacity of the RGB. That also includes the glass bottles and the manufacturing lines. So I'm not sure that I got the question in full.

Yes. I think like we are increasing overall the capacity in RGBs. It always starts with like making sure that we are meeting demand and expand overall our outlet coverage, so when it comes to that, and all this is part of overall the way we are thinking about the markets and in particular case of Nigeria, the way we build our longer plans together with the Coca-Cola Company.

Got it. And just my final one. Just on the absolute price point of RGB versus PET, can you give us a sense of the price differential at the consumer level?

Yes. I mean our RGB at the moment is 2 price points below our core PET pack.

There are no further questions on the webinar. I will now hand over to Jemima to address the written questions. Please go ahead.

I'm conscious of time. So I'll just -- a couple of the questions have already been answered, I think, in other answers. So just a couple left. So the first one is, so 10 years or so ago, sparking competed more directly with beer for what was quite a small consumer wallet. But given the level of development of the economy today, to what extent now does sparking still compete directly with beer?

My view is that -- I mean, first, both categories independently have quite an opportunity to grow. So we are very much focused on growing our category by recruiting more consumers and driving behind the benefits of our bespoke capabilities that we already suggested today.

So at the same time, I mean, yes, we can acknowledge also there are some meaningful reforms coming from the government that are helping potentially increase the consumer disposable income in the future. I think some of them we mentioned. Like the increase of the minimum wage for the consumers, that is definitely going to help drive both beer and any RTD industry performance.

So I do believe that for us at the moment, not necessarily competing for the beer consumers, we have quite an opportunity to keep growing our volumes and our shares.

And the next question is around -- just another one on energy. So can you talk a little bit more about the demographics of the energy consumers in Nigeria, whether that's male or female, age? How different is it versus sparkling? How much kind of overlap is there in the consumers of energy and sparkling?

Yes. I mean I can try. I believe that one of the key elements that comes out strong in Nigeria is the need for the functional benefit because a lot of Nigerians and consumers are quite in a move almost 24/7. We call it a hustling lifestyle. So that's what makes energy offerings quite unique in Nigeria.

At the same time, energy has a different price positioning comparing to our core sparkling portfolio. And I don't believe that that's necessarily competing at least at that price level. As I said before, I do believe that both categories independently have quite an opportunity to grow because we discussed the per capita opportunity for both categories and that is quite sizable. So opportunity across.

And overall, for the energy, the industry trends are so attractive, and there is so much increased consumer demand for this category, so it keeps growing and expanding. So there are -- like it is evolving when it comes to consumer taste, and so there are like opportunities. And the way we are playing in both categories, energy and SSDs is allowing actually by the occasions and all the segmented approach that we're using to leverage and grow both.

Fantastic. Well, that was the last question on the webcast, and we're out of time really. So I would just say thank you very much for joining the presentation today. We hope it's given you greater insights into our Nigerian business and look forward to speaking to you again soon, and I'll hand back to the operator to close the call.

Thank you for joining today's call. We are no longer live. Have a nice day.