Heineken Aktie

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Mitch Collett from Deutsche Bank's Consumer Staples Research team. And I'm delighted to be joined on stage by Harold van den Broek, CFO of Heineken. Harold, you have been CFO now for roughly 5 years. It's been an eventful period for the company. But when you look back at those 5 years, what do you see as the key achievements, what do you hope to achieve in the years to come?

And if I may, can you perhaps provide a quick update on the situation with the change of CEO.

Of course, of course. So first, let me reflect back indeed over the past 5 years. As you say, it has been a very eventful period. We've seen a lot of turbulence, not only in Heineken, but also in the world. And I do believe that one of the things that we're proud of is how we've navigated this volatility. It's also one of the beauties of our footprint. we really have global scale, and therefore, we can balance things out when stuff happens in one particular region, like, for example, the big pricing in Europe that we had to take because of the Russia-Ukraine war. We then saw the Africa resilience counterbalancing that and also the Americas at that moment in time.

But speaking for me personally, it has been also a very rewarding period because one of the questions that we had from investors, but also internally is, look, Heineken was known to be a growth company, and I'm sure we're going to talk about that more. But how do we capture the value from the growth? And what we said, we need to bring cost and productivity much more to the forefront of the Heineken culture. And I asked at that moment in time also for some patience to bring capital returns in. Now if you look over the past 5 years, we had a fantastic progress on our cost and productivity agenda that really helped us navigate this volatility, but also to keep on investing in the long term of the business.

And secondly, we also now see the first benefits of capital productivity, cash returns coming in. And we've changed the culture accordingly. Now I think that's a nice link to the CEO transition as well. We put a statement out there last week, where the Supervisory Board says we're well on track. The new appointment is imminent, but too early to say now. That was an indication that the Supervisory Board, a, takes this extremely seriously. also follows due protocol. And I think we're nearing the end state of the CEO search, but we can only announce when we can announce and everything is done and completed. Meanwhile, the executive team knows what to do. We have a strategy. We're focused on execution. And basically, we are focused on delivering the goods for this year.

Okay. Understood. I guess we're 2 months into the second quarter. It's still quite a complicated uncertain operating environment. At a global level, is there anything really to call out in terms of the health of the consumer, the competitive environment, the World Cup, the weather, anything else that might affect your performance?

Yes. Well, that's all is there, Mitch. But maybe a good way to think about this, let's do a bit of a tour around the world is how we see it. So first, Europe is a cautious consumer environment. But we see that the category is stabilizing. And therefore, people like to go out, but there's a very, very much price-conscious consumer that we have to factor in. If you go to Africa a little bit south, very, very happy with the agility that we see that in these markets. The resilience is very good. We see pockets of growth like Ethiopia, South Africa is working for us. Nigeria in terms of share is doing very well.

And also Asia, I think, is the big one for us in terms of positive consumer sentiment, healthy macroeconomic conditions despite the Middle East crisis and our businesses are doing very well. At the start of the year, I was the outlier who basically was a bit more cautious on the Americas. And I actually pointed, we've learned the lesson the hard way image to really look at macroeconomic fundamentals. So we saw high interest rates, GDP is coming down.

So we are, at this moment in time, a little bit more cautious on the Americas. And we see also the beer category slightly contracting as a result of that. Now this is before the World Cup, you said. And look, we may hope for a beautiful summer weather in Europe this time around, but we are focusing more on the fundamentals. So I hope I'm proving wrong. But for me, the Americas is the one where I say, look, let's be a bit cautious.

Okay. I'm going to put you on the spot here, but who do you want to win the World Cup from a Heineken perspective?

Well, Mexico, Brazil, please.

Okay. Understood. And you've -- I would imagine maybe different from a personal perspective, but you've guided to 2% to 6% organic EBIT [ beia ] growth this year. I think you've just given a reason why it's maybe slightly below the range we would normally expect from the Heineken model. But what are the sort of key puts and takes as we think about the balance of the year that would get you towards the top end or the bottom end of that range?

Yes. Look, I mentioned this before. We started to move away from, let's call it, just doing the mathematics around our 2% to 6% range. We know that a good summer helps. We know that the reason -- a rainy summer doesn't help. But that's really not, let's call it, how we plan at the moment within our guidance ranges. We really have multiple scenarios that we're working through.

So -- and the biggest unknown at this moment in time is how long the Strait of Hormuz will be closed and what are the ripple effects for the markets, not only from a coverage this time of year, let's call it, the pricing impact we can absorb, but it's much more the consumer sentiment that is much more difficult to assess and the impact that it will have. So we're really working market by market with different scenarios, and that's the 2% to 6% range. And at the moment, as we just confirmed in our quarter 1 trading update, we're basically confirming that guidance range.

Okay. And I guess you didn't know about the -- you couldn't have known about the situation in the Middle East when you gave 2% to 6% I appreciate you're pretty well covered in terms of hedging for this year. But there are some costs that can't be hedged.

That's true.

And then I guess, if things stay as they are, would you expect there to be a need for price increases next year? And bearing in mind, you've been through a period of elevated inflation fairly recently. How do you think about the health of the consumer to take those price increases necessary?

That's a very good question. So first, let me pay a compliment to our organization because linked to the previous answer to the question, we really are starting to think about what are the macroeconomic indicators that we see, what are the different scenarios that we want to see play out. And as a consequence, although we didn't know that the Middle East crisis was going to happen, we had scenarios prepared, and we were very much on the front foot in terms of our productivity agenda to deal with that ambiguity. So I just want to pay a compliment because part of the offset of cost 2026 is because we were already leaning in to drive the cost out of the system in a much more aggressive way than we would otherwise have done.

And that keeps it possible to not price, not panic, keep on investing in our business while still delivering within that guidance range, as you said. Now looking ahead, this is a very different reality than we had in '22, '23 when there was a sudden energy crisis. It was all focused on Europe. And within the space of weeks, we saw a tenfold increase in the price of gas at that moment in time. We are now seeing still a very significant impact. but it's phased over time, and it's more of a global energy issue that we're currently facing. And that gives us time to prepare. It gives us time to prepare with the right portfolio, different pack-wise architecture, different market-by-market realities.

So in that sense, it's not a repeat of 2022, '23 that we see. We really are starting to look at incremental measures, revenue margin growth opportunities, as we call them, to cover the pricing and inflationary impact. Having said that, all other things being equal with aluminum, diesel and LNG now at elevated pricing levels, we do forecast some moderate inflation going into 2027.

Okay. Makes sense. We'll come back to the sort of bigger picture longer term in a minute. But you mentioned Americas as an area where maybe there's a few market challenges. Maybe just some perspectives on what's driving that in Mexico, first of all. I think you've been gaining share in the on-trade. So what's causing the market weakness? And I guess, what can you do to execute your way through that?

Yes. So first, again, I said it before, but let me be short and repeat. The reality that we're facing in Mexico, and we'll come and talk about in Brazil, I'm sure, is a slightly subdued macroeconomic environment. GDP is lower. Interest rates are elevated, given the pending trade agreements, renegotiation, foreign direct investments is a little bit lower than what we expected. And this is not good for the beer category as we see it. We were a bit surprised with our own results and competitive results in quarter 1, but we see in April that, that is becoming a little bit more equal.

So we have the same read of the market reality at this moment in time, which is the beer market is in slight decline. Now the trigger effect is we have very responsible competition. So all of us are really trying to bring growth back into the category, which means that we're investing in affordability. We're investing in the channel shifts. We're investing in our brands. At the same time, we also need to acknowledge that at the same period last year, we had fantastic growth in the first half of the year in market share, but didn't see the volume uplift.

So we had to correct for pricing in the second half of the year, and we are now working through that. That takes a bit longer than what we expected. So we're not happy about that, but we need to call it what it is. So probably it will take until the second half of the year for our business in Mexico to start basically balancing out that market share progression that we expect and also want to see.

Okay. And you correctly predicted that we'd go to Brazil next. So Brazil, again, it had -- it's been a very strong market for you longer term. 2025 was a bit tougher. I think Q1 was a little bit softer and maybe even got slightly softer as you went through the quarter. I guess what's driving that in Brazil? It sounds like there are some similarities. And you're still doing well, I think, in premium. So how do you indeed keep that happening in a maybe tougher context?

Yes. So again, very important. Macro category is slightly in decline. But within that category decline, it's important to see that the category continues to premiumize. So mainstream and premium are actually driving growth. Economy is going down in terms of the segments in the beer category. And this is good because we are actually well positioned, have driven that conversion into premium and into mainstream and continue to do so.

What you also need to see is a little bit longer time. We -- last year, in the first half of the year, we gained about 150 basis points of market share. We're now giving some of that back on a 2-year stack, still stronger than where we were, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years. We are very confident in the business model that we're operating in Brazil and believe that the underlying category dynamics are actually still conducive to future growth.

Last point to make, we always try to find the balance between volume-led growth and value-led growth. And we really felt that in the second half of the year and in the first half of this year, we really had an opportunity to become a little bit more aggressive in price mix, and that's what you see coming through because in the first half of last year, we were too focused on volume, hence, the market share gains. So we're always trying to find that balance over the longer term.

And with that, balance between price/mix and volume in mind, still specifically in Brazil, you opened a new brewery in Passos, sorry, in the end of Q3 2025. I think it's 5 million hectoliters in density. So how do you -- how long will it take you to fill that? And I guess what's the operational benefit of that new capacity?

Yes. So it's good to know Brazil is a big country. And there are state-by-state incentive structures that make it worthwhile to sometimes look at your infrastructure and really see where consumer demand is and where the right production facility is. So Passos brewery was important for us because it can produce the Heineken brand, and it is in a region where there is a super high demand for Heineken volume. So in that sense, the recalibration across our network was an important factor. as well as the state incentives that we were able to have. So filling the brewery is not going to be a problem, but it is going to be some level of redistribution across the other breweries, and we're very happy with the economic benefits that we have helped by state support.

Okay. Let's shift entirely and go to Vietnam, which looks like it's back to its best. And I think you've had very good growth across all the various price points. So what have you done to kind of drive Vietnam back into growth after a couple of more challenging years?

Yes. So first of all, a big compliments to the team, but let's start with what is really making us very pleased and confident in the long-term success of Vietnam. Not our doing, but we are a grateful beneficiary of government stability. There has been a lot of government changes in Vietnam. There is now government stability and a very clear economic policy. And the economic policy is about how do we make Vietnam a more highly added value economy, still relying on exports, but with more value accretion in that export construct. The GDP growth projected in the next couple of years is 6% to 7%. Urbanization rates are predicted to go up from 36%, 37% to 50% to really build that infrastructure of industry that I was just talking about. And all of these dimensions are good for beer consumption. Urbanization, population and income growth are all conducive to the category.

So we believe that Vietnam is a really good market to be in. Secondly, what we've done, we've seen a number of shifts from premium to mainstream, from on-trade to off-trade. And the team locally has really done the proper homework, not just the tactical sales adjustment, but proper homework about how we design the right portfolio to win. And we see the benefits of that coming through. Heineken is fantastic. It's really now over half of our premium volume. And we've started to create a mainstream brand with [ Larue ], including really doubling down on the off-trade volume to capture, let's call it, in-home or near-home consumption, which has been a trend shift that we've seen. As a result of that, market shares are back to all-time high. So very pleased with our Vietnam performance.

Okay. And then China, I know, is an associate business. But I think it's already a top 3 profit contribution.

Absolutely. A net profit level for sure.

And it's been in strong growth. So I guess, how do you feel about the partnership there? How do you think about the runway for growth? Can you continue to gain share in a market that's been flat to declining?

Yes. So let's start at that end part of the question. We are quite confident that growth will continue. Also in the earlier stages of this year, we saw the Heineken brand continues to grow in the high 20s. Amstel is now a very important second brand, but it's only up north, growing 60%, 70% and probably doubling volume in the first year of launch, already reaching almost close to 1 million hectoliter. And the secret of this success is mutual dependency.

We have a very good governance framework, a very good long-term joint business plan with clear allocation of roles where Heineken creates the demand and does the marketing and CRB creates the distribution and thus the execution. We're only at 30% of the addressable outlets. So there is plenty of runway to grow. And this means we have one very big brand in Heineken still growing 20s and an emerging brand in Amstel, and we've got more brands in the portfolio. So we believe that there is a mutually dependent success model at work here that will pay dividends for years to come, literally and figuratively.

And staying in Asia, Cambodia, has been a more challenging market, and I think you've seen a bit of competition from local players. I mean, is that competitive intensity still there? What can you do to outcompete the smaller players?

Yes. So unfortunately, maybe for the audience, good to know. So Cambodia is an important market for us, but we have lost significant volume. So the base is getting smaller, not because we want to, because that's the factual reality. And the reason is that there is a 7x overcapacity in that market, maybe good for the audience to know. It's very difficult to compete if there is such a high level of overcapacity. And what we have been working with the government somewhat successfully now is that we said we need to normalize the category because overcapacity and rampant promotions, the so-called ring pool that if you win, you can get a free beer in exchange, and that just continues.

So there's not a limit on it. in my words, made it more of a gambling industry than an enjoyment and responsible consumption industry, and we had that discussion with the government. The good news is the government is now banning ring pool promotions to try to take that incentive away effective in October, November, we need to see that coming to life, but that will be a first step towards restoration of, let's call it, healthy competition, and that's what we're looking for.

Okay. And then in India, it's still one of the markets with the greatest potential growth opportunity very low per capita consumption and already a big market for you. But I think you made some changes to your sales model in India. What were the changes?

So yes, how to phrase this. So when we took majority control of United Breweries, we did see some old-fashioned practices in these markets. And when I went there, I said, look, we are brewing beer for the consumer, not for excise. And it is very, very important to really start behaving like that. So what we have changed is, first of all, state-by-state engagement about what is the beer category -- why is it beneficial not only for the state because of its excise, but also for the consumers because it brings joy of true togetherness together, but in a much more responsible way than homegrown liquids.

We started to engage also with the states about outlet execution because a quality outlet brings people together to responsibly joy a beer is a very, very important factor for future growth. And you do start to see that younger consumers who are leaving home, who are going to work actually are happy to meet up with friends and enjoy a beer. So the stigma is also getting less. State by state, we see more progressive thinking in some of the states, which serves as an example for others. And all of that, together with, I have to say, international beer competitors who are playing a similar game and therefore, industry associations are starting to work to create sustainable growth going forward in a responsible manner is starting to pave the road forward. As a consequence, for example, the first couple of months this year, we see category growth of 10%, which is extremely encouraging.

And I guess before we leave it, Asia, collectively, these are some markets that probably have a greater energy dependency. And by the sounds of what you said earlier in terms of market conditions, you're not really seeing that impacting the consumer. But I guess how would you prepare for that to happen? And how would you think about any sort of supply and cost challenges coming from the situation in the Middle East?

Yes. So 2 parts to the answer. I think our teams are fully on this to create business continuity plans, and that can range from purchasing diesel just in case the generators need to run for a period longer to really start to look at alternative sourcing models if we have supplier dependency, for example. So contingency plans in terms of diesel or energy scarcity are definitely in place. Now of course, if the governments do not have access to diesel and they need to start making some priority choices going to keep a hospital open or a beer company open, there are legitimate choices to be made, and we cannot prepare for that.

Moving to a totally different continent because I know we've got a lot of the world to cover, but Europe had a few challenges last year with the shelf allocations and promotional slots. I mean you mentioned it already, but you're fully back in this year. I guess that gives you some natural volume growth. I appreciate in Q1 and Q2, it's difficult because of the timing of Easter and the World Cup. But I guess, how do you feel about the shelf space you've regained? And would you expect to deliver volume growth in Europe this year?

Yes, very important. The answer is yes. On the first part of the question, and that is we call that just in time. But we are confident in the regaining of the position that we had. We had very tough retail negotiations. These things happen. We mutually agreed on a way forward. And it's important to say that we are seeing quality execution in the outlets coming back. So we're not buying our volume to recover, let's call it, our position. This is really done with the right shelf resets and the right quality of execution.

Now our market share is also accelerating. So we're quite happy with our relative performance in the European market. The category in itself is not yet back to growth. And that is perhaps the link to the second one. I'm hesitant to make projections. A good summer, a great World Cup obviously help, but let's first control the controllables, and that is do perfect execution, gain share and then consumers will have to do the rest.

Okay. In Africa, Nigeria has been a market where you've had, I guess, your fair share of ups and downs. But like a lot of the markets we talked about today, it's actually doing pretty well now, but the sounds of it. I guess, how are you sort of managing that business longer term to avoid the volatility that we've seen in the past?

On the whole Africa continent.

Well, I meant Nigeria specifically, but if you'd rather.

No. So for me, it's a good example of what we have done well. So again, Nigeria, 200 million population. So this is a market which has a lot of potential. We had 14 million hectoliter of installed capacity. So for us, this was an extremely important market to grow and protect because of its potential that it holds. What we have done in 2 years ago when the whole currency and it devalued by 80%, so 8-0, many companies left Nigeria because they saw no future in that market.

We decided to double down and basically refinance that organization and at the same time, really make sure that our product portfolio was healthy, right gross margins, right price points, right brands to really create a price tiering for wealthier and less wealthy consumers and take a lot of cost out. We are now doing that. And the numbers are public, but we are debt-free. We're back to healthy operating profit margins. Currency is now stable. And as a result of that, it takes a bit of time for consumer incomes to rise because the inflation is coming down, but household incomes have not yet recovered. -- but I can't wait for the day until 200 million Nigerians are drinking beer more every month. That will be a very good thing to witness.

Okay. And then South Africa is post the acquisition of Distell is very much a multi-beverage model. I guess why is that the right model for South Africa? And I know you do, do cider and RTDs in other markets. But I guess how do you think about the opportunity to do multi-beverage in other places?

Yes. Two parts. First of all, the Heineken Beverages as we call it, was really coming together of a Distell portfolio and the Heineken portfolio, and that was beyond beer, the ciders, the RTDs, the grape-based drinks, the wines and the Heineken portfolio, which is beer-centric only. And we saw the need to combine that in order to have much more gravitas in a highly concentrated market. So for us, this was an opportunity to combine forces, but also broaden the category offering so that we can serve more consumers more often.

That was the idea. It took us some time, both for the cultural integration, but also to make sure that we have the right conversations with the customers so that they can see that we are strategically vested in South Africa, and we are a reliable partner for the future, and this is working at this moment in time very much so. So we're happy with the progress that we've made in South Africa, but we're not there where we want to be. There are years ahead of us to make that come to life. Now what is important is that we are learning this multi-beverage play. And also South Africa, for example, in adjacent markets, but we're taking Bernini, we're taking part of the Distell portfolio to Nigeria to Ethiopia, and we start to see that it resonates with consumers.

So we're actually learning at scale about what it means to be, let's call it, multi-segment player. And this is also how we look at the future. So whilst we say we're a proud beer company, we want really beer to be centric, it is very important to acknowledge that there are opportunities outside and [ FIFCO ] is one of those examples as well, where we are very happily expanding the portfolio. And outside of the U.S., we're actually the biggest, let's call it, outside of beer company in the planet with RGDs cider. So it's not that this is foreign territory for us.

Okay. So I said we'd move to something a bit longer term. You unveiled Evergreen 2030 back at the Investor Day last year in [ Seville ]. And the ambition there is mid-single-digit revenue growth, profit ahead of revenue, and I think EPS ahead of revenue. So how is -- what are the building blocks to get you there? And I know you talked about how you've done a good job on cost with the original EverGreen but what are the key differences between EverGreen and EverGreen 2030?

Well, maybe start there. The key difference for Evergreen '25 and EverGreen 2030 is that we really bring focus and differentiation into the strategy. So important to know, we believe that there's growth in beer globally. It's driven by the basics of population growth, income growth and urbanization as we also talked in Vietnam. So we believe in the case for beer. What we also believe in, and we've seen that in the last 5 years also is that our advantaged footprint because we are more present in Africa and in Asia is actually a help.

So part of that mid-single-digit growth is coming from growth in beer, advantaged footprint, and then we need to put pricing and premiumization and mix management on top to get to that mid-single-digit growth. That can happen in beer. It can happen in beyond beer as we call it. So that's a very important construct as we see it. The focus and differentiation we bring in is we've also thought 18 priority growth markets, 18 are catering for 90% of the future growth. So we are really focusing our resources on the priority growth markets. Secondly, we believe that global brands and local brands both have a relevant role to play.

So out of a portfolio of 300 brands, 5 global brands and 25 regional power brands will again do 90% of the future growth, and that's where the resources will be. So that's how we believe we can outcompete in a growing category with the right price mix and premiumization to get to that mid-single-digit growth. Good productivity and very importantly, the capital that we are now adding to our muscle. So cash flow generation, cash conversion that allows us to do value-accretive acquisitions or share buybacks. basically bring us that EPS leverage, operating profit and EPS leverage that you were referring to. So that's the model. We're really focusing on growth, but capital and cost productivity basically create the leverage further down the P&L.

Okay. And you talked about cost there and you talked about cost earlier. You've also announced what must have been a very difficult decision, the reduction of 5,000 to 6,000 roles. Where are you in the process of that rationalization? And I guess, how do you sort of maintain your commercial effectiveness when you're taking out headcount of that scale?

That's a good question. And we put it intentionally in our full year outlook in 2020 -- in the full year results 2025 because we wanted to give an internal signal. And the internal signal was the change will accelerate. We will not pause, also not with the CEO transition. So we're actually making -- I will disclose the numbers at the half year results, but we're actually making very good progress against that 5,000 to 6,000 people headcount reduction. And surprisingly, the appetite from the markets is there because it's not just a squeeze the lemon. It's a systematic different way of working that we're putting in there. And I'll give you 2 examples. We're moving to Heineken Business Services.

We're moving to supply networks. And that basically means we get more productivity out of the same infrastructure, and we can, therefore, do more with less people. The second thing to your point about how do we think about this is the global commerce team under [ Bram's ] leadership is really to apply artificial intelligence now also on, let's call it, the commercial growth engine of our company. And that creates synergies in cost, but also synergies in speed and effectiveness. And that's also why it is actually helpful for us to basically reallocate resources, but also become more productive as an organization.

I'm glad you mentioned AI because I know you've had -- you've been through a significant period of investment in your digital backbone. Are you now at a point where that investment can really start to pay off? And I guess, how is AI integrated into the tools you're using with that?

Yes. No, great question. So first of all, we are balancing pace with risk in the rollout of the digital backbone. And for the people in the room who don't know what I'm talking about, it's basically a common infrastructure for Heineken that covers both the front end of our organization, so customer, but also, let's call it, consumer-like marketing as well as the back end of the organization like the whole ERP that you usually have. And we call that our digital backbone because that's what it is. It is a backbone to our company.

What is important is that we are, let's call it, learning at scale, but also taking risk into account. So we have about an implementation model where every year, we do about 8 to 12 markets, but we have 80 to cover. So this will take about 5 to 6 years to bring it in, but we're not waiting with new technology to be applied. So what I was just talking about it, this Freddy AI is very important because this is the engine for marketing to be much more sophisticated and leveraging AI. And this is, I think, the more important part. So we are consistent in our investment in AI, but reaping the benefits where they are being seen.

And in Freddy AI, named after the famous Freddy Heineken, we do 3 things in marketing with the help of digital. It's a knowledge database for every marketer across the world and every salesperson in the world where certain problem statements or brand or channels or customer activations can be asked in a safe environment. So it's a knowledge database that is very interactive, so people don't have to reinvent the wheel. Second, we call Freddy [ Connect ] from idea to live campaign at the moment takes 3 to 6 months.

How do we squeeze that into 3 days and optimize our agency model so that it's more productive, cheaper and faster. And last but not least, how do we do advanced marketing mix modeling. And that is now being rolled out by the end of this year to 10 markets extra, so 15 markets. So just to show that AI is very much alive in our company, and we don't have to wait for the digital backbone to give us the benefits that we see ahead of us.

Yes. And you mentioned the focus on cash delivery. I guess you stepped up your dividend payout ratio. You've done buybacks. But Heineken historically went through a long period of sort of buying markets and adding assets. I guess, does the increase in shareholder remuneration mean that you're seeing less opportunities for acquisitive growth?

No, that's not how I would frame it, Mitch. And it's a good question that you asked there. Look, the reality is we are not living at this moment in a world that waits to be consolidated. The big industry consolidation has happened to a large extent, but there will still be opportunities out there. We will be an acquisitive company going forward. What is equally the case is that growth is a little bit more subdued at this moment in time and interest rates are higher. So our capital allocation priorities are all geared towards how do we protect organic growth. We've built breweries now in most of our largest markets. So there is not a lot of that much more capital to be deployed.

We like consistent dividend, and we know that our investor base also appreciates that. Capital discipline is important, but what you will have seen in the last 12 to 24 months, that still leaves us with an opportunity to do acquisitions like FIFCO, which, by the way, this year is 3% accretive to EPS. So it's a fantastic acquisition for long-term growth potential, profitable to us and EPS accretive to us, and we can do share buybacks. So it's how you balance everything across volume, capital returns, dividend returns to drive attractive shareholder returns in aggregate. But at the same time, we want to be known as a growth company. And therefore, organic and inorganic growth will always be part of our considerations.

Okay. That's very clear. So very close to being out of time. But maybe just to kind of bring it all together, is there kind of one thing that you think the investment community may be misunderstands or doesn't get about Heineken and its investment proposition.

Yes. I think we are -- maybe 2 things. The first is we're really changing the nature of this company. Both the cultural part, but also you heard me talk about the growth is the first priority of Heineken. And we have a platform across the world to deliver that. We're a proud beer company, but really want to look beyond that in selective markets to broaden out our consumer offering and productivity and cash flow management needs to be there to drive attractive shareholder returns. The culture is changing with that. So we're hoping to see the benefits of that.

Okay. Great. Well, Harold, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon to everyone. It's my great pleasure to introduce Harold van den Broek at the UBS Conference again this year. Harold, thank you for joining us.

I want to start with a few big picture topics and let's kick off with the CEO transition. Dolf's resignation earlier this year took us all by surprise. Are you able to share with us any updates on the third timing, what we can expect?

No, thank you. And great to be here, Sanjeet. Thanks for the invite. Look, the CEO transition process, as many people will understand, is a process that is led with due care and diligence by the Supervisory Board.

So the Supervisory Board sees this as really their #1 priority. So they'll really update us as soon as there's something to update, but the process is ongoing. What I do think is important for this audience and everybody who cares to listen needs to know is, first, the EverGreen 2030 strategy stands. So for us, internally in the company, this is not a moment to start questioning. We have a very good strategy.

We talked about that in October last year in our Capital Markets Day, and we are fully focused on the execution of that. Maybe last point is the executive team is carrying the operationalization of that strategy. So we're not sitting still. We're actually pivoting forward to bring that to life.

Understood. Just moving on to the guidance you gave us at the start of the year. You guided 2% to 6% organic EBIT growth. A little bit below the historical 4% to 8% range you've given. I appreciate there's been a lot of volatility in the world in the last 10 days as well, maybe validating a bit of prudence.

But can you just give us a bit more context behind why you guided what you did and how you see the levers towards the upper end and the lower end of that range?

No, absolutely. And indeed, very often that we are talking about with investor base, with yourselves is about how do we control the controllables. And we know that there are certain things in Heineken that we really focus on. It is about how we grow market share, how we build out the category, for example, with these nine 0.0 brands.

It is about how we drive our cost savings to create investment space, but also profitability and attractive shareholder returns. So all of these elements, we're quite confident on. There were 2 things that we felt we did not have fully in control. The first was the macroeconomic environment, as you alluded to as well.

And the second one is simply because the calendar moves from '25 to '26 doesn't mean that consumer sentiment is shifting at the same pace. So we really felt it was right to indicate that we came from as a beer category globally, a negative volume in 2025 to just take that into account when setting these ranges.

Now what is also very important is that we have started to move from single planning like we have one plan and we execute that for a year to much more trigger event planning. So that makes our company more dynamic to take into account growth opportunities where they arise. And the aggregation of these individual scenarios gave us also that 2% to 6% range. So that's why we felt comfortable to navigate there.

Understood. Just moving on to EverGreen 2030 announced last October, the TMD. Management at the time sounded very confident on delivering mid-single-digit revenue with volume growth ahead of the industry.

What are you doing differently over the next few years around resource allocation and execution muscle to deliver this ambition?

It's a great question, Sanjeet, and thanks for allowing me to expand on this a little bit. So first, Heineken traditionally was quite a democratic company. And it was because we valued each of our 80 operating companies almost equally, but their growth potential and value creation potential is actually not equal.

So one of the changes that we made under EverGreen 2030 is to be very much more specific about in which market are you operating. It does matter when you are a value beer market where the first interaction with beer is with mainstream beer or whether you're advancing beer market where beer is already the go-to alcohol choice beverage of choice, where premiumization is actually the growth lever.

Or whether you're a developed market where multi-beverage occasions really define that we actually need a different portfolio. So we've been very much more intentional segmenting the markets to growth potential and the stage of the life cycle that the consumer is in and the relevance of beer in that life cycle. The second thing that we've done is really articulated that there is more space in our portfolio for global brands.

At the moment, only Heineken, beautiful brand, but only 25% of our portfolio is managed truly as a global brand. We have, based on consumer insights, 5 of such brands that can play a role. So that's the second shift that we're making.

The third shift that we're making is to really start putting a Freddie AI in place, which is our name for our digital in-house marketing agency. so that the connection, but also the AI enablement of insight to communication is really much more efficient and therefore, gives us more opportunity for growth.

Great. I think one of your big focus areas has been the implementation of the digital backbone. Where are you today on the harmonization of your IT and ERP systems? And what tangible benefits is Heineken really getting from that?

I think there are basically 3 things to look at. So first, we're in the early stage of the journey to answer your question. And what does that mean? Because when we have this fragmented federation of Heineken operating company units, all of them had their own infrastructure, their own data models, their own processes because it was basically a confederation of acquired companies or companies that -- where we built an infrastructure relevant for their markets.

So it was really quite fragmented. And we decided 2 things where we started on this journey. The first one is how do we make sure that we do the frontline enablement at the same time as the back-office enablement because customers and consumers are digitizing rapidly.

And as a consequence, we took, let's call it, a bit of inefficiency in getting there simply because we did not want to be late, but with our consumer and customer. And that means that applications like product recommendation, optimal assortment, working capital insights, sales representative prioritization are all already digital enabled. And this is not only good for us, it's also good for our client base.

But what we are now also starting to see because we now have what we call our digital product alive in 4 operating companies and have started to move data and processes to much more harmonized levels is we already can start to see in our brewery network or in our shared service center network, the benefit of automation already coming through.

For example, our brewery network is now fully connected, and we can learn what is happening in Mexico and apply it in Ethiopia. And that does not need manual interventions. It really is digitized. So there are back-office synergies. The third one is what we just talked about is this in-house marketing agency that is really now starting to happen for real, first in Heineken and in 2026 spreading across.

So yes, we're early in the journey, but we didn't have low-hanging fruit just lying there. We're actually building that. And all of that set of applications that is the target destiny, we're about 35%, 40% there. So that's a bit how you should think about it.

Very clear. One of the big themes from this recent results season has been some signs of broad-based price repositioning going on in whether it's food or parts of spirits. And with that backdrop, how are you feeling about Heineken's pricing and also tied to that revenue management capabilities, which has also been a bit of a focus area.

Yes, it's very good. And maybe just taking a step back before I answer your question directly. What we're currently seeing in the world and also in 2025, where the beer market, not only Heineken, but in aggregate was not growing. You know that the beer market declined by our estimates between 2% and 2.5%. We think that price consciousness of the consumer is a key factor in that.

So revenue margin growth and our capability is really critical to address that, but it's not only pricing. The price-conscious consumer is really looking for is the brand worth the investment. And by the way, this is not only happening in beer. I really hear many, many companies talking about price-seeking value-driven consumers.

So that is a very, very important reality that we're living in. Importantly, we know that it takes time to catch up. And we currently see wage inflation growing faster than general inflation. Big caveat, the Iran situation doesn't make things easier. So I'm really talking a little bit about what we saw happening until a few weeks ago.

And in that, revenue margin is very important. It's about how do we get the right brand appeal either through advertising, for example, relevant sponsorships, right occasion like right service equation, but also right pack price architecture so that we can still have premium beer at an affordable price point.

And that is something that we're really institutionalizing now in our company. Now to your question, how far are we progressed in that? I think there are better companies than Heineken for sure. So I would give a sales probably a 5 out of 10, 4.5 out of 10, and we're accelerating very fast because that's not a number that we're happy with.

Got it. Let's go into a few markets, and I'd love to start with Europe. One of the key topics last year was the retailer dispute and the loss of shelf space. Where are you on that at the moment? How the retailer negotiations gone? And do you expect to fully recover those lost volumes?

Yes. No, let's indeed take the snapshot before zooming out. So at the moment, almost all, if not all, of the price negotiations in Europe have been concluded. So we can confirm that this is not going to be a repeat of 2024. So we're happy to say that.

Second thing is you also saw in our full year results 2025 that our revenue per hectoliter growth was actually slightly positive, 1.4%. And this was really important to us because we are still living in Europe in an inflationary environment. And we really want to be intentional about offering the consumer, let's call it, space to recover, right?

So we're pricing below inflation, but we also need to make sure that we have the opportunity to offset part of that inflation and invest behind our brands. And I think for 2026, we are there.

Are you...

Sorry, I didn't answer. So the recovery of the retailer impact, we are also -- with the latest shelf resets coming in February, March, we are there.

Got it. Okay. Beyond the retailer disputes last year, the category was declining, and I think there were a couple of markets such as Poland and Austria, where you had some big negative volume declines. So how are you thinking about the overall volume outlook in Europe beyond the retailer?

So this is -- hopefully, we'll come back later in the questions to some more positive stories. But here, I need to be a bit cautious. I think the European landscape because we are talking about the recovery of pricing and the recovery of our shelf space, these are the good parts of the elements. But what we also start to see happening, for example, deposit return schemes, where pricing needs to be taken and suddenly a can of beer is increasing in price because you have to pay the deposit and not everybody is taking the effort to then hand in that and bring the deposit back.

So we do see in certain markets, particularly in Eastern Europe, still a very sober market dynamic. Population growth is not there in Europe. So we believe that Europe is a potential for stability and growth in pockets, as you know.

But I don't want to be too optimistic too soon on a recovery of European volume. This will take time.

Understood. Just digging a bit deeper into some of the medium-term trends in the region. A lot of excitement about premium and zero alcohol. I think a lot of investors understand and appreciate that. But the mainstream segment seems to be struggling.

Clearly, it's the more price-sensitive part of the portfolio. But do you see a risk of structural decline in the mainstream segment in Europe? Or what are you trying to do to address that and get the core to stabilize?

So let's first say that we are in a good position. Heineken has a portfolio of brands, both at premium level, at mainstream level and at value level. So we can actually offer consumer propositions depending on where the consumer is looking for certain price points.

So we do have a full coverage of our portfolio. What is important is that I think in the past 2, 3 years, we have been very intentional in driving premiumization and with some success, Birra Moretti in the U.K., Beavertown in the U.K., Ichnusa in Italy, all really great examples but in a value-seeking environment, mainstream is becoming extremely important.

So also the focus in our business is really making sure not to be dogmatic in our strategy, but making sure that mainstream has a role to play there as well. So I think we understand that, and we can navigate accordingly.

Understood. Europe margins are around 200 basis points below pre-pandemic levels despite a lot of cost savings, which has been offset by operating deleverage and inflation. If you get to a point where Europe volumes can stabilize, and clearly, there's more productivity coming in the region. Is it realistic for those margins to come back? Is that plausible ambition over the medium term?

Yes, it should be. Let me first say that I and our whole European team knows that. Glenn also agrees with me that we are not satisfied with the operating margins that we have in Europe. But a bit to what you're already alluding to, it needs to be a systematic solution for Europe. And that is a composition of 3 parts.

The first one is it is very difficult in our industry to sustainably grow margins if there is no volume. So therefore, it really is important that we are finding and driving the growth pockets in Europe that we know that are there. And this comes with innovation, perfect execution, more pilots, more tests in order to bring consumer relevance back.

Second is to invest behind category growth. This is coming from Formula 1 to football to music festivals to fantastic experiences in the outlet because ultimately, consumers have a choice in Europe, and we need to make sure that beer becomes their preferred choice, and that requires investment.

In that sense, productivity is a very important part. But it's the combination of all that needs to bring Europe to operating margin levels starting with quality volume growth and productivity and the right investment.

And at the bottom end, that magic will have to turn into increased operating margins. And I know and I'm convinced that we can get that back to pre-COVID levels.

Got it. Very clear. I think in the full year results, you announced another round of restructuring in the organization. It feels like Europe in particular. To what extent is that impacting employee morale and engagement in the organization?

Yes. So again, let me take a first global lens here because we indeed announced a 5,000 to 6,000 role reduction. We are moving to a more streamlined head office. We're shifting about 3,000 employees to Heineken Business Service to not only get, let's call it, leverage from wage differentials, but also by really making sure that end-to-end and automation, what we talked about is possible.

So there's a lot of transformation activity happening. In many parts of the world, this is embraced. This is embraced because they know that this is going towards the future, not towards the past. In Europe, there is a bit more complex dynamics going on. But I have to say that our European team is very much understanding the realities linked to the previous question and wants to go there.

Now of course, this needs to be done with respect, transparency and care for the people. There are works councils. There are obviously people concerned about what this means for me. So that's why we're also really trying to do this the right way, but at speed. And the morale in Europe is very aware of what needs to happen and very much engaged in making this happen.

Very clear. Moving on to LatAm. I think Brazil and Mexico also saw a challenging -- different challenges in 2025. Maybe on Brazil to start with, we've heard from some of your peers in beer, spirits and soft drinks at the start of the year, perhaps with a more positive tone towards the end of '25 and the start to 2026. Do you echo the same sort of optimism building?

Yes. So let me first say that Brazil for us in 2025 was a story of 2 halves. From an in-market performance perspective, this was a really good year for Brazil. We really gained market share. Amstel, Heineken, very good in-market momentum, but perhaps the people in the room yourself, you know that we had to take a course corrective action in terms of the stock levels and the outlets that we were serving because it was not at the right quality that we wanted.

So that was an on goal, and we will not repeat that. What we also saw in the second half of the year is that because of macroeconomic realities in Brazil, the beer category started to decline to the tune of mid-single digit. And that for us was a bit of a call to action to say, okay, what is happening in this market? And that led me to be a little bit more cautious combined with macroeconomic fundamentals.

What we currently see in December, January is a to be honest, much better than what I expected. So the category has been stable. Our business is doing well. I still remain -- maybe that's a CFO difference, but a little bit more cautious on the macroeconomics of Brazil. I hope I'm wrong. So far, it's better than what I expected.

Understood. I think you took quite a bit of pricing towards the end of last year in Brazil. And we started to see the Heineken and Amstel brands maybe start to moderate from a share perspective. They've had a big run over several years. How are you feeling about the growth opportunity of those brands? And are you at a point where you need to perhaps think about broadening your portfolio?

It's always good to think about broadening your portfolio. So of course, we are doing that as well. But we don't feel that if you look at the brand power, the addressable consumer cohorts that we have, that Heineken and Amstel are running out of steam.

There is still headway to grow our portfolio. But indeed, to your point, we now need to start thinking more broadly about what does Brazil mean for us and how do we -- can we build that out.

Perhaps what is also really good to realize is that when I just said broadly stable market, it really is a difference between the premium and mainstream segment continuing to do well, not only from us, but also our largest competitor in that market is really starting to enhance and amplify the mainstream and premium growth.

And it's the economy segment that is, at the moment, not doing very well. So underlying category dynamics are healthy. Our portfolio is healthy, too.

Very clear. You added a new brewery late last year in Passos, I think 5 million hectoliters. Should investors view that as incremental capacity? Or is it more a reallocation of capacity and a cost benefit for Heineken?

Yes. So it's a bit of both. So we opened that brewery because there was very much inefficiency in the network because Brazil is a big country, and we were just shipping too much volume around. And the core pocket was really in the state around where we now put the brewery in Passos, where there was really a high demand for Heineken and Amstel.

On top, many people will know, but there are significant incentives for investment in Brazil, which we capitalized on as well. So it was an optimization of the network. What is also important is that we have capacity to grow. And that was not the case a number of years ago. 2 years ago, we were really up to capacity limits. That is no longer the case because of the platforms that we've now built.

Very good. Moving on to Mexico. And I think the beer category there has been remarkably resilient despite some of the geopolitical and macro headwinds. I think Heineken has been slightly underperforming on volumes. Is that purely a function of geographic mix, just given your over-indexation to the north? Or is it somehow pricing related? And to what extent is the social unrest or heightened social unrest in the north perhaps impacting?

Yes. It's a really good question. And unfortunately, a bit of a complex answer because your indication of is it this, that or the other, it's probably a combination of all of these things. So our Mexican business is really quite strong. It's the biggest operation that we have. We're very proud of the Mexican team and of our Mexican business.

We really are building stronger brands, but we also have a formidable competitor. You know that our stronghold is in the North. Our competitor stronghold is more in the mid- and in the South. So it's not always a direct head-to-head competition. What we have done in 2025, first to your pricing point is I think we went a bit wild in really believing that we had an opportunity to gain share in the first half of the year.

And we had to sort of course correct because we got the price volume equation, not fully right. And I think we were quite open about that in our full year results that, that was one of the -- one of the reasons why our price volume in quarter 4 was a little bit more skewed to price rather than to volume.

Longer term, however, we do believe that the Mexican market has proven itself to be very resilient. We also have very responsible pricing in that market to make sure that beer becomes the -- is still the alcoholic beverage of choice. And we really see that stabilization coming into play in the first half of the year.

So over a longer period of time, we're very happy with the business and believe that the dynamics are very healthy.

Got it. You've got a new MD?

We do.

Outside of the pricing volume equation, is there anything he's doing differently in the business? And I guess, aside to that, are you anticipating any big benefit from the -- welcome this year?

Yes. probably -- welcome this year. So first, Oriol, we're very pleased to have him on board. He's an extremely experienced leader, came out of other FMCG Mondelez, in this case and has really got a very, very good discipline in terms of how to execute with excellence that he brings with him.

We'll leave him some time to make his own, let's call it, fine-tuning and rather speak after the fact while that is happening. But there's one thing that I can already say, the potential that we have with our 6 store franchise, he sees as a real, really big asset.

And we have 17,000 stores are the #2 proximity retailer. So he really is starting to look holistically at our ecosystem in terms of how we can drive perfect execution, but also leveraging our own outlets.

Got it. And World Cup here in Mexico?

World Cup, we hope that this is going to be an absolutely amazing event. We're glad to take the volume uplift. But what is more important to us a bit like where your question started, is it brings excitement and joy back into the category.

And this is for us extremely important because the volume spike is good, but you pay the price a year later. It really is about how you bring beer back in the hearts of the consumer.

Got it. Let's move on to Asia and Vietnam had an amazing turnaround last year, very strong market share gains, price/mix positive. How has the market performed through Tet? And how are you thinking about the outlook from here?

Yes. So first, very happy with our Vietnam business. And there was one call out could make to the team over a period of 2 years, portfolio, channel transformation, market share recovery, really proud of that, extremely well done.

Look, we'll give you a fuller update at our quarter 1 results because the difficulty with Tet is you also need to be a bit patient between the replenishment of the stocks, right? There is a deep channel that we have to service to get to the consumer.

But the initial signs of that is that it has been a quality occasion, so premium important and that has been, yes, a positive that. Those are the early indications, but we'll give you a fuller update.

Very clear.

So we're actually confident in the Vietnam growth for 2026.

I think India had some disruptions last year, weather, maybe some unfavorable excise tax moves. How are you thinking about the, the development in the regulatory landscape and the outlook for the category in '26 and beyond?

Yes. So indeed, but I'm going to answer your question a little bit different, and that is a bit longer time frame. because we know and we've been explicit that India is the largest untapped opportunity for beer that we see on the planet. But this is not going to be a very quick win. And what are there for the dimensions of success?

Indeed, what you say is how do we normalize and professionalize the category is the biggest unlock for beer in the Indian market. This is something that we, as a market leader with close to 50% market share should be leading and are leading, but all the international brewers are playing a role in that.

So what we currently see happening in India is 3 things. First is India is full of self-confidence as a nation. And self-confidence investment, this is good for people's mindset, for consumption, for growth.

Secondly is we do see, therefore, younger cohorts joining the workforce who are a little bit more open to alcohol. They are not living at home. They don't have the, let's call it, the inhibitations, if that's the right word, that maybe their parents were carrying.

They go to work, they socialize. They'd like to have a beer. And this is important because that, in turn, makes that state politicians because beer is still a state-by-state regulated category, are becoming a little bit more open for, for example, excise differentiation, but also price liberization or indeed customer outlet fragmentation and more licenses or better quality outlets. That, in the end, will drive the category growth, and we see a positive trend in India.

Got it. It feels like the big drag in the whole Asia region has been Cambodia the last couple of years. What can you do to stabilize that business? Or do you need to consider exiting at some stage?

Yes. So what we internally call unapologetically, I have to say, is we have a number of resolved markets where we are not satisfied with the value creation potential that we see going forward.

And to make that explicit basically means there are 3 options. How do we fix it ourselves? How do we partner or how do we exit? Those are the 3 flavors that we offer. And therefore, because we are a big business in Cambodia, we are really in active dialogue, first and foremost, with government about how do we normalize excise regimes and how do we normalize consumption.

For those people who are now there, in Cambodia, basically ring-pull promotions are offering so much free beer that this is an inhibition to responsible consumption. And we don't think that, that is the right way to create category growth.

So that is a dialogue that we have with the government. We then need to see whether we're successful in creating that to consider alternative options. But it does mean our Cambodia team is really all on this, and they know that the responsibility that they carry, but there is a limit to how much longer we are going to entertain a conversation before considering other options.

Got it. Moving on to Africa. The region comes with a lot of volatility, but a lot of potential. We seem to be seeing inflation moderating, particularly in key markets such as Nigeria. How confident are you on that market, which I think was a bit of a drag last year and the broader region returning to volume growth?

In which?

In Nigeria and...

Okay. I was going to say because the big delta in Ethiopia grew volume, South Africa grew volume. It was really Nigeria holding us back. And therefore, there are different stories in Africa, Sanjeet. Nigeria is really a matter of macroeconomics. It's very important that our business has done 2 things extremely well.

First of all, we're growing share. And secondly, we are really reducing the breakeven point through cost interventions in order to make sure that we are running a profitable business.

The macroeconomic situation makes it such that actually poverty is a real thing in Nigeria. And that means that people are moving out of the category, but we will be ready to welcome them back once the economy stabilizes. And what I really have to say is that the Nigeria Central Bank and government are doing a lot of good work. We see inflation coming down, currency more stable.

This is all unknown Middle East impact, just to say. But we believe that there is positive -- cautious positive recovery happening in Nigeria. Ethiopia, South Africa and Egypt are good markets for us.

And just digging into South Africa there, big strategic bet a few years ago with Distell. It feels like the beer business is starting to turn around, and you've started to get a bit more consistency there. How are you thinking about that going forward? And ultimately, is the multi-beverage strategy with wine and spirits working for you?

Yes. So first, we're still not a business case level. So I just want to -- don't want to declare victory in Heineken Beverages, so Southern Africa and South Africa just yet. But what I am proud about is indeed to what you just said, we do see real recovery in beer and in ciders is doing very well. [ Wine ] is the one that we haven't cracked yet. But Bernini, for example, is doing extraordinarily well, 40% growth, a great beer juice. And what has made the difference is 2 things. The first one is, I think we underestimated the cultural integration between Distell and Heineken.

This took longer. There was a high level of competitive activity, and we really had to bring the 2 teams together. The second one is I want to say a big thank you to our customer base in South Africa because at first, they really didn't know what this collaboration between Heineken and Distell meant for them.

But the partnership structure that we've now put in place, the route to market really is working for us, and that has been a big part of the recovery or the path to success, I should rather say, in South Africa. So we're actually optimistic that, that can continue.

Got it. I think last year, what we saw in Africa was a big margin recovery and hard currency profit growth, which has been lacking in the last few years. Do you still see opportunities to drive margins higher? Or do we expect a bit of a pause from here?

No. We still see opportunities. Look, the team that runs Africa has a very -- it's 2 very simple mantras. The first one is we need to generate value, and that means that our profit margin needs to be higher than the cost of capital. So if there is any place because we probably will speak about capital base as well that really lives up to that purpose, it's the Africa team for obvious reasons.

The second mantra they have is bank the past and be cautious on the future. And that has served us well also in 2025. I think with those 2 mentalities, we will see further opportunity in Africa. The only thing that we need to balance is let's not be too greedy because in the end, more consumers, more occasions is a long-term path to success.

So we do need to make sure that also more volume growth in Africa, when it's possible, let's just make sure that we drive a balance between volume and value growth.

Very clear. Just moving on to the balance sheet. It feels like post the Strategy Day last year, there's a sharper focus on return on invested capital in the company. How are you holding the markets to account on this? Is this now incorporated into remuneration metrics? How is it transcending across the organization?

Yes. So exactly like that. We have understood that return on invested capital is a very important metric. And it may sound strange to many of the investor base or the analyst base why this was not there before. But again, zooming out over a time frame, in the world that was 5 years ago, we had low interest rates.

Growth was there -- was the key driver of it. And therefore, a capital base that was affordable and growth becoming a little bit more easier made it less necessary to put return on invested capital so much to the forefront.

When I joined 5 years ago, I also was quite explicit. I said, let's do cost productivity first and capital productivity later. Cost productivity, we have. We now move to capital. So it is now included in long-term incentives.

We are deploying this now specifically to the top 150 leaders in the company. It is part of our dashboarding and our ongoing moving annual total measurement. We are making this operational through working capital management, CapEx management, asset management so that we are making sure that it's not a generic concept, but we break it down in manageable pieces, just like we've done with our cost bucketing and our cost performance. So this engine is starting to work.

Got it. You've also given us a cash conversion target of at least 90%. Against that, where are you in the CapEx cycle now? And where are the opportunities on working capital where it feels like you're still quite inferior to your peers?

Yes. So on the first one, we are really quite intentional in bringing our capital expenditures levels down. And again, for the audience, we really have a depreciation at about 6% of revenue and a capital base of about 8% of revenue. So that also has an impact on our financial P&L management every year. There is a reason why we're operating at 8%. We were starting to build big breweries in Brazil, for example, and in Vietnam expansion.

And we had to build capacity in Europe before we start closing breweries. And at the same time, we had to invest in returnable bottles, and we had to invest in digital and in sustainability. So that really brought that peak investment in. We now have capacity in most of the markets really sorted out.

Mexico is still in construction, will take our time to get there, not to run ahead of the market. And the only other one is India, where hopefully, there's a lot of growth and then we need to deploy capital. Across the rest of the base, it can be moderated. Our digital investment, we talked about it also in the Capital Markets Day is now at peak and is now starting to stabilize and slowly come down.

So that gives us reason to believe that capital will start to move towards the 7%, not the 8% that we're at. On working capital, we have done detailed benchmarking and analysis. And to your point, we do see very significant opportunities still in working capital management, payables, inventories.

It is important, however, to note that there is no common definition. So you need to really do the homework, what is in and what is out in order to make comparables. But we believe that there is at least EUR 0.5 billion to still go after.

Very clear. I guess wrapping up the conversation, you've been meeting lots of investors in the last few weeks, Harold. What do you think the market today underappreciates about Heineken's equity story?

So I think two things on top of mind. The first growth is imperative for any company, and that is also true for the category as a whole and for Heineken in particular, because we'd like to be known as a growth company, and that is not what the market has seen in 2025.

So the importance of growth is very much top of mind for us as well, but it needs to be of two parts. The first one is how do we grow the category. The second one is how do we win in a growing category. And I think what I'm at least trying to convey, I'm not saying it's underappreciated, but what I'm trying to convey is we believe that across the world, there is potential in beer.

And it's down to us to first start bringing the category back in the hearts and minds of consumers through affordable pricing, through innovation, through segment growth like the 0.0 or other beers. So that's the first thing that I want to convey.

The second thing is that we are not sitting still. And you started the dialogue with the CEO transition, but Heineken is in motion. And perhaps what people not fully appreciate just yet is how fast is the pace of change of growth also in Heineken, not because we have got clarity of what needs to be done, but also because the people, the cultural change, the appetite to change is absolutely there. Those two combined, we believe, makes this an investment proposition worth considering.

Very good. Harold, thank you so much for your time and the discussion. Cheers.

Cheers. Thank you.

Welcome, everyone. The Heineken Full Year 2025 Results Call will begin shortly. [Operator Instructions]

Good morning and good afternoon, everyone, from Amsterdam. Thank you for joining us for today's live webcast on our 2025 full year results. Your host will be our Chief Executive Officer, Dolf van den Brink; and our Chief Financial Officer, Harold van den Broek.

Following the presentation, we will be happy to take all your questions. The presentation includes expectations based on management's current views and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and it is possible that the actual results may differ materially. For more information, please refer to the disclaimer on this first page of the presentation.

I will now turn over the call to Dolf van den Brink.

Thank you, Tristan, and good morning afternoon, everybody. Now after 6 years and with some understandable mixed emotions, today is my final full year results presentation as CEO. It is not a farewell though, I am and will be fully focused and committed to the business through the end of May. And as you all know, I love this great company, and I will miss it dearly. My priority for the coming months is to leave Heineken in the strongest possible position with momentum, clarity and ambition. It is a natural moment to reflect on how far we have traveled since launching EverGreen in 2020 in the midst of COVID and to look ahead as we move into the disciplined execution of EverGreen 2030, our new 5-year growth strategy.

Over the last 6 years, we launched a fundamental transformation of the company, delivered EverGreen 25 and navigated a demanding external environment. We have made meaningful progress in future proofing Heineken, growing the Heineken brand by more than 50%, consolidating our global leadership in 0.0, strengthening our advantaged footprint with significant deals in India, Southern Africa and Central America, while saving over EUR 3.5 billion in cost and digitizing the business, I am very proud of what we, as a team, have achieved, and there's more to do.

The next chapter is our sharpened EverGreen 2030 strategy, which we introduced at the Capital Markets event at Seville. We now have a sharpened focus on 3 strategic priorities, and the task ahead is accelerating disciplined execution. Growth. It is the foundation of our business and remains our #1 priority. Productivity, which fuels reinvestment and healthy profit flow-through. Future fitting Heineken, enabled by our digital backbone and evolving operating model. Harold will explain how we are accelerating the disciplined execution of these priorities over the next few years. With this clarity, we aim to deliver superior and balanced growth and attractive shareholder returns while future-proofing Heineken. We track this through the Green Diamond, which we have now strengthened with ROIC as our capital efficiency KPI.

Let's take a closer look at the key highlights of 2025. First, we delivered a well-balanced performance in challenging market conditions. In our growth pillar, we grew revenue through quality volume. We gained or held market share in more than 60% of our markets and in about 80% of our priority growth markets, which is even more important. In our productivity pillar, strong over-delivery of growth savings supported our margin expansion. On capital efficiency, we generated another year of solid cash flow and improved ROIC. And looking ahead, we expect operating profit to grow between 2% and 6% in '26. This is before the additional profit and earnings accretion from the FIFCO acquisition we completed last month.

So let's take a closer look at our financial highlights. Total volume declined by 1.2%, reflecting softer markets in the Americas and Europe, partly offset by consolidated volume and license volume growth in APAC and resilience in Africa and Middle East. Within that, the momentum behind the Heineken brand continued to grow 2.7%. Net revenue increased 1.6%, and net revenue per hectoliter grew 3.8%, driven by disciplined pricing and positive mix. Operating profit grew 4.4% with a 41 basis point margin expansion and net profit grew faster at 4.9%. Diluted EPS (beia) came in at EUR 4.78 million, and we are proposing a total dividend of EUR 1.90 per share, a 2% absolute increase, indicating a payout to 39% of net profit. We're also expanding our payout range for future years to be 30% to 50%. Harold will cover this in more detail later.

Although our volume declined in the year, and it's not yet where we wanted to be, the quality remained high. To better reflect our evolving asset lines approach in China, Latin America and Africa, Middle East, we will going forward report total volume, combining consolidated volume, which declined 2% and license volume, which grew almost 18%. Our mainstream brands outperformed the total portfolio declining only slightly and local power brands delivered solid growth for several major markets, including Cruzcampo in the U.K., Harar in Ethiopia, Tecate Original in Mexico and Kingfisher in India. Heineken 0.0 grew slightly. Our global brands grew almost 2% led by Heineken, up nearly 3%. The broader premium portfolio also performed well, supported by strong local brands such as Kingfisher Ultra in India, Bernini in South Africa and Legend Stout in Nigeria. This high-quality volume supported 2% net revenue growth with positive price/mix across all regions. Our productivity programs ensured solid revenue to profit conversion contributing to operating profit growth of 4.4%, in line with our guidance.

Let me turn to the Heineken brand, which continues to lead our portfolio. Heineken delivered another year of growth in 2025, increasing by almost 3%, with 27 markets growing at double-digit rates. Heineken continues to stand out for its creativity in both idea and execution. At a time when people seek more real-world connection, Heineken champions socializing in a way that's authentic to who we are, supported by our global partnership with Formula 1 and Men's and Women's UEFA Champions League. Heineken 0.0 grew slightly. Inventory adjustments in Brazil, its largest markets, partly offset good growth in Spain and the United States, and it maintained its position as the world's largest alcohol-free beer brand. It is Heineken Silver that truly drove the growth for the brand. Silver grew by almost 30%, led by Vietnam in China.

As you can see on the chart, Silver now represents about 15% of the total Heineken volume close to 9 million hectoliters. It can now be considered one of the most successful innovations in the history of the Heineken company. As part of the growth pillar in our sharpened EverGreen 2030 strategy, we're expanding our global brands. We are applying the principles of the centrally governed Heineken brand model across the broader global brand portfolio, strengthening consistency and discipline in execution. Across the global brand portfolio, we delivered 1.9% total volume growth in 2025, which shows solid progress. We have already spoken about Heineken. Amstel, our shadow premium brand connects friends around the world with a distinct social character.

Amstel delivered another strong year across all 4 regions, with continued momentum in Brazil, a doubling of volume in China, revitalizing launch in Romania and a double-digit growth in South Africa. Birra Moretti continued to unlock food pairing occasions across Europe, supported by good performances in Switzerland and in France. Tiger remains a cornerstone of our success in Myanmar, while Tiger Crystal, a more refreshing sessionable member of the family, delivered strong results and contributed to the brand's revitalization in Vietnam. Desperados reinforced its relevance in markets with its bold flavors and Latin-inspired positioning resonates strongly with GenZ consumers, especially in Nigeria and in Spain.

Productivity is our second strategic priority, and it's vital to support our growth agenda. This year, we delivered over EUR 500 million in gross savings, with increased flow-through to profits seen in our 41 basis point margin expansion. Our focus to boost cash led to a cash conversion of 87% after posting 103% last year, allowing us to deliver EUR 2.6 billion of free operating cash flow. Harold will expand on this and also how we will accelerate the EverGreen 2030 productivity agenda.

When we look at our third strategic priority, future proofing our business, brew a better world remains our framework for delivering our environmental, social responsibility ambitions. On responsible consumption, we continue to lead the category by ensuring 0 alcohol options are widely available and easy to choose. In '25, our operating companies invested 26% of Heineken brand media to promote this message, reaching 1.4 billion consumers. On carbon, we continued progressing towards our 2030 net zero ambition for Scope 1 and 2, reducing emissions by 38% over the last 3 years. On water, we improved efficiency across all breweries to 2.9 liters per liter of beer. On the social pillar, we continue building a culture belonging by equipping leaders and colleagues across the company. In '25, women held 31% of senior management roles.

With that, let me move to the regions. Starting with Africa, Middle East, where we delivered strong revenue growth, substantial profit improvement and overall market share gains. Net revenue grew 16%, with stable volume and strong price/mix reflecting earlier pricing actions as inflation eased, operating profits increased 60% supported by the transformed cost base of the past 2 years and a strong top line growth. Notably, in euros, operating profit grew more than 30%. In Nigeria, last year's cost base and capital structure adjustments, combined with continued discipline resulted in strong financial performance. Despite the soft markets, Nigerian Breweries gained significant share across lager, stout, beyond beer and nonalcoholic malts.

Premium brands, Heineken, Desperados and Legend Stout all delivered double-digit growth. At Heineken Beverages in Southern Africa, commercial execution strengthened through the year. Our beer portfolio grew with Amstel delivering particularly strong results in South Africa. Bernini, our wine-based spritzer continued to grow and expand its consumer base. I would also like to highlight Ethiopia. The business improved steadily as the economy stabilized following the currency devaluation. We reinforced our market leadership and now secured the #1 position in the North too supported by continued momentum from Bedele and Harar.

Turning to the Americas. Our business showed resilience. Markets softened as the year progressed, requiring agility while keeping strategic investments on track. Even in this environment, we gained overall share in the region. Net revenue declined 1% and beer volume was down 3%, while price/mix recovered strongly in the second half, up 2%. Operating profit declined 2%, decycling last year's significant step-up.

In Mexico, despite macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties, the beer category remains resilient. Our system strength, supported by the Six store network and effective revenue management delivered solid financial results. Growth was broad-based. Tecate Original, Indio, Carta Blanca performed steadily, and Miller High Life surpassed the 1 million hectoliter mark in premium.

In Brazil, after rebalancing and reducing excess inventory in the first half, the market softened in the second half. Based on sell-out data, we captured significant market share. Investment increased again in '25, including the opening of the new 5 million hectoliter Passos brewery. Amstel maintained strong momentum, supported by our CONMEBOL Libertadores partnership and the success of Amstel Ultra. In premium, Heineken gained share and Eisenbahn delivered double-digit growth.

The United States remains challenging, further impacted by tariffs introduced in the first half. We continue to work on strengthening our portfolio, including the return of The Most Interesting Man for Dos Equis last month. Heineken 0.0 remains a highlight, delivering its seventh consecutive year of depletion growth.

Moving on to APAC, where we delivered growth across all metrics and gained overall market share. Total volume increased 4% with consolidated beer volume slightly up and license volume up 27%. Net revenue grew 4%, supported by strong price/mix of almost 5%. Operating profit grew 5%, driven by strong performances in Vietnam, India and Myanmar.

In Vietnam, volume grew high single digits as the market returned to positive momentum, a strengthened route to consumer and effective portfolio expansion enabled outperformance in both on and off-premise channels, accelerating our leadership position. Heineken grew in the high 30s, led behind Heineken Silver, while Larue Smooth continued expanding its footprint.

In India, volume grew mid-single digits ahead of the overall market. As the country's largest brewer, we continued shaping the category, expanding our reach and transforming our sales model. Kingfisher maintained its growth trajectory, supported by cricket sponsorships, while the premium portfolio grew strongly led by Kingfisher Ultra, Ultra Max, Heineken Silver and our latest innovation, Amstel Grande.

In China, Heineken Original and Silver delivered another year of double-digit growth supported by strong execution and high-impact sponsorship such as Masters Tennis and the Shanghai Formula 1. Amstel also doubled volume through distribution gains and excellent in-market execution. With the increasing contribution of royalties and share of associate profits, China became a top 3 market for the group in delivering net profit in 2025.

Turning to Europe. Our performance was mixed in a challenging environment. Overall market share contracted slightly due to retailer disruptions, although we gained share in the on-premise channel. Net revenue in total volume each declined 3% with price/mix just above 1%, supported by pricing and a stronger premium portfolio. Operating profit declined almost 5% as volume deleverage and inflation more than offset the strong growth savings, including continued progress on supply chain rationalization, brewery closures and the refinement of our intermarket sourcing model.

In the United Kingdom, our broad portfolio, innovation pipeline and continued investment in the Star Pubs estate supported solid financial performance. Cruzcampo continued its exceptional trajectory, now in its third year. Murphy's Stout outperformed the growing stout categories through distribution gains and expanded draught presence. In cider, premiumization continued with strong growth from Inch's and Old Mout. We also received top honors in the Advantage Survey, where customers rated us the #1 supplier across all FMCG companies in both on-trade and the grocers in the off-trade.

In Western Europe, extended negotiations with off-premise buying groups weighed on performance. These discussions focused on protecting long-term sustainable category development were fully resolved in the second half, with distribution and shelf space recovering as the year progressed. Despite the disruptions, we gained on-premise share and continue to see strong contributions from our premium portfolio including Gallia, Texels and STELZ. Our global brands also performed well in selected markets, including Heineken in Italy, Birra Moretti in Switzerland, Amstel in Romania and Desperados in Spain.

And let me now turn to our newest operating company. On January 30, we completed the acquisition of FIFCO after receiving all regulatory approvals. This transaction significantly strengthens our presence in Central America, and advances EverGreen 2030 by bringing together a portfolio of high-quality assets that enhances our long-term growth platform. It deepens our advantaged geographical footprint in markets supported by strong macroeconomic fundamentals and favorable demographic trends. Through this acquisition, we gained full control of Costa Rica's leading beverage company, including our common brands such as Imperial, a well-established PepsiCo franchise and attractive adjacent businesses in wine, spirits and in proximity retail.

We also assumed full ownership of HEINEKEN Panama, a consistent strong performer that has repeatedly outpaced market growth. In addition, the transaction provides an equal partnership in Nicaragua's leading brewer, Compa��a Cervecera de Nicaragua, expands our access to a scalable food and beverage platform in Guatemala and adds fast-growing beyond beer brands in Mexico. The acquisition is expected to be value accretive enhancing our operating profit margin and earnings per share, while strengthening our strategic position across a dynamic, high-growth region. On day 1, we welcomed our new colleagues to the Heineken family and began the integration process, which is expected to complete in 2026. We have appointed a strong integration team to ensure business continuity while driving growth.

Harold will take you through the financials of FIFCO, which will be accretive to earnings in '26. And with that, over to Harold to discuss the financials.

Thank you, Dolf, and good morning all. I'm pleased to take you through the financial highlights of our full year 2025 results and the outlook for 2026. And starting with our top line performance on Slide 17. We posted an organic growth of EUR 0.5 billion or 1.6%, a 2.1% volume decline was more than offset by a positive price/mix of 4.1%. Pricing contributed 2.8% and mix added another 1.3%, a result of continued premiumization and strong execution behind our global and local power brands.

Pricing was more pronounced in Africa, Middle East, covering for local input cost inflation and currency devaluation, while in Europe and Americas, our revenue per hectoliter growth was very moderate. Currency translation dampened revenue by almost EUR 1.5 billion, reflecting the strengthening of the euro against some of our key currencies. The minor consolidation effect of minus EUR 84 million relates to our exit of Sierra Leone and a brewery sale in Eastern Congo.

Turning to operating profit. where we delivered EUR 4.4 billion of operating profit (beia) growing 4.4% organically and resulting in an operating profit margin (beia) of 15.2%, up 41 basis points organically versus last year. The EUR 467 million of organic net revenue (beia) growth on the previous page translated to EUR 198 million organic operating profit growth, a conversion rate of 42%. With negative volume leverage, moderate pricing and continued investments in brand and digitalization, gross savings from our productivity programs were a critical driver.

Variable cost per hectoliter increased by low single digits, with meaningful differences across regions, ranging from mid-single-digit decrease in Europe, low single-digit increases in Americas and Asia Pacific and high single-digit inflation in Africa, Middle East. Marketing and selling investment as a percentage of net revenue reached 9.9%, up 6 basis points compared to the prior year. Investments concentrated on our priority growth markets, including Brazil, Mexico, U.S., South Africa, Vietnam, U.K. and India, with a meaningful step-up in sponsorships and in trade execution, and particularly in Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific. Marketing and selling expenditure on our 5 global and 25 local focus brands accounted for over 80% of total spend.

On a regional level, the main contribution to operating profit growth was the Africa Middle East region, where operating profit grew 62%, as Dolf said, benefiting from a transformed cost base from productivity savings delivered over the past 2 years and revenue growth outpacing inflation. Operating margin (beia) improved over 400 basis points, now reaching 12.8% for the year 2025. In APAC, operating profit grew by 5.8% with strong contributions from Vietnam, India and Myanmar, held back by Cambodia.

In the Americas, operating profit declined 1.9%, incorporating the tariff impact on imports into the USA. Also worth bearing in mind that we cycled a strong prior year comparison where the region grew operating profit by almost 25%. And finally, in Europe, operating profit declined 4.9%. Decreases in Poland, Austria and France outweighed growth in the U.K. and Spain. Lower material and energy costs and strong growth savings include a further European supply network rationalization were more than offset by volume deleverage and general inflation. Consolidation changes had a negative impact of EUR 36 million. Translational currency effect was EUR 290 million negative, again, mainly caused by the strengthening of the euro.

Let me turn to the other key financial (beia) metrics on Slide 19. On the second line, you see that our share of profit (beia) from associates and joint ventures grew 5.3% organically, over half driven by strong mid-teens growth of our CRB partners in China. Net interest expenses (beia) decreased by 1% to EUR 522 million, reflecting a lower average net debt position and a lower average effective interest rate of 3.4%. Other net financing expenses improved by almost 18% to EUR 199 million due to lower losses from currency revaluations on outstanding foreign currency payables, especially in Nigeria, following our successful rights issue and subsequent balance sheet restructuring at the end of last year.

Net profit increased by 4.9% organically to EUR 2.66 billion, which includes an increase in income tax expenses and noncontrolling interest. The effective tax rate (beia) was 27.2% compared to 27.9% in 2024. The improvement mainly reflects changes in the profit mix. All in all, and factoring in the share count reduction from our share buyback, this resulted in a constant currency EPS (beia) increase of 3.6% to EUR 4.78. We will propose at the AGM of this year a dividend increase of 2.2 per share to EUR 1.90. This equates to an equivalent amount of EUR 1.046 billion to be returned to shareholders through dividends. Finally, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 2.2x at the end of the year below the long-term target of below 2.5x. When we consolidate FIFCO in 2026, we will see a moderate uplift and as per our policy, we'll aim to bring this back to below 2.5x target at pace.

Let me now turn to the free operating cash flow. We generated EUR 2.6 billion of free operating cash flow in 2025, a strong cash conversion of 87% following last year's peak 103%. We are pleased with this performance. The year-on-year decrease of EUR 456 million should be seen in conjunction with last year's strong working capital improvements, which contributed approximately EUR 1 billion to our free operating cash flow for 2024. This year, we further improved working capital by over EUR 300 million, with main working capital as a percentage of net revenue, improving by almost 1%. Because the improvement is less than last year, the effect is negative, as shown in the EUR 523 million adverse impact. CapEx amounted to EUR 2.4 billion, representing 8.3% of net revenue (beia) in line with our guidance. Many investments related to our new Passos brewery in Brazil, our Star Pubs in the U.K. and in our digital backhaul. Cash used for interest, dividends and income tax decreased in aggregate by EUR 78 million.

Let us now turn to our capital allocation priorities. As a reminder, in our value creation model, we prioritize capital allocation towards organic growth. We do so with a disciplined financial framework, with a prudent approach to debt. We remain committed to our long-term below 2.5x net debt-to-EBITDA ratio. We maintain a regular dividend policy as we've had for decades as an important and consistent source of shareholder returns.

Going forward, we bring the dividend payout policy range to 30% to 50% of net profit before exceptional items and amortization of brands, so net profit (beia) compared with the prior range of 30% to 40%. We pursue value-enhancing acquisitions for long-term profitable growth. And with the FIFCO acquisition completed in January, we're excited to welcome the brands, the customers and the people to Heineken. Actively shaping the portfolio also means resolving or exiting operations where we see limited possibilities for sustained value creation. And as previously indicated, we consider returning excess capital via share buyback. This time last year, we announced a EUR 1.5 billion program and completed the first EUR 750 million tranche last month. We will shortly announce the start of our second EUR 750 million tranche. We outlined our EverGreen 2030 strategy last October at the Capital Markets Day in Seville.

Let me now take a minute of how we accelerate execution in 2026. As Dolf already mentioned, our priorities are clear, with growth as our #1 priority. We are directing resources to strengthen our growth profile staying close to consumers and customers. At the same time, we are increasingly leveraging our global scale to improve productivity and simplify how we operate. A key focus is on how we build and manage our brands. All our global brands, representing almost 40% of total volume and now adapting the Heineken brand model, combining a pioneering spirit with a structured repeatable way of building brands that support consistent execution and better value delivery. Amstel's progress over the last year demonstrates the impact this can have. We are also increasing the breadth and space of our innovation.

In 2026, we will have around 3x as many launches and pilots in our priority segments, which allows us to respond more effectively to changing consumer needs. Freddy AI will become a core enabler of our marketing and brand building processes. And by the end of 2026, most markets will be onboarded, representing close to 80% of our global marketing and selling investment. This will deepen consumer and customer relevance and enable excellent execution at speed and scale with improved ROIs over time.

To fuel the growth and the profit, we are stepping up productivity initiatives and make changes to our operating model. We are moving to a simpler, leaner Heineken centered on empowered operating companies. In selected regions, we are transitioning to multi-market operating companies or MMOs. 4 MMOs will already go live in Europe in the next 6 months. We're accelerating the leveraging of our global scale, including further expanding our global supply networks and enlarging the scope of Heineken Business Services. The transition to a single global digital backbone will further standardize data and processes, enabling automation and productivity, and we are moving to a smaller, more strategic head office.

Concretely, we will streamline our supply chain through brewery digitization and selected closures, exit markets where we do not see a path to sustainable growth and transition around 3,000 roles to Heineken Business Services to double its scale and broaden the services it provides. Across these initiatives, we expect a net reduction of between 5,000 and 6,000 roles over the next 2 years. Time lines will vary by market, and we will support impacted colleagues with care, respect and appropriate assistance. These actions are designed to deliver the EUR 400 million to EUR 500 million of annual gross savings and allow us to continue investing in our brands and capabilities while supporting healthy operating profit growth.

Now then the outlook for 2026. We remain prudent on the macroeconomics and the consequent household spending in several markets. At this stage of the year, we do not expect the consumer environment to materially change. We anticipate operating profit to grow between 2% and 6% on an organic basis. As just highlighted, we accelerate the disciplined execution of EverGreen 2030 at pace, invest behind our growth and step up needed cost interventions. As such, we expect gross savings to be at the upper end of our medium-term guidance range. In terms of variable costs, we expect a low single-digit rise, primarily from currency effects on local inflation in Africa. The effective interest rates and the other net finance expenses are expected to be in line with 2025 and our effective tax rate to be in the range of 27% to 28%. And lastly, the completed acquisition of the FIFCO Beverage and Retail business is expected to be accretive to EPS in 2026.

Now let's double-click on the financials of FIFCO. As a reminder, we acquired the business at 11.6x EV EBITDA multiple for a EUR 3.2 billion cash consideration. This means that our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio will increase moderately and expect to be back below 2.5x by 2027. At the time of the deal announcement in September, we gave you the '24 financials. The '25 financials do not differ materially. Net revenue of $1.15 billion and an operating profit of $276 million. These figures are, of course, based on the local accounting policies. The integration team will now start to align reporting with the Heineken accounting policies. And like I said earlier, we closed the transaction on the 30th of January. For the 11-month period, we expect FIFCO to be circa 2% to 3% accretive to EPS in 2026.

To summarize, for 2025. We achieved a well-balanced performance in challenging market conditions. In the growth pillar, we delivered revenue growth consisting of quality volume with solid market share gains. In the productivity pillar, our teams realized another year of strong growth savings, the key driver of the operating margin expansion. We are pleased with the progress on capital efficiency with solid cash flow and an improving ROIC. And for 2026, in a similar market context as 2025, we accelerate the execution of EverGreen 2030, putting our growth strategy in place and taking bold productivity measures to unlock investment space and enable profit expansion. We expect operating profit (beia) to grow in the 2% to 6% range. Thanks for listening. And now over to you for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Sanjeet Aujla from UBS.

Dolf, just a quick word to wish you all the best for your next steps and thanks for all the openness and transparency over the years. I've got 2 questions, please. Firstly, can you just go into a little bit more on the pricing actions in Americas in Q4 and how your market share has responded to that? And is that perhaps behind some of your cautiousness on volumes into '26?

And secondly, just digging a bit deeper into Europe, where are you on distribution and shelf space now following the resolution of the retailer disputes, are you anticipating to recoup that fully in 2026?

Very good. Thanks for your kind words, Sanjeet. Let me take a first step and then Harold can complement. Just on Europe, already in the second half, distribution and shelf space has been recovering month-over-month. On shelf space, there were some gaps left, but we are very confident that in the spring resets, those will be completely closed. We're also making very good progress on the retail negotiations for this year. And again, no regrets on biting the bullet last year, as very important strategic principles. And in our view, the long-term sustainability of the category were in play in those negotiations, and yes, the outcome of those negotiations, even though taking longer than expected, were acceptable to us.

On pricing in the Americas, did you picked up that we took pricing up a bit to the back end of the year, but also in response to input cost. Our market share in the aggregate in Brazil has been very strong on sell-out. And we all know that at the beginning of the year, we had to stock resets impacting our sell-in. But on sell out market share has been very strong throughout. In Mexico, we had very strong market share indeed for the first 9 months, and that came a bit under pressure in the last quarter indeed. But in the aggregate, we are confident, and we are happy with where we are at. Harold, anything to add on that one?

Yes. Maybe on that last point, just to piggyback on that because Sanjeet, your question is also looking forward. And I think it's fair to say that we are happy with where the pricing and the promotional level of activity is at this moment in the run going forward. As you know, these things really go in waves, and we take pricing on our own demand by taking competitive realities into account, and we felt that we really had to adjust in the second half of the year, especially as what Dolf just said. But we are happy where it is, and we don't expect an overhang from that going into 2026.

Our next question comes from Chris Pitcher from Rothschild & Co Redburn.

And I echo Sanjeet, Dolf, wishing you well in the future. And leading on from that comment, in Seville, it really felt like you presented the next chapter for Heineken. So it really was a surprise to read that you've decided to leave. I appreciate you're moving into the execution phase right now. And this morning, on interview, you said the Board has completely supported that strategy. I'm just trying to understand the role of the CEO over the next 2 to 5 years because there's obviously a lot of operational execution required with FIFCO, about 10% of the global workforce impacted either through transitional reduction.

But also from a branding perspective, brand set that EUR 15 billion target for your international brands. And 3 out of the 5 actually saw volumes decline this year. So what is the challenge? Is it more of an operational execution? Or is it more on the brand side? And could you perhaps just give us a bit more color on Tiger, which seems to be sort of struggling in its positioning versus Heineken?

Very good. Thanks, Chris. Yes. A couple of thoughts. First of all, indeed, it is very important. And the words of Peter Wennink, the Chairman of our Supervisory Board in that press release a couple of weeks ago, we are very intentional that there is very explicit alignment between the Supervisory Board, the Executive Board and executive team that EverGreen 2030 is our strategy. It's clear, it's compelling, and it provides a lot of, yes, clarity and direction to the company. So that stands now and in the foreseeable future. It is all about accelerating disciplined execution. The announcements that we included in our release today on productivity, on FTE reductions should be seen very much in that spirit. And we're not slowing down. We are accelerating. We are now really operationalizing and double clicking on the priorities as we presented them in the interview, and more to come in the months and years ahead.

On the branding, we indeed believe that about 10, 15 years ago, we made a governance change on brand Heineken, which ultimately unlocked systemic growth on the Heineken brand. It's amazing its year-over-year through all the disruption and turbulence of the last year, every year, the Heineken brands kept on growing. Last year, it was growing. It was up double digits in 27 years. So that governance model with a much more clear global governance and direction, but is now going to be applied on the other global brands. Amstel is a fantastic example that already moved a bit earlier, and you see the results with an acceleration of the performance of the Amstel brand across all regions.

The incredible success in Brazil, now the doubling in China, South Africa returning to significant growth, but also in Europe in markets like Romania, where we are launching it. Moretti and Desperados, also a little bit because of mix effect because Europe is such a big proportion of those brands. And the home markets or some of the large markets, for example, Poland, for Desperados do impact a little bit the brand. But we are very confident that when the step-up in that brand confidence, there's a lot of potential for brand Desperados and Moretti. And we keep rolling out Moretti to new markets in Europe, and we keep expanding Desperados on a global level with, for example, in the Africa region, fantastic results in Nigeria, C�te d'Ivoire and other places.

Tiger is disproportionately impacted by Vietnam because underlying the brand is doing well. Vietnam,of course, being such a big part of the brand. And there, we are really in a revitalization of the brand. Actually, Tiger Crystal is now in absolute terms, larger than Tiger Original and continuously grow. And actually, we are approaching the moment where the decline on the underlying Tiger Original business is smaller than the increase on Tiger Crystal.

And in a way, what happened with the Heineken brand, the Heineken brand was under pressure for about a decade until the launch of Heineken Silver. And Silver has done an amazing job revitalizing brand Heineken across the APAC region. And we think with Tiger Crystal something happening similarly with Tiger. So let me leave it at that.

Our next question comes from Simon Hales from Citi.

And I just echo as well everyone else's comments, Dolf to you. Thanks for all your insights and wisdom over the last 6 particularly challenging years for the industry and all the best for the future. I've got a couple as well, please. Obviously, you talked in your presentation and in the press release this morning about being prudent still on the consumer backdrop coming into 2026 and you've issued that 2% to 6% organic guidance for the year. So what factors do you think will drive you to the upper end or the bottom end of the range? Is the first question. What should we be bearing in mind there?

And then secondly, around AI adoption in the business in 2026 and specifically AI adoption through Freddy's in marketing. What's that really going to mean do you think, for savings in marketing in the short term? How should we think about the overall marketing spend levels in 2026? I think from memory Dolf back in Seville at the end of last year, you talked about aiming to get A&P or marketing above 10% as a percentage of sales. You're on the cusp of that. Should we see you get there in 2026?

Yes. Very good. Thanks, Simon. Thanks for your kind words. Let me take the second part and then over to Harold. On the AI adoption. So first of all, the old AI machine learning has been adopted across the business for many, many years, particularly in supply chain, but also beyond. Of course, AI is different ways, whether it's the generative AI, your customer service, whether it's more agentic AI across operations, we're really moving at pace and in a focused way, focused on clear use cases that we are done scaling across our network.

Marketing is indeed, as you were saying, particularly prone to the use of the more, let's say, future AI possibilities. What we announced, what Bram announced in Seville, the launch of Freddy AI, which is kind of our global internal marketing engine, which we're building, and it's built completely with AI in mind. And indeed, with time, it should unlock significant savings. To what extent we will reinvest these savings or whether we will let them go to the bottom line is to be determined along the way. We are not expressing ourselves at this point.

We are very proud that even in a challenging year for the industry last year, we're able to expand our marketing investments in absolute terms. Indeed, we went up in basis points to very close to the 10%. And we, for this year, are still planning an absolute increase in our marketing investments. But indeed, yes, a lot of organizational focus and attention is now into the building, designing and scaling of Freddy AI now and for the years to come. Harold, if you can take the one on the prudent guidance.

Sure, well. The guidance, and indeed, it starts with a recognition to link it to what Dolf just said that it's important for us to continue to invest in the category and continue to invest in our brand portfolio and continue to invest in the digitization of Heineken. And we are basically being realistic that as from quarter 4 exit rates to quarter 1 starting rates, we don't see a material change in the consumer environment, neither in the economic certainty or uncertainty that the world is at the moment, offering us. So in that sense, I think Dolf is right that we're cautious on the macroeconomics and the economic sentiment determined to invest in the long-term health and strategic pillars of the growth of this organization and by stepping up productivity, ensure that we have got the flex to deal with those realities.

And we talked, Simon, before about the fact that we are not giving, let's call it, good summer, bad summer ranges. We are really now starting to pivot to different scenarios in different markets aggregating that up and that's where the 2% to 6% range is coming from. So we'll just have to see how things are evolving in 2026, but we got the ammunition to keep on investing in growth.

Our next question comes from Richard Withagen from Kepler.

And also from my side, Dolf, all the best for the future. Now the 2 questions I have is the first one, you mentioned the aim to accelerate the growth of the global brands using the Heineken brand model. So maybe you can elaborate a bit in what way has the brand building of the global brand is different from the Heineken brand. Is it perhaps in terms of innovation, commercial execution, less resources, perhaps some background on that?

And then the second question is back to Europe. Yes, we saw volume pressure from the retail disruptions and negotiations. Can you tell us what specific commercial changes are being implemented to avoid a repeat of those disruptions? And do you expect volume growth in Europe in 2026?

Thank you so much. Let me take the first one and then Harold if you can take the second one on Europe. So on the difference in the model, I don't want to go into too much detail, but the governance of Brand Heineken is firmly done from the center. And it means that positioning campaigns, tech lines, commercials are all centrally developed and sometimes adopted or customized for differences across regions. With some of the other global brands, take Moretti until very recently, brand ownership and governance was done out of Italy. But the team in Italy doesn't have the kind of global perspective that is now needed going forward. And the same applies to the other global brands.

So this is really about strong global brand team centered in Amsterdam with a global perspective and really taking ownership of positioning the brand strategies, the core campaigns, really leveraging also the benefit of scale and skilled insights if you'd like. And we started moving that already a bit early with Amstel and you see the incredible success and acceleration of performance that was the consequence. Harold, over to you.

Yes. So let me tackle the Europe question. So first, it's important to realize that if you look at the volume growth in Europe, about 2/3 of the volume drop that we saw in Europe was related to market and market specific circumstances and about 1/3 was impact from the negotiations that we were just talking about. We also previously spoke about the household sentiment, the consumer sentiment in Europe that has been relatively subdued, and as a consequence of that, we really saw a trend towards more price-sensitive or value-seeking consumer. We spoke about that previous.

Important to note that both in 2025 as well as the outlook for 2026, we believe that we are seeing price mix management that is below the level of CPI inflation that we see. And therefore, bringing affordability more back into the category. The second thing is what Glenn and team is doing is really starting to focus on growth pockets, whether this is our start-ups in the U.K., the Cruzcampo brand that we really see another 50% growth coming from there in the U.K. And we still believe that there are great growth opportunities in France, which is a growing market as consumers prefer increasingly beer over wine. And the same is true in some of the other southern markets with different propositions and innovation that Dolf was also talking about.

So it is really about growth pockets, innovation, premiumization in selected markets, but also making sure that affordability comes into play. And in order to finance that and increased investment in brands and categories, we really need to take the cost out as a result of which we've really driven that productivity lens globally but also specifically in Europe. So that's the equation that we follow.

Our next question comes from Olivier Nicolai.

I would echo everyone else's comments. Thank you very much, Dolf. I got 2 questions, please. First of all, could you give us a little bit more color on Asia Pacific. In Q4, beer volumes has been slowing down about minus 3.4%. How much shipment phasing there is related to the debt, which is obviously going to benefit Q1? And if you could help us to quantify this, that would be great.

And then secondly, a question on the free cash flow, EUR 2.6 billion. That was ahead of expectations. Could you give us a bit more details on how much upside do you see there going forward, particularly when it comes to net working capital and inventory specifically? And is it realistic to go back towards EUR 3 billion its year.

I'm for sure going to leave the second question to Harold. Let me take the APAC question. First of all, we -- let me emphasize, we are very happy with our performance across APAC. And I think the footprint is working very, very well. Vietnam, of course, is such a critical market for us. And after the incredible market disruption in '23, the stabilization in '24, '25 was really the year where both the market returned to growth but also where Heineken Vietnam really resumed market share gains. So we significantly outpaced the growth of the market across regions, across channels, both on and off-trade, premium and mainstream. So it's a very broad-based recovery of market as well as our relative performance momentum.

There's always the timings of debt and those kind of things that impact a bit quarter-by-quarter performance. But in the aggregate, we're very happy with the performance of Vietnam. India, as we -- this is such a critical strategic pillar of the company now. I think we all agree, it's probably the largest frontier market globally in terms of upside on per capita and in absolute terms. We're very happy by the job done by the team after initially also, yes, a job to kind of integrate and normalize and standardize the business to Heineken standards. We are now really starting to see the fruits of, yes, the commercial strategies coming to life. The back end of last year was really impacted by weather. It was extraordinarily cold and wet in Q3 going into Q4. But from a market share performance, we're very happy with India, both on the core Kingfisher brand, which is by far the leading brands in the country, but also in particular, our premium portfolio with Kingfisher Ultra, Heineken, Amstel Grande, what have you.

Cambodia is probably the market that has been the biggest drag on our results in Q4. They were playing against a large number of local players with a lot of overcapacity, not everybody playing to the same rules. So that remains a concern that we are focusing on. But in the aggregate, very happy with the APAC performance. Again, we keep reiterating in the organic results you're probably referring to, you don't have China, which is an absolute success story. This is such an important strategic pillar of the company now. We keep growing double digits. Brand Heineken up double digit again, and now Amstel becoming a sizable second engine, which is only at the beginning of the curve.

And as we revealed in the press release or actually in my comments, I believe, it's now a top 3 market in terms of absolute net profit contribution, if you take the income from associates plus royalty income. So this -- yes, we sometimes feel frustrated and it's also one of the reasons where Tristan proposed to update the volume definition to give more visibility to the license volumes because actually, strategically, this is becoming a very important part of the business and relatively asset light. Let me leave it there. Harold, on the cash flow?

On the cash flow, I like the challenge. But there is a reason why we said we were pleased with our performance because we are -- as we said at the Capital Markets Day, really paying more and more attention to free operating cash flow delivery, but also return on invested capital as we extensively discussed then. It also is important to realize what we're doing with that free operating cash flow. We continue to invest in the organic side of the business, but the addition of FIFCO is a really, really important jewel that gives us coverage, great coverage with great brands in Central America.

You will have noted that we're expanding our dividend range from 30% to 50% and are increasing our dividend slightly but slightly nonetheless. And we are announcing the second tranche of our share buyback program. So the free operating cash flow is an important metric for us to also enable sustainable shareholder value creation in the long term. The EUR 3 billion is a good ambition to have, but I'm not going to commit to it in 2026, as you will understand.

Our real focus is to sustainably bring the cash conversion rate up to 90%. And you will have seen that all the levers are in play. Our net working capital improved as a percentage of revenue by 1%. Our CapEx, we really talk about growth without CapEx. Don't take this too literally. But we are really getting the leverage out of our existing capital base, and importantly, management focus, both better forecasting, but also action. Cash actions are really stepping up in that space. So that's the message that we're trying to signal, whether it leads to EUR 3 billion, time will tell.

Our next question comes from Laurence Whyatt from Barclays.

I once again echo everyone's thoughts, Dolf, best of luck for the future. I really appreciate you've taken the time over the past few years to help us out. A couple of questions for me. Firstly, on Mexico, I appreciate you've taken quite a bit of price in recent years and again in Q4. But what strikes me about the Mexican market is just sort of the lack of the premium segment. It seems to have a very low percentage of premium beers sold in Mexico. And so whilst I appreciate you're working on the price element, is there something more that could be done on mix within Mexico just to sort of get that percentage of premium beers up? And of course, I would have thought that leads to greater profitability there as well.

And then secondly, on your Heineken 0 brand, we've seen a number of line extensions over the past year and a couple of more announced just this year. Some of those extensions are on sort of fruit flavors. I'm just wondering how you see this sort of strategy evolved? How close can you get to sort of more of a soft drink type of brand with the Heineken 0 as you add more and more fruit and whether those line extensions you're expecting to bring new consumers into the beer space? Do they go into the alcoholic side of Heineken once they try these line extensions? Sort of how do you see the nonalcoholic part of Heineken impacting the rest of the Heineken brand?

Very good. Very good questions. So thanks for your words, Laurence. On Mexico, indeed, historically, the premium segment has been small. I know from my own experience leading the market a bunch of years ago, that it is not for lack of trying on our behalf nor the competition. I think it might also be a reflection that the absolute price level in the market is, for example, compared to Brazil, much higher. So I think it might also have to do a little bit with the affordability of mainstream creating maybe less space to go above.

Having said that, we do see premium segments now accelerating. In our portfolio, we see it with Miller High Life, which crossed the 1 million hectoliter mark. I remember doing the first license deal with, of course, many years ago, and it was -- Miller High Life was a rounding error and it's now becoming actually a meaningful brand at scale with very fast growth. The same for Dos Equis our affordable premium brands. So we do believe that there's an opportunity, but it might go a little bit at a different pace than it has been going in other markets like Vietnam or in Brazil.

On the 0.0, the line extensions had come in 2 shapes. It's the flavors under the regular 0.0. We piloted them last year, and we are now really scaling them. And of course, a couple of key markets like now the U.S. and the U.K. And we have the ultimate, which is the triple 0, including 0 calories, which we piloted in the Northeast of the U.S. and which is expanding now too. So we're indeed experimenting, learning different ways rather than go to big global launches in one go. We're really kind of feeling our way to see where the consumer is at. But we are very confident that there's very good upside there.

On the question on soft drinks, we do believe it's not about us trying to be a soft drink. I think it's the other way around. We believe that by extending our 0.0, we can play into premium adult natural beverages, which is clearly complementing soft drinks, and it's an area where soft drinks cannot go as easy as we can using a beer brand as a brand carrier makes it more adult. Given it's 0.0 beer, it's more natural. Typically, it has much lower sugars, much lower calories. So we believe -- and it commands premium pricing in a very significant way.

So we really like where this is going and where the first generation of 0.0 beer started very close to beer occasions at moments that somebody chose for a no alcohol option. We do believe indeed that we can start to unlock new occasions that were not accessible before, as the 0.0 segment is maturing. And as the global leader, we should take the leading role in pioneering that. So we're pretty excited about it.

Just maybe to follow up on Ultimate. Do you see that playing a different space to where the current 0.0 beers are? Are they taking share from each other? Or do you think that's really opening up a new market.

No, we do believe that, that's a new market. Where Heineken 0.0 Original, really plays into less beer drinkers or for certain occasions where people -- unlike a lunch occasion or a business dinner occasion where people rather stay in control and not have the alcohol version. The Ultimate plays into complete new occasions around sports moments, after sports occasions. That's why the global sponsorship with Padel is interesting in this regard. So we're really trying to -- in the end of the day, marketing is about growing consumer penetration, and that's what we're trying to do very intentionally with these line extensions.

Our next question comes from Sarah Simon from Morgan Stanley.

Dolf, you will be missed. I had 2 questions, please. First one was on FIFCO. You've given us some numbers in terms of the performance in dollars, but can you give us a bit more color around how the business performed organically in 2025, and also what you're kind of expecting in terms of what things are looking like for '26?

And the second question was around sort of following on from Laurence's question on 0.0. You obviously had basically flat Heineken 0.0 volumes during the year. And I appreciate your comments about distributor inventory resets. But what do you think your 0.0, let's say, sellout is globally? And how does that compare with what you think the market is doing?

Yes. Thank Sarah. Let me take the second, and then maybe Harold can comment on the FIFCO question. So our largest Heineken 0.0 market globally is Brazil, and that was, as said, highly disrupted by the stock reset in Brazil. In the key and core markets, like, for example, the U.S., Heineken 0 continues to do very, very well. And in the aggregate, we need to be careful that we don't make new forward leading comments, but 0.0 should drive disproportionate growth across our portfolio. We remain very bullish. We believe consumer penetration is still low and building. We are unlocking new occasions as per the prior discussion.

Globally, it's still low single-digit percentage of the total beer category. In Europe, it's nearing 4%, 5% in core markets like the Netherlands. Spain, it's 10%. I don't see no reason why this can't be 10% of global beer in XYZ years. We were the first mover about a decade ago. We have been very intentional about scaling and for sure, we will continue. So we would see '25 performance as an outlier due to some very specific cyclical reasons. But underlying, we are very confident in our low and no strategy portfolio and business momentum. Harold?

Yes, let me be brief on FIFCO. So first, I think it's important to reemphasize that this is really about long-term strategic fit. We're very happy with the brand portfolio. We're very happy with our market share positions. We're very happy with the grip that we have also through retail outlets. So we really believe that for the long term, this is a fantastic opportunity for us. And let's remind ourselves also that compared to the other markets, the per capita consumption is still relatively low. So we do see growth opportunities in the Central America, but in particular, in the Costa Rica market as well.

Then in terms of the trading question that you're asking is pretty much in line with 2024. So no big dramas there. It's also very much in line with what we had assumed for 2025. So no surprises coming there. And yes, there has been likely many of the American markets, some impact from macroeconomic uncertainty, for example, tourism have been down a little bit, and that may have had some impact on market category growth momentum, but nothing that worries us at all going forward.

Our next question comes from Andrea Pistacchi from Bank of America.

And Dolf, also on my part, thank you for the open interactions, insights and all the very best. Two questions, please. First one, I wanted to go back to Brazil a minute, please, which showed a sequential improvement in Q4. You gained share in the market, but could you maybe talk about the health of the market? Are you seeing signs of improvement as we go into this year? How constructive do you feel about Brazil recovery in '26? And also how is the new brewery opening proceeding? And will it drive cost savings already this year?

My second question is actually on the multi-market operations. Could you talk a bit about the scope of these multi-market operations? How large are the clusters? Is this mainly a European initiative? Or is it global? And the pace of moving towards these MMOs and what do you see as the main benefit besides cost savings?

Thank you, Andrea. And let me take the first one and Harold will take the second one. So on Brazil, again, overall, on sellout, we are very happy and pleased with our ongoing market share momentum, really driven by brands Heineken and the Amstel brand, but now also Eisenbahn really picking up and some of the more super premium brands. The market did slow down remarkably in the second half of the year, the market is going into decline. We are deliberately cautious on the short-term outlook on Brazil. We don't want to look too much into January numbers.

Let's wait for the Nielsen numbers also to see what that is looking like. We're really focusing on what we can control, which is brand portfolio, which is our relative pricing decisions, which are our activation plans. And there, again, we feel very confident also for this year. The brewery Passos is very important because of its physical location. We were trucking a lot of beer from the Northeast to the Southeast where the bulk of our volume is. And so there is Immediate logistical savings, there is government incentive savings. So even though our volume is not expanding at a rapid pace in the short term, this will come with an optimized P&L. And that was also one of the reasons why we did pursue that opening. Harold, on to the MMO question. .

Yes. So first, the reason why we're doing this MMO is really that we see opportunity to be stronger together as Glenn would call it. Most of the FMCG companies that we know of have already started to do that. And we do believe that there is opportunity, but very importantly, a dedicated management team at country level will continue to exist. So this is not really about taking the eyes of consumers and customers. It really is about pulling resources where we believe they are better equipped to do that above a single market and really pull, therefore, that together in a multi-market structure.

We will look at this geography by geography. We have already some of these multi-market operations in play and the biggest one that we know is, of course, Heineken beverages in South Africa, where we already see leveraging portfolio, leveraging distribution systems, leveraging support offices is really benefiting the total of the cluster. So this is not new to us, and it's something that we really want to start looking seriously into, but in a very managed deliberate, intentional way.

The scope, therefore, in Europe is centered around 4 Czech Slovak, Romania, Bulgaria, Benelux and the Germany, Austria, Switzerland cluster or multi-market organization. And as we already said in the earlier question, the benefits are not only about cost savings, it's really also about taking, let's call it, distraction away so that country organizations can focus on customers and consumers. And that the rest, the parent -- the biggest one in the multi-market organization does a lot of the administrative work and that is what we are trying to do. So it has cost benefits but certainly also focused benefits.

Our next question comes from Celine Pannuti from JPMorgan.

First of all, I see a lot of changes that are happening in the organization. And clearly, on the EverGreen strategy. So I wanted to congratulate you, Dolf, on this. And obviously, wishing you a lot of luck for the future. My first question probably related to the EverGreen strategy where you said that top line growth is the core focus. In '25, you grew 1.6% organically. And I'm trying to understand how to unpack that for '26? You say -- I mean, obviously, price/mix accelerated into the quarter, although you seem to be saying that price/mix, you want to be a bit more careful about that. At least that was for Europe.

So if you could try help me understand how the price/mix should develop in '26 versus the '25 level? And in an environment where, obviously, you are quite cautious as well about our demand, do you think that aiming for flat volume in '26 is achievable for you? So that's my first question.

My second question is regarding profit delivery, the 2% to 6%, I think you made a comment about how this was really driven by EMEA. I would like to understand for '26 the balance of that by region? And as well, is there any balance we should think about H1, H2, given, I think, still some FX transaction in the first half of the year?

Thank you, Celine. Let me have a first go at it, and then I'm sure Harold has a thing or 2 to say on this. Let me start by the profit guidance of 2% to 6%. So we trimmed it a little bit and it's a combination of a couple of things. One is just to remain a bit prudent on the short-term expectations from the category. In different places, there's different drivers, affordability concerns or we have macroeconomic disruption still playing in parts of the footprint. Mid and long term, we remain confident explicitly so and that the category should sequentially improve to growth again. But in the short term, we rather err on the side of being a bit cautious on the category assumption.

Very importantly, another reason is that we really want to maintain flexibility to keep investing in growth in digitizing the business, et cetera. As I said earlier, very pleased that even in a challenging lean year like last year, we were able to increase our absolute marketing selling expenses, increasing marketing selling as a percentage of revenue by some basis points. And so that guidance is also really set with that intention in mind to remain flexibility to keep those investment level in place even if there's unforeseen turbulence. Harold, over to you on the question on pricing and revenue.

Yes. Of course, going forward, we're not going to comment on pricing, certainly not specifically market by market for obvious reasons, Celine, you know. But maybe it's good that we look back towards 2025, which makes me a bit more comfortable to speak about it. And I think what we're trying to signal is a bit consistency in our behavior. And therefore, you really need to look at the revenue per hectoliter growth region by region, where in Africa, we indeed continue to predict input cost inflation from foreign exchange and local inflation, and we will take pricing for that if and when and how we can, like we did in 2025.

In the other side, Vietnam is a good example of that, and Dolf alluded to that in the beginning. We see a very important opportunity to continue to manage the mix, because the growth of Heineken is a premiumization strategy, but in a 0.25 liter can. And that is an important component of the price mix that you see in Vietnam. And that is really what we are trying to do. To balance affordability, price-seeking consumer, but still going after premium because the consumer is prepared to go premium as long as it fits the pocket and the cash outlay like, for example, with 25 cl can. So revenue management is a very important part of our pricing strategy, not just pure pricing. And that's how we're trying to get this right market by market, region by region, and we will do in developed markets, particularly in Europe, be very cautious about the consumer environment not to overprice and really start paying attention to volume as well.

Any commentary on the balance of operating profit delivery?

Yes, between half 1 and half 2, well, you know that we're always aiming to be consistent and predictable, which the world would say the same. So I think we are trying to be very agile in approach to balance that out and give you line of sight, but it depends on factors and as Dolf already alluded to, we also have our investment strategy and are not here to manage quarter-by-quarter short term. We really are wanting to get this right for the long term as well. So we'll do our best, but cannot promise.

I think we're going to the last question.

Our last question is from Trevor Stirling from Bernstein.

You'll be relieved to know there's only one question. But firstly, let me reiterate what everyone else has said, Dolf, and in particular, I look forward to saying it in person over a cold one tomorrow. The question, Dolf, clearly, 1st of June 2020, a world a lot has happened in those intervening years. When you look back, what do you think is your biggest learnings here in terms of what's worked, what hasn't worked? Yes, just reflections on your time as CEO.

Thank you, Trevor. And certainly looking forward to a cold one, with all of you together tomorrow end of day, always a -- yes, a happy moment to look forward to. Yes, I actually just realized that today, it's February 11, and it was on February 11, 2020, that I was informed that I was going to be nominated as the next CEO of Heineken. And I was living in Singapore at that moment, and it all looked rosy. And I was really worried about how to step in the footsteps of Jean-Francois, given the incredible momentum, the role, the category, the business was happening. And little did we know that living in Singapore, it was just days or 1 or 2 weeks later that COVID erupted in Asia and then later in the world. And I took a plane on May 25, was a one-way plane with KLM and air stewards were wearing ski goggles because people still believe that the virus could penetrate your eyeball, it was just bizarre. And then starting in June 1 from home, sitting behind the screen, trying to figure out this team's thing and what have you, this Zoom thing. So it has been a bizarre period.

What I'm super proud of Trevor is that already before COVID, I felt that we had to pick up the pace of change in the company because the pace of change in the world was accelerating. And again, that pace of change in the world has capital accelerating time and again over the last 6 years. And EverGreen as we designed it with the executive team in the second half of 2020 was explicitly designed to future-proof the company in a fast-changing world. And we did that across different dimensions. It was future-proofing our footprint by exiting some markets and doubling down on high-growth markets with good fundamentals like India, South Africa and now more recently with FIFCO, it was doubling down on growth segments like premium beer, low and no beer and beyond beer with varying levels of success, some things moved more smoothly than other.

We always knew, and I remember speaking with some of you 6 years ago, that you said Heineken is fantastic and the brand and the culture, but you guys don't do cost productivity. And we very explicitly tried to change that. I am proud of the progress we have made, taking EUR 3.5 billion of cost out, and there's still more to do. And that's what EverGreen 2030 is all about. We were behind on digitizing the business, including the boring ERP part of it, and we're really advancing at pace, making considerable investments not just in money but also in organizational resources to make sure that our digital backbone is future-proofed. And we did it on sustainability and people, too.

All in all, proud of the progress, incredibly proud of the 87,000 people at Heineken. We lay the foundation, we were not done. More is needed. We are humble in that sense. And I hope you got that spirit and tone when we were together in Seville. And EverGreen 2030 is our sharpened clear expression of our ambition levels building on progress and learnings and at the same time, very clear in the priorities for the company. And as such, it was the toughest decision of my career, if not my life because I love this company dearly.

It is the right moment for me personally to take a professional and personal reset, but I do that with full confidence in the future of this beautiful company and that I'm leaving the company in very capable hands with Harold and the rest of the executive team and with a clear strategy. So thanks for that question, Trevor. And again, looking forward to expand if needed over a beer or otherwise when we see each other tomorrow end of day.

Thank you very much. We will see most of you tomorrow afternoon. Take care.

Thank you.

Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye.

Thank you. This now concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Great. Good afternoon -- good morning, everyone, actually. Thank you for joining us for today's live webcast of our 2025 Q3 trading update. Your host will be Harold van den Broek, our Chief Financial Officer. Following the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. .

The presentation includes forward-looking statements and expectations based on management's current views and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and it is possible that the actual results may differ materially. For more information, please refer to the disclaimer on the first page of this presentation. I will now turn over the call to Harold. .

Thank you, Tristan, and welcome, everyone, indeed. Let me take a few minutes to give you a brief summary of the quarter and then open the line for your questions. Quarter 3 was a challenging quarter with macroeconomic volatility persisting, compounded by other cyclical factors dampening consumer sentiment and frankly, weighing on industry trends. In this environment, however, our advantaged geographical footprint helps us adapt as solid performances in Africa and Asia partially offset the Americas and Europe.

In this context, we were pleased we were able to gain market share in the substantial majority of our markets. During the quarter, we also announced the FIFCO transition in Central America, adding to a growth profile and earnings accretion upon completion in the first half of next year. And last week, as we stay firm on our evergreen strategy, we announced an acceleration in our digital journey, and the reshaping of our organization, including a change at the headquarters in Amsterdam, leading to substantial reductions of roles there.

Taking into account the challenging quarter and with high confidence in our EUR 0.5 billion gross savings target delivery for 2025, we now anticipate our full year organic operating profit (beia) growth to now be towards the lower end of our 4% to 8% guidance.

Let's take a look at our financial highlights for the quarter. Net revenue (beia) for quarter 3 came in at EUR 7.3 billion, a slight decrease of 0.3% organically with year-to-date positively growing 1.3%. Net revenue (beia) per hectoliter increased by 3.6%, led by pricing to mitigate inflationary pressures and by a positive mix effect from portfolio premiumization. Beer volume was down 4.3% organically for the quarter, with growth in Africa and Middle East, but declining volumes in Europe and the Americas.

Our premium beer volume was down 2.2%, with Brand Heineken down 0.6%. Though year-to-date, both are growing, further building the quality volume mix in our portfolio. Let's take a look at the moving components of net revenue (beia). Price/mix was up with 3.3%, led by pricing of 2.3% to mitigate inflationary pressure, as already said, and by a positive mix effect of 1% from portfolio premiumization, especially in Africa, Middle East and in Asia Pacific. Total consolidated volume on an organic basis was down 3.8%, performing ahead of beer due to the strong performance of our beyond beer brands in Africa, Middle East, such as Bedele and Savanna.

This resulted in an organic decrease for the quarter of EUR 23 million or 0.3%. Year-to-date, net revenue increased organically with EUR 295 million or 1.3%. The translation of foreign currencies had a negative effect of EUR 304 million or 4% mainly due to the strengthening of the euro against the Mexican peso, Ethiopian birr and Brazilian real. Consolidation changes were minimal this quarter.

Let me unpack the Heineken performance for a minute in the quarter and year-to-date. Heineken volume fell slightly by 0.6% as double-digit growth in 21 markets could not offset contraction in Brazil and in the U.S.A. as the overall beer market sell and distributors destock. Year-to-date, Heineken continues to be in growth. Heineken 0.0 declined by 1.8%, similarly related to the distributor destocking in Brazil and the U.S. Nevertheless, in the U.S., based on depletions, Heineken 0.0 grew for the 24th consecutive quarter in a row. And globally, Heineken Silver grew in the high 20s with continued strong performances in China and Vietnam.

Then on to our results by region, and let me start with Africa Middle East. We performed well there with all our key markets contributing. Net revenue (beia) grew 14.9% organically with price/mix on a constant geographic basis, up 13.6% driven by strong pricing across the region and positive mix. Beer volume increased organically by 2%, with strong performances throughout including Ethiopia, South Africa as well as smaller markets such as Namibia, Rwanda and Tunisia, more than offsetting contraction in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Throughout Africa, we delivered solid market share gains. In Nigeria, organic net revenue (beia) grew in the 30s with robust market share gains in an economically challenging environment.

Volume declined by a mid-single digit. Significant pricing and positive portfolio mix shift drove strong growth in revenue per hectoliter, both in local currency and in euro terms. Premium beer rose in the double digits, driven by regions; South, Desperados and Heineken.

Heineken Beverages are multi-category beverage business in East and Southern Africa, delivered another sequentially improved performance. Beer volume in South Africa increased by high single digits. Growth was broad-based with Amstel, Windhoek and Heineken in growth. Our cider and RTD portfolio also delivered solid growth led by Bernini, Savanna and the launch of the new Mainstay cocktail range. We are also pleased to see excellent performance in Heineken Beverages International, led by Namibia, Kenya and Tanzania.

Then over to Ethiopia where our organic net revenue (beia) grew by over 50%, driven by beer volume increasing by double digit and outperforming the market. Our leading mainstream brand, Harar, continues to be the growth engine, thanks to its distinctive iconography differentiated taste profile and continued regional expansion, cementing its position as a truly national brand.

Let's now move to the Americas. Net revenue (beia) declined 5.5% organically, and beer volume was down 7.4% and the region was disproportionately affected by subdued consumer sentiment and macroeconomic developments, including trade uncertainty, which we consider to be cyclical in nature. Despite the soft environment, we gained share in the vast majority of our markets across the region, especially in Brazil and Mexico. Price mix on a constant geographic basis was up 1.2%, led by pricing across the region and the continued premiumization of our portfolio.

In Mexico, revenues were broadly stable with beer volume down by low single digit as we gained share in a soft market with weak consumer sentiment. We delivered solid growth in Tecate Original and Dos Equis and also in premium where Miller High Life performed very well.

In Brazil, beer shipment volume contracted in the mid-teens, in part driven by the inventory buildup ahead of the price increase taken by the 1st of July. Beer shipment volume year-to-date is down by a mid-single digit. Based on the sell-out data, however, we gained significant market share in a market that declined by a high single digit for the quarter. Pricing increased by a low single digit. Heineken and Amstel declined in volume in quarter 3 but continued to gain share, while Eisenbahn delivered strong growth in the affordable premium segment.

In the United States, shipment volume was down in the mid-teens, reflecting distributor stock adjustments in a tough beer market that with disproportionate impact on core consumers of Heineken and Dos Equis. Heineken 0.0 depletions grew by low single digit and as I mentioned earlier, recorded its 24th consecutive quarter of uninterrupted growth.

Now on to Asia Pacific. Net revenue (beia) increased organically by 5.6% as price/mix on a constant geographical basis was up 5.9%. Beer volume declined by 0.8% as strong growth in Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos could only partially offset lower volume in India and Cambodia. In Cambodia, our business continues to be challenged in a fiercely competitive environment. Consolidated premium beer grew by a high single digit, led by Heineken -- led by Heineken Silver, I should say, Kingfisher Ultra Max and our stout portfolio.

In Vietnam, beer volume was up by high single digit ahead of the growing market. The Heineken brand grew nearly 40%, led by continued success of Heineken Silver. Our mainstream portfolio grew double digits with Larue Smooth performing strongly.

In India, beer volume fell by a mid-single digit, impacted by an unusually strong monsoon season, but we still outperformed the market. Price/mix expanded by a high single digit, supported by pricing in key states and portfolio mix with premium volume growing in the teens.

In China, Heineken Original, Heineken Silver and Amstel maintained strong momentum with licensed volume growing in the mid-20s and gaining market share, .Amstel, once again, doubled its volume this quarter.

And finally, a word on Europe. Net revenue (beia) declined 3.6% organically, while price/mix on a constant geographic basis increased 0.9%. Beer volume decreased organically by 4.7% and solid growth in the U.K., Ireland and Portugal was more than offset by declines elsewhere. Nevertheless, we saw favorable channel developments with the on-trade performing better in the quarter, though not in growth. In the U.K., beer volume increased by low single digits, outperforming the market. Positive price/mix was driven by pricing and portfolio shifts. Cruzcampo, our authentic Spanish lager from Seville continued its strong trajectory with volume growth exceeding 50%. Murphy's Stout continue to expand and in ciders, interest continue to reach growth trajectory.

In France, the Netherlands and Germany, volume recovery, however, was slower than anticipated following the conclusion of retail negotiations in the beginning of the quarter. It took longer to build back to normal distribution level, and we expect normalization in the near term and saw improvement as the quarter progressed. The Polish market continues to be weak. Last week, we also announced the intended closure of our Namyslów brewery as we continue to reshape our business.

In Austria, the impact of the recently introduced can deposit scheme continues to affect consumer demand. Spanish volumes were stable, and we saw strong performance in Portugal, growing beer volume by mid-single digit, led by Sagres while Birra Moretti and Murphy's Stout drove the volume growth and market share gains led in Ireland.

Let's now move to the outlook for the 2025 financial year. We anticipate ongoing macroeconomic volatility that may impact our consumers, including weak consumer sentiment, global inflationary pressures and currency devaluation in relation particularly to a stronger Europe. Our business continues to adapt with agility to these market conditions. Given the challenging quarter just behind us and based on our current assessment of short-term consumer demand, we expect volume to decline modestly for the year 2025. Taking stock of this volume outlook and our confidence in achieving our productivity target of EUR 500 million, we anticipate our full year organic operating profit (beia) growth to now be towards the lower end of our 4% to 8% guidance.

Now before we go into Q&A, just once again to summarize. Quarter 3 was a challenging quarter with macroeconomic volatility persisting compounded by other cyclical factors, dampening consumer sentiment and weighing on industry trends. We had solid performances in Africa and Asia, somewhat moderating the pressure we saw in the Americas and in Europe.

We were also able to gain market share in the substantial majority of our markets. We're very excited about the FIFCO transaction in Central America, adding to our growth profile and earnings accretion upon completion in the first half of next year. And we will continue to stay the course on our evergreen journey.

And as I just said, we anticipate our full year organic operating profit (beia) growth to now be towards the lower end of our 4% to 8% guidance. With that, I would like to open the line for Q&A. Thank you for listening.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Edward Mundy of Jefferies.

So the first question is really around the commentary within the -- that the macro volatility became more pronounced in the third quarter, which would suggest that the environment became trickier than you would have expected, yet you've still managed to deliver? Or you're still keeping your guidance range of 4% to 8%, albeit at the lower end of it. The question is really how has your approach to risk management evolved to identify those risks and adapt your plan in real time to still be able to deliver on your guidance range? And what are the things you've leaned on in particular to do that? It's the first question.

And then the second question, just on Brazil. You flagged that sellout trends were better than sell-in trends. I was just hoping to get a bit of a feel as to whether that shipment mismatch has washed through as at the end of the third quarter and as you go into Q4, sell-in should more broadly match sell-out. .

Thank you, Ed. Both really good questions. Indeed, the macroeconomics volatility that we really firmly believe is cyclical in nature, as we said, was more pronounced in quarter 3. And what you do see is that particularly in the Americas, for instance, you see the beer market was actually softening. And I already caution that if you can recall, in our first half results, where we specifically called out Brazil as early signs of consumer sentiment turning -- given the tariff uncertainty revolving around there.

And that really played out more pronounced than we had anticipated, but we did have it on our radar screen. So indeed, to your point, our risk management has definitely evolved, and we spoke about that as well for 2 reasons. First, our business is really starting to pay much more attention to macroeconomic indicators that may have an impact on, for example, funding of smaller businesses, overall consumer set, remittances. So those we see as really the leading indicators that we should factor in and base our risk management approach on.

The second thing is to really prepare for scenarios. And that is also the agility that we are often referring to that we're not only sticking to one fixed plan, but that we really have plan A, B and C, depending on these lead indicators. And I think that takes time. It takes practice. So by no means are we perfect, but that is certainly in the world of today, something that we're paying a lot of attention to.

Now then what are the implications and why we are confident to stay within our 4% to 8% range, albeit at the lower end, is we have consciously invested in the markets where we believe we see a turn of -- the tables turn. For example, we spoke hesitantly but still hopefully, about the market growth and our market share momentum in Vietnam and consciously invested last year and the beginning of this year to fuel that growth with a differentiated portfolio. You now see that momentum coming in, and that is one of those offsets that we were talking about.

In Ethiopia, to give another example, we really are very pleased with how the business is performing. And also there, we adapted to hyperinflation and our business really came out stronger is what we believe, and they're now repaying their debts as they would call it themselves. You also see the cost measures that we've taken in Nigeria, but also the continued progress in South Africa. We haven't taken shortcuts. And at this moment in time, these markets that I'm just calling out are able to rebalance somewhat the trickier times that we see in the Americas and to some extent, in Europe.

So that is really the portfolio management that we're aiming to do, and that's why we can, together, of course, with a very good grip on our cost performance agenda, able to stay within that range.

To your second question, the Brazil sell-in versus sell-out, I also recall that this was a key theme in our half 1 results, where we already flagged that we had to take one-off adjustment measures. The only thing, of course, that you will appreciate is you take a snapshot about what needs to happen in which channel and what level of stock adjustment we need to take. But if the market continues to go backwards, like we've seen in quarter 3 in Brazil, that impact still worked through in the quarter. And together with the pre-price increase stock up, that needed time to rebalance.

And to your question, yes, we believe that at the end of September, that is now fully balanced out, and we see healthy stock levels in as far as we see the market. We don't have 100% coverage, but we got a good coverage about the stock in trade that we see out there. So it should be normalized in quarter 4.

Thank you. The next question goes to Sanjeet Aujla of UBS.

A couple from me, please. Just firstly, on pricing, in the Americas, still seems to be quite low in the context of where I think at H1, you highlighted higher transactional FX headwinds in the region. So can you just give us a flavor of how you're pricing in Mexico and Brazil relative to the competitors and how those price increases are landing? That's my first question.

And my second question is just back on Europe. Can you give us a sense of how much of the Q3 decline is related to the slow recovery following the resolution of the customer disputes? And as we look forward, do you expect to fully recover or recover at least the vast majority of what you've lost in the first 3 quarters as a function of those disputes?

Yes. So look, we're really trying to manage pricing, of course, by getting the best balance between two. The first, what will we need to do for a healthy business. And indeed, to your point, foreign exchange has significantly moved year-on-year, and we do need to take that into account. And that's why we also took later, than our competitor this year, pricing in Brazil. But also the other reality is consumers and competitors. And therefore, we really are quite disciplined market by market to look at what is the right pricing and revenue margin growth strategy to not lose consumers and to not be outpriced versus competition because that would really have a significant impact on our market shares.

And as you saw, we are still very happy with our market share gains to date in both Mexico and Brazil. So we will continue to look at pricing. We've taken July in Brazil, and we are taking pricing in Mexico around quarter 4. But we do that in moderation because we also really look at the competitive environment. And if needed, we will compete for volume share accordingly. So we're going to pay close attention to make sure that we stay on the healthy side of that range. But we do expect a little bit of pricing also to come in the second half or in the remainder of the year.

Now on Europe, let me just be short there. Indeed, it was slower recovery, and it was basically driven by the fact that both market sentiment is relatively weak but also in those stores, we have to organize for shelf replenishment. It's not like an army of people were just waiting to vacate shelf positions and put our product back in stock. There were no empty shelves. We just had to renegotiate store by store and bring distribution back to expected levels. And frankly, that took a lot longer than I would have liked and I also would have expected.

So I'm not happy with how long that has taken. And I know that the team is really on top of this week by week. There are trackers in place at store and outlet level to see what can be done. We believe that this is really now behind us. We're at the last 5% to 10% of claiming back the distribution. And therefore, we expect certainly by the end of this year, if not sooner, that this situation is firmly behind us.

And sorry, just a quick follow-up. Do you think you can fully recover or at least recover the vast majority of what you've lost? Or is that a difficult thing to call out?

No, I think we have -- and as I said before, we have negotiated a full recovery, and we really are working hard to achieve that. And maybe just to give you a bit of a point of indication about the magnitude, about 1/3 of the volume loss in Europe in the quarter was related to this late restocking. The rest is mostly a combination of market share in some of the markets like Poland and general market softness.

The next question goes to Simon Hales of Citi.

So just a couple for me then. I mean, Harold, could you just delve a little bit deeper into perhaps the underlying market dynamics you're seeing in Brazil and Mexico as you've been through the quarter and come into Q4? I mean, in particular, what are you seeing around the state of the consumer? Any real changes in consumer offtake behavior that you're noting in the current environment?

And then my second question was around your comments around the improving on-premise performance in Europe that you noted. How broad-based was that? And could you talk a little bit about the performance of the U.K. business in that context?

Sure. So let's start with the underlying dynamics. It's a good and interesting question and actually one that makes me happy to talk about it because we really, really do firmly believe that what we currently see in the Americas is cyclical. And why do I say that? Because the beer fundamentals, for example, in Brazil remain very strong. There is continued population growth. There is income growth, although at this moment in time, uncertainty because of the tariffs and the high interest rate that we talked about last time.

But interestingly, what we do see is that the competitive environment is actually quite healthy in that sense. Both our main competitors and ourselves are really starting to continue accelerating the development of the beer category, driving premiumization, affordable premium. The up-trading in the market continues. And therefore, if you see the volume impact in the market, it really is economy variants that are continuing to lose.

So we believe that the dynamics, the underlying fundamentals of population income are there and that the category development is actually pretty healthy. We also have indications, but of course, this is not for me to comment further on, but that the Petrópolis competitor is really struggling somewhat. And therefore, the market dynamics as such are really conducive to further category development and therefore, shifting towards mainstream and premium. And this is exactly what we have been championing for so many years.

It's also important to realize that Heineken Brazil in aggregate continues to gain market share and that Amstel and Heineken continue to do so as well. So within a subdued market context in the quarter, we actually see a continued strengthening of our portfolio, now also with Eisenbahn as a third brand, early days, but coming into default. So I believe that actually what we see is a temporary adjustment of the market.

What [ Maurizio ] always tells me is that Brazil is a very fast market. It can go up and down relatively quickly because people are agile in how they adjust. So we're hoping that once the uncertainty is over, we actually see a continuation of the momentum in Brazil. In Mexico, I think all of this is also true, but at way lower levels. We believe that there is still a bit of a weaker consumer sentiment in Mexico. But also there, the beer category growth was a bit in decline, but way less pronounced.

And also here, we see healthy competitive dynamics between our main competitor and ourselves. And we see the early signs of premiumization also happening in that market. So overall, zooming out, we don't see any change to our strategy or to the potential in both markets, Simon, which for us is very important because otherwise, of course, that is a different adjustment that we need to take.

Now on to the U.K. U.K. was actually a very good performance for us. I don't have the -- numbers at hand, but you will have seen from the announcement that actually our growth in the U.K. was pretty good. Organic revenue growth grew by mid-single digit and beer volume was also up low single digits. Both were outperforming the market.

And Cruzcampo was again the champion in its field. Very strong trajectory, but we also saw, for example, Murphy's Stout and [ cider ] really starting to drive the further performance. On U.K. [indiscernible], I think we need to get back to you, Simon. Usually, I have that at hand, but I don't at the moment.

The next question comes to Gen Cross of BNP Paribas.

A couple of questions from me. So just first on COGS. Could you give us any early indication of kind of directionally what you think the outlook might be for variable cost per hectoliter in 2026 and particularly with respect to transactional FX, I think you might have had quite long hedges, particularly in Mexico. So any color there would be very helpful.

And then in Vietnam, I mean performance looks like it continues to be very strong. Just an update on what you're seeing in the market there. And just with respect to Q4, if we just add on, obviously, you've got a bit of a headwind from the later timing of Chinese New Year. Just any indication of how significant that might be for the quarter would be very helpful.

Gen, I really am not going to go into the forward-looking statement at this moment in time. It feels a bit, let's call it, childish not to do that because actually, on the Capital Markets Day tomorrow, I am going to do that. So hopefully, you can wait a day and look there in how we think about input cost outlook.

And currency hedges, I can give you a bit of an early indication on that. But look, usually, what we do, as you know, we're hedging about 12 to 18 months out. We indeed are trying to time it right. So we have taken a quite extended cover in Mexico at this moment in time. Brazil, a little bit less at this moment in time, but we're staying well within the policy range. And therefore, there is nothing really noteworthy to call out. And on commodities, I'm afraid, yes, tomorrow is the day.

Let me therefore go to Vietnam. So as we said, we are actually very pleased with our performance in Vietnam. Market shares continue to go up. You see the substitution of Tiger with Heineken that continues to accelerate 40% up this quarter, really fantastic how the team is adjusting its portfolio. Larue also now growing in mainstream. So the momentum, we feel is with us and very confident.

You're right to point out that, that will be into next year, and therefore, there will not be a pre-stocking sell-in of that this year, which will have a significant impact. The other thing to note is that, of course, the Decree 100 is now starting to comp. So we believe that Vietnam will be -- yes, seeing a lower growth rate simply because of the year-on-year comparison. But underlying and in terms of its momentum dynamics, we are feeling very good about Vietnam.

The next question goes to Olivier Nicolai of Goldman Sachs.

Just a follow-up, first of all, on Europe and your volumes performance. You mentioned the volumes impact from the retail negotiation. You also mentioned some share losses in countries like Poland. But how do you explain the general market softness? Is it cyclical? Is it macro driven? Or is it a bit more structural?

And then secondly, to stay on the topic of Europe, Heineken has invested in reusable packaging in many emerging markets. How do you think about this format in Europe in the context of the updated packaging regulation and how material it could be for your margins in the long run?

So let me first comment on the general performance in Europe. And I'm glad you asked the question because whilst we like to think about Europe as a certain homogeneous market, it is important to call out the differences between the markets. So the general softness that we see is not universally true in Europe.

We really see 2 markets that are quite pronounced. First, and it's a big one for us is Poland, where the beer category is down, well, mid- to high-single digit, let me call it like that. But we do see that this is general consumer sentiment because we also see similar levels of market decline in other categories, like, for example, in carbonated soft drinks, similar levels; water, even more pronounced than that, high-double digit. And of course, ice cream was terribly poor. We're just looking at it for a summer effect or something, but that was really terrible in Poland as well. So that does seem to be something with the Polish consumer. Don't really know why, but there is really a general weak economic sentiment there.

And on top of that, let me not hide behind that fact, we are losing market share. So that is something that we are not pleased about and the teams are working night and day to address that. So in a big market, that's a double dip for us, both consumer sentiment, but also share losses. The other point, which links a little bit to your packaging point is we really underestimated the consumer impact of the deposit return scheme on cans in Austria.

And as you know, Austria is also a very big market for us. And the proportionate impact was that can market is dropping like 30% to 40% in the initial stages and has not bounced back subsequently, even though the deposit scheme is relatively not a big amount of money. So those 2 very large markets really hurt the general category growth. But you also see opportunities.

We spoke earlier about a beautiful Spain, Portugal, U.K., where the general economic sentiment is a little bit more positive. And also in France, the category is in growth, but we are not for the reasons that we well articulated. So for us, Europe is really, yes, we try to make that one as much as we can to leverage scale and skill. But the consumer trends and consumer sentiment, the categories and portfolio have very different dynamics market by market.

So it's important to not generalize on that. And to your point, what is there for cyclical and structural, I think that really depends market by market. We are concerned somewhat about the impact that, for example, yes, deposit return schemes and just excise have because it just makes beer more expensive and that does weigh on consumer sentiment. And when affordability is a key concern across categories for markets, this is something that we, but also hopefully working together with governments should address because a healthy industry is good, not only for us, but for the wider employment that we generate in Europe as well.

To your second point about packaging, this is something that we always look into. But in the end, it starts with consumer preference and consumer choice. And what we currently see is that cans is actually a consumer-preferred format, and that's where we see where the growth is at this moment in time.

The next question goes to Andrea Pistacchi, Bank of America. Moving on to the next question from Trevor Stirling from Bernstein.

Harold, it might be a little bit too early, but if I look forward to 2025 margins and just extrapolating from your guidance of, let's say, low single-digit EBIT growth -- sorry, 4 percentage EBIT growth -- 4% to 5%, low single-digit revenue growth. You're looking at probably some modest margin expansion. But then on the other side, we've got the EUR 500 million gross savings, which is more like 170 bps of margin expansion. So where does the offset coming? Where is the pressure on the cost base that's stopping that -- more of that gross savings flowing to the bottom line? .

Yes. Indeed, Trevor, I think you're going to be delighted with my productivity presentation tomorrow if we're able to welcome you here to Seville because it's a very understandable question, Trevor. So first, let me just be quick, and therefore, we can talk about it more tomorrow, if necessary. But indeed, we are very cognizant of the fact that margin expansion is important to us. And certainly in the context of more currency volatility that needs to happen.

There are 2 factors driving the flow-through on gross savings. The first one is volume deleverage. And also what you hear us say is that volumes will be down this year, moderately so, but still. And that has an impact, of course, weighted market by market, but that can have a quite significant impact on how much gross savings you need to offset that.

The second thing and probably as importantly is that we continue to invest in our business. We really continue to support our brands. We put serious dollars behind our leading brands, but also the focus markets in our portfolio. And we continue to invest quite significantly about digitizing our business to make sure that we are ready to capture both on growth but also in terms of efficiency, the opportunities that, that offers.

So there is still an ongoing investment strategy in our business, hopefully, as much as possible, disciplined and rightsized, but those are the 2 important drivers about why you don't see a bigger flow-through. Now let me also be a bit upbeat about that. I'm super happy that we are confident enough to deliver these growth savings because it's a very important part of how we adjust to economic realities and still being able to sharpen our portfolio and future-proof this company.

Thank you very much, Harold. I look forward to more discussions tomorrow.

Thank you. We have no further questions. So I'll hand back to Tristan for any closing comments. .

Thank you, Nadia. Thank you, Harold. As a reminder, as Harold and Trevor just alluded to already, tomorrow, we will have our Capital Markets event here in Seville, Spain. We will also be sending out a press release tomorrow morning regarding the Capital Markets event at 7:00 a.m. Central European time. For those who are here, we will see you this evening and looking forward to it. For those who can't make it, please register on our website theheinekencompany.com, into the Investor tab for the CME that is starting at 9 a.m. Central European Time tomorrow. Looking forward to it. Thank you very much. .

Thank you. This now concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the HEINEKEN to acquire FIFCO's beverage and retail businesses. My name is Ezra, and I will be your coordinator today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over to your host, Tristan van Strien, Director of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Ezra. Good morning or good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's live webcast on our binding agreement to acquire the multi-category beverage portfolio and proximity retail business of FIFCO. Your host will be our CEO, Dolf van den Brink; and our CFO, Harold van den Broek.

Following the presentation, we'll be happy to take your questions. The presentation includes expectations based on management's current views and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and it is possible that the actual results may differ materially. For more information, please refer to the disclaimer on the first page of this presentation.

I will now turn the call over to Dolf.

Thanks, Tristan, and good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone joining us from around the world. Thank you for making time at shorter notice. We're delighted to announce our intention to acquire 100% of FIFCO's beverage and retail businesses for approximately USD 3.2 billion, a landmark transaction that strengthens HEINEKEN's footprint in Central America.

FIFCO has been our trusted partner since 1986 with HEINEKEN holding a 25% stake since 2002. We know this business well with Board representation and an outstanding management team. This acquisition brings FIFCO into the HEINEKEN family, consolidating our leadership in Costa Rica, expanding our footprint at Panama and acquiring the participation of FIFCO in Nicaragua's leading and fast-growing brewer, Compañía Cervecera de Nicaragua. We also gained further presence in Mexico, Guatemala and across the region, leveraging strong brands and distribution networks.

At HEINEKEN, superior and balanced growth is our top priority, central to our EverGreen '25 strategy and even more so as we look ahead to EverGreen 2030. This transaction of high-quality assets is compelling for several reasons. It enhances our advantaged footprint for growth, strengthening our position in markets with robust macroeconomic fundamentals and favorable demographics.

We acquire full control of Costa Rica's beverage leader with iconic brands like Imperial, an established PepsiCo franchise and strong adjacent businesses in wines, spirits, and proximity retail. We take full ownership of HEINEKEN Panama, star performer within our group that has consistently outperformed the market. We become equal partners in Nicaragua's leading brewer, access a food and beverage platform in Guatemala and add fast-growing beyond beer brands in Mexico.

As Harold will expand upon, this transaction is value enhancing for HEINEKEN, driving operating profit margin and earnings per share from day 1. Let us go into a little bit more detail, starting with our footprint. HEINEKEN's growth profile is geographically balanced and advantaged. Over the last 5 years, we have further strengthened that advantage, actively sharpening our footprint, exiting markets and segments where such scale or added complexity or risk, we are focusing on scalable growth opportunities.

This includes divesting water-centric businesses in Slovenia and Tunisia and soft drinks in the Netherlands. We exited the Philippines, Sri Lanka and most recently Seville, small and/or complex markets without a clear path to future sustainable and scalable growth. At the same time, we have stepped up our footprint with strong and emerging positions in the growth markets for today and the future. We're making calculated bets in big profit pools such as Peru and Ecuador. We established our very successful asset-light partnership in China, allowing our global brands to thrive. Our leading position in India is now consolidated, taking advantage of its future potential.

And with the acquisition of Distell and Namibia Breweries, we're creating a Southern Africa beverage champion by combining it with our premium beer operation.

Today's acquisition from FIFCO and Central America adds scale and another leg of growth with profitability ahead of the group average. Costa Rica is a highly attractive market with strong macroeconomic and demographic fundamentals. The population is growing at nearly 1% per year and GDP at around 3%, tourism is a major driver accounting for 10% of GDP, thanks to the country's beautiful beaches and diverse ecosystem.

Despite impressive growth, per capita beer consumption remains relatively low at 56 liters. Almost half that of Mexico and Panama, despite higher GDP per capita. External data and our own analysis, project low to mid-single-digit annual volume growth for the beer market. Cost Rica offers exciting growth opportunities in a stable environment. In this attractive market, we are acquiring the clear leader. FIFCO has strong leadership in the beer category with over 2 million hectoliters led by the iconic Imperial brands, a brand over 100 years of deep-rooted local history.

Our premium portfolio, including HEINEKEN and Sol's already present in the market. FIFCO also leads in beyond beer with local brands like Adam & Eve, and Bamboo.

In soft drinks, we're the #2 player overall, leading in teas and energy drinks complemented by the Pepsi franchise. FIFCO's adjacent businesses supports further system strength, distributing wines and spirits and operating over 300 proximity outlets with room for expansion. This strong system, #1 in Beer and Beyond has consistently delivered. Over the past 5 years, beer and beyond beer volumes have grown at mid-single-digit rates with operating margins comfortably ahead of our group average and accretive to the Americas region.

Upon completion, Costa Rica will be one of HEINEKEN's top 5 operating companies by operating profits. And there's more growth to be had as we see the transaction able to generate both revenue and cost synergies. We can increase the capital consumption closer to levels seen in neighboring markets by shaping the category and applying our revenue management systems. We will accelerate our global brands, including HEINEKEN and Sol. We will share global best practices in production and commercial execution, and we will leverage procurement skill and shared services, including our Americas hub in Monterrey.

This transaction also gives us full ownership of HEINEKEN Panama. Panama is an exciting market where we delivered 20% annual volume growth per annum over the last 5 years, driven by both market growth and continued market share gains. The economy is U.S. dollar linked with favorable demographics supporting further expansion. With this acquisition, we also deepened our presence in Central America. An equal partnership in Compañía Cervecera de Nicaragua, Nicaragua's leading a fast-growing brewer with a strong Toña brand and approximately 250 proximity retail outlets.

The acquisition of a food and beverage platform in Guatemala with iconic regional brands and in Mexico, FIFCO built a strong portfolio of beyond beer brands with superior brand power and consumer pool giving us the opportunity to leverage our route to market for HEINEKEN Mexico. Sustainability is a core strength of FIFCO, complementing HEINEKEN's ambitions. FIFCO is a regional leader in material circularity, mother positivity, carbon neutrality, and zero waste. It's a pioneer in developing women in leadership and a benchmark for corporate governance. Their values align with ours, and together, we will execute our Brewer Better World 2030 ambitions.

With that, I will hand over to Harold to discuss the financial parameters.

Thank you, Dolf, and good to see you all. Very happy to announce this transaction today that will contribute to sustainable, profitable growth and strong cash generation. I will take you through the financial impacts. But before I do, let me remind you of our capital allocation priorities, which remain unchanged.

In our value creation model, we prioritize capital allocation towards organic growth and do so within a disciplined financial framework with a prudent approach to debt. We remain committed to our long term below 2.5x net debt-to-EBITDA ratio. We maintain a consistent dividend policy as we have had for decades paying out 30% to 40% of net profit beia.

We also prioritize value-enhancing acquisition to boost our long-term profitable growth. This transaction will provide us with an enhanced growth platform and scale in an environment with favorable economics and further value-enhancing synergies. And as previously indicated, we consider additional capital returns such as share buybacks, which we commenced earlier this year.

I am pleased to confirm that we have headroom to do both the transaction announced today and continue our previously enhanced EUR 1.5 billion share buyback program. For today's acquisition of FIFCO stakes, we do not currently own, the cash consideration will be approximately USD 3.2 billion. This implies an acquisition multiple of 11.6x EV/EBITDA based on '24 results, and excludes any synergy benefit.

Our net debt is expected to increase by EUR 3.2 billion with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio to increase modestly. As I mentioned earlier, we remain committed to return to below 2.5x net debt over EBITDA, and we'll continue to make progress on our previously announced share buyback -- share buyback programs. The financial impact as it stands today, can be seen on the slide. With expected additional revenue in excess of $1.1 billion and operating profit close to $300 million being consolidated.

The transaction will also support our operating profit to net profit conversion with increased profit from associates and joint ventures from the Nicaraguan operations offsetting the loss of associate income from Costa Rica. We will also have reduced noncontrolling interest income as we take 100% control of HEINEKEN Panama. We furthermore expect a run-rate cost savings of about $50 million through the application of HEINEKEN's proven best practices, which corresponds to a high single digit as a percentage of the cost base.

This transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to our operating margin and earnings per share upon completion, with the latter to be low to mid-single-digit range. And as Dolf mentioned, Costa Rica will be our top 5 operating company in HEINEKEN based on the operating profit contribution.

On the next steps, Completion of the transaction between HEINEKEN and FIFCO is subject to customary regulatory approvals and the approval by the General Shareholders Meeting of FIFCO, which will take place in October 2025. Closing of the transaction is expected in the first half of 2026. The deal has already been improved unanimously by the Board of Directors of FIFCO, which includes representatives of FIFCO key shareholders.

And with that, Dolf and I will be happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Sanjeet with UBS.

Three questions for me, please. Firstly, why now? You've had a long-standing relationship with a 25% stake. What was the catalyst to take control now? Secondly, does this constrain you at all from doing other potentially similar sized transactions in the next 12, 24 months? And thirdly, just on the retail outlet piece, why keep that part of the business? Why is it core? And how much of the beer volumes in Costa Rica going through those retail outlets versus the channels?

Sanjeet, thanks for your question. On your first question, yes, this has been a partner of us for over the last 20, 25 years. A quality business, which we know well, which we really like and respect. And this was the right next step for all involved, both for the families. FIFCO was a family control business. It was the right moment for them. It's the right moment for us to increase our exposure to this high-quality business and in particular, these high-growth profit pools in Central America. On your second question, Harold, do you want to quickly comment on that?

Yes. I think as we indicated, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio will increase only moderately because of this transactional size. So our intent is to, over time, indeed go back to that 2.5x that we are actually quite precious about, but it does not constrain us from participating in the 12, 24 months' time window, of course, depending on the deal size. But we don't believe that this is in any way impeding us to continue on our capital allocation strategy, including reviewing M&A opportunities as they come along.

Very good. Let me then take on your question on the retail. We actually find that a very attractive part, Sanjeet. As you know, our 6 retail proximity format in Mexico is a very strategic important part of our business model in Mexico, over 17,000 stores, one of the largest proximity change in the world. And therefore, we really like both in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, this emerging proximity store format. And there might be good synergies between our experience and expertise in Mexico and these retail businesses in these two markets. So for us, it's actually, yes, explicitly part of the scope and perimeter that we really value. Thank you, Sanjeet.

Our next question comes from Chris with Rothschild & Co.

A quick question on the HEINEKEN brand potential across these regions, because they're good economies, as you say. Can you give us a sense of the HEINEKEN brand mix in each of the different countries and where you see the potential it could get to?

And then a follow-up in terms of any CapEx required in the business that you're acquiring, are these well-invested assets? Are they able to produce HEINEKEN to the volume and standard that you'd like? Or do you think it will be -- need some incremental capital post completion?

Thank you, Chris. We believe there is a meaningful upside on the HEINEKEN brand. It's still a very relatively small brand certainly, if you compare it to some of our other key Latin American markets, whether it's Brazil or the emerging positions in places like Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, so we, for sure, see upside on brand HEINEKEN. Harold if you take...

Let me take the capital expenditure piece. So these are -- this is a very well-run, high-quality company. So we're actually very pleased with the footprint that they built and the quality of the assets that we have. There is still space to grow further in the existing asset base, although, of course, we do hope that over time, our growth potential that we see will make it necessary to continue to invest in the business. But we don't see any immediate need to spend a disproportionate amount of capital to upgrade the facilities, if that's the background to the question.

Our next question comes from Olivier with Goldman Sachs.

First of all, I was looking at the current trading of FIFCO. Looking at the H1 results, it appears that there was some weakness on sales being down 6% in H1 and even if I look at the H1 presentation, it was showing that beer volumes were down 7%. So I don't know if my -- maybe my Spanish is not great, but am I looking at the right accounts? And perhaps could you comment on current trading? That's the first question.

And then as part of the transaction, you're going to inherit a small food and juice business in Guatemala. I was just wondering what was the plan there? Is there an opportunity to combine it with beer ultimately? In the country. And I believe that you are already produced under license by one of the local player.

Very good. Thanks, Olivier. And impressed by your Spanish, for sure, we do see some weakness in the current trading. What's really important, and this is mostly written by the U.S. business which is not the parts that we are interested in. FIFCO is assessing opportunities for that part. We -- our strategy in the U.S. is focused on premium, and we have no interest in getting exposure to the mainstream segment in the U.S.

That part has been the biggest impact on the softness that you see in those first half results. On the underlying Costa Rica and Nicaragua business, also there, we do see some softness, but to a much smaller extent. We believe driven by what we are seeing across Latin America with consumer sentiment impacted by economic uncertainty, and mid, long term, we are very, very confident in the growth profile of this business.

The underlying drivers of demographics, middle class income increase and the track record of this business, which has been extremely strong over the long term, but including the last 5 years. When it comes to the food and juice business in Guatemala, that normally would not be core to us, but these are very strong consumer brands with fast growth and good margins. And this is something we'll -- which we will focus to learn more about before we make up our minds what could be next.

Our next question comes from Sarah Simon with Morgan Stanley.

Just a question about the soft drinks business. You've obviously been not particularly enthusiastic about bottling in other geographies. So I'm just wondering if the bottling business is going to remain core or if that's another business that will be under review, as you were saying to Olivier about the other business?

Thank you, Sarah. Let me be very clear. There is no systemic position on soft drinks. This is something that we really look at market by market. It is true that we have been divesting some of it. For example, the water portfolio in Slovenia and Tunisia, which, as you know, is a very low-margin business that we didn't want to deploy capital against the soft drink business in the Netherlands because we saw very limited synergies with our beer business in that particular market, while the capital injection need was high. So these were very important local circumstances.

On a more global scale, we are very proud bottler of both Pepsi and Coca-Cola in different parts. There's many markets where combining beer soft drinks makes a lot of sense from a logistics, route to market, the system strength point of view. And so in this particular case, both the own soft drink portfolio, which is of significant scale as well as the Pepsi franchise in Cost Rica is actually a very important part of the business and absolutely considered core. And we are proud to extend our long-term partnership with Pepsi in this regard. And they are fully supportive of this transaction.

Our next question comes from Carlos with HSBC.

Dolf, what do you attribute the low per capita consumption of beer versus Mexico that you can increase? And can you expand on what Mexican brands you think have the best potential in this market?

Thanks, Carlos. I think the low per capita is probably mostly driven by the relative price level. So we do see an opportunity of balancing that. And that's always a strategic thing to get right. But we do believe that through price pack architecture, through applying our revenue margin growth playbooks that we can accelerate beer volume and beer per capita volume.

Nothing dramatic, short, short term, but mid-long term, we really believe that we can at least partly close the per capita gap with some of the surrounding countries. On the Mexican brands, at this point in time, also for competitive reasons, I don't want to go into the specifics, but we do believe that across our markets, there are cross-fertilization opportunities of the -- for the Costa Rican brands in our footprint and vice versa. But yes, we'll take that a step at a time and focus on that after closing.

Our next question comes from Rob Ottenstein with Evercore.

Congratulations. The Americas are becoming an increasingly important part of your portfolio. I was wondering if with this acquisition, you can talk a little bit about management changes there, management and organizational structure so that you can best optimize results, both locally as well as part of the global company.

Thank you, Rob. Yes, indeed, the Americas region, it's incredibly important. For decades, our legacy European business was the largest region. With this acquisition now the Americas region is still similar in size to Europe, but it's actually, it will be our largest region. At this point in time, we don't foresee any major structure changes in that regard. We feel this can and will be managed within the confines of the current scope of the Americas region.

In terms of number of markets, it's still below the number of markets that we are managing, for example, in Europe. In terms of leadership, maybe good to highlight that the current incumbent, [ Rolando ] who has been managing FIFCO for the last 2 years, who have been 20 years in the company has agreed to stay on and lead the company going forward under a HEINEKEN ownership.

And we're very excited about that. We see [ Rolando ] as a very strong leader with further potential for the business, and it will also really reduce any integration risk either way, we deem an integration list on the relative low side as this is a business we know well, incumbent leadership will continue. And there's no complex local integration happening. So yes, that's all I can say at this point in time on management.

Our next question comes from Celine with JPMorgan. This will be our final question.

So my question is on the growth in Costa Rica. You said mid- to high -- low to mid-single-digit market growth. What do you think is your -- I mean, your playbook given the acquisition you've made in terms of -- you mentioned increasing per capita consumption. And I presume as well some top line synergies. You also mentioned a $50 million synergy, to which extent you would need to reinvest in the market?

I think in an earlier question, you mentioned that you probably needed to expand a bit the price positioning. So I was wondering whether margin at the current level maybe will not increase given the investment you need to make? And then lastly, Panama has been fantastic. What is your market share there? And what's the outlook for this market, please?

Fantastic. Thanks Celine. First of all, growth in Costa Rica, the key core reason why we were so excited about this acquisition is for growth in very attractive profit pools driven by underlying demographics, income, 3% GDP CAGR, stable macroeconomics, stable currencies, this is really multi-category. So we do see that low single digit to mid-single digit on beer, driven by both demographics and the per capita there's solid growth on the soft drinks portfolio. There's good growth on adjacencies, whether it's the retail business or the wine and spirits distribution. So across categories and formats, we believe there, yes, there is a lot of further growth to be had.

Let me speak to Panama and then maybe you take the synergy question. So on Panama, we are now just below 50%, around 44%, 45% has been an incredible success story over the last 5, 6 years, combining both structural market growth and on top of that significant market share. So we are quite excited about Panama and yes, now being able to consolidate 100% of that value. Harold, over to you?

Yes. Let me just give you a bit of insight into the synergies that we currently see in the business. This is really the $50 million roughly that we're talking about are primarily or actually exclusively cost synergies that we're talking about. So revenue synergies from best practices and R&D are outside of this number quoted, particularly because of the reasons, Celine, that you said, that we intend to reinvest and really make sure that affordability and key price points are being hit.

And that also may include a wider range of pack size variants than we currently see in the market. These cost synergies are really related to brewery processes. You've heard us speak both Dolf and myself extensively in the past couple of years about our connected brewery network about how we really are starting to optimize brewery processes for more output and lower cost. And this is a very significant part of the synergies that we see after the due diligence.

The second one is transport management and optimizing that with our protocols and our processes, and there are a very big part of the savings also related to, let's call it, back-office synergies as we start to leveraging a bit more of our shared services network also for the benefit of Costa Rica and this fantastic business.

So the synergies are pretty well defined and clear to your point of reinvestment. I think, Dolf has already alluded to it. We really see that the profitability levels of this company is already extremely accretive to the HEINEKEN average. And therefore, the focus will be about how to sustain and accelerate growth where we can do it. But at the same time, we've also got a business case to deliver. So that's a bit the balance that we're trying to fight.

Thank you, Dolf and Harold, and thank you all for your questions. Just as a reminder, of course, we will see most of you for our Capital Markets event on the 23rd of October. And we will look forward to seeing you in Seville next month. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Tristan, and thank you to all our speakers on today's line. That concludes today's conference call. Thank you, everyone, for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the Heineken Half Year Results Call. My name is Sami, and I'll be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand over to your host, Tristan Van Strien, Director of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead, Tristan.

Thank you, Sami. Good morning and afternoon, everyone, from Amsterdam. Thank you for joining us for today's live webcast of our 2025 half year results. Your host will be our CEO, Dolf van den Brink; and our CFO, Harold van den Broek.

Following the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. The presentation includes forward-looking statements and expectations based on management's current views and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and it is possible that the actual results may differ materially. For more information, please refer to the disclaimer on the first page of this presentation.

I will now turn the call over to Dolf.

Thank you, Tristan. Welcome, everyone. We delivered a solid first half of the year in a turbulent world, whilst progressing on our multiyear strategy, EverGreen '25. We will update our progression on EverGreen at our upcoming CME in October. But before we delve into the results, let's start with a brief reminder of our strategy, which continues to shape our business and how we think about this going forward.

Our ambition is to deliver superior and balanced growth to consistently create long-term value. We do this with a clear focus on 5 strategic priorities embedded in the business as indicated on the left. These priorities propel the flywheel of our growth algorithm with at the top, first and foremost, growth. We are targeting superior and balanced growth, both volume and value growth. Growth enables gains in productivity and this, in turn, fuels resources for investing in further growth and profitability. This half year, we continue to deliver on our Green Diamond. We delivered top line growth, continuous productivity, initiated our EUR 1.5 billion share buyback program and made progress against our ambitions on sustainability and responsibility.

Let's take a closer look at our key highlights of the year. First and foremost, we report strong profit growth in the first half of the year, supported by our global footprint, especially by APAC and AME. We delivered volume growth improvement in the second quarter, continuing to be of high quality and despite some softer markets and one-off events. We're making sustained progress on our EverGreen journey, investing behind our brands and digital transformation to ensure quality growth for the future. Looking ahead to the second half of the year and despite macroeconomic challenges, we confirm our guidance for the full year operating profit (beia) next year to grow organically in the 4% to 8% range.

So let's take a closer look at our financial highlights. Net revenue (beia) grew 2.1% organically versus last year. Net revenue per liter (beia) grew by 3.3%, whilst total beer volume was down by 1.2%. The good momentum behind the Heineken brand continues with 4.5% volume growth. Operating profit (beia) grew by 7.4%, and our operating margin was 14.3%, up 26 basis points. Net profit (beia) improved in line with OP by 7.5% with the growth coming mainly from the strong performance in operating profit. Diluted EPS (beia) landed at EUR 2.08 for the half year, and Harold will cover this in more detail later.

Volume trends improved in the second quarter, and we ended the first half down by 1%. The quality of our volume, our effort continues to be high. Mainstream brands grew and outpaced our total portfolio, led by the big brands in some of our biggest markets, including Kingfish in India, Larue Smooth in Vietnam and Amstel in Brazil.

Our premium brands grew at almost 2% across our regions, especially the Kingfisher Ultra franchise in India. And of course, led by Heineken, up 4.5%, growing double digits in 27 markets, most notably in Nigeria and very broadly in APAC, led by China and Vietnam.

Heineken 0.0 was stable, below the usual high rates what we have come to expect something to which I will come back to you later.

Our price/mix was strong in the first half, up 3.7% on a constant geographical basis, together with the high-quality volume performance. This resulted in a 2.1% net revenue increase, leading to the 7.4% operating profit growth.

Let's discuss next, the regions. First, Africa and Middle East, where we achieved volume growth and are successfully rebuilding profitability. Net revenue grew organically by 19.8%, with 1.1% volume growth and a strong price/mix of 20.7%, pricing ahead of inflation in most markets. Operating profit doubled as we benefited from a transformed cost base and strong revenue growth. Notably, in euros, operating profit (beia) grew over 50%.

In Nigeria, we reshaped the business over the last 18 months following the devaluation of the naira, taking out costs, restructuring the balance sheet and transforming the brand portfolio. Macroeconomic conditions are back to relative stability, though the consumer sentiment remains subdued and inflation stubbornly high. Nevertheless, we performed ahead of the market as our premium portfolio accelerated led by Heineken Desperados and Legend Stout. We now have over 40% share in Stout in Nigeria.

At Heineken Beverages, there has been sequential improvements following actions we have taken. In South Africa, beer volume and market share stabilized towards the end of the first half, led by Amstel. Bernini continued its very strong growth in the RTD segment. We are pleased with the trajectory of improvement, but also conscious that there's still more to do.

Namibia, Kenya and Tanzania performed strongly, leveraging the advantages of our broad alcoholic beverage portfolio. Elsewhere in Africa, we have seen strong growth in Ethiopia with brands such as Bedele and Harar supporting us to extend our market-leading position. As we indicated earlier in the year, we unfortunately lost control of our operations in Bukavu in the Eastern Congo as the security situation in the country deteriorated. We're focused on ensuring the safety of our employees.

On to the Americas, where our business showed resilience. Net revenue declined 0.8% and beer volume was down 1.2% in the first half, but positive volume growth in the second quarter. Price/mix was slightly down. Operating profit was down 2.3% as we cycled our large step-up last year.

In Mexico, beer full grew low single digits and expanded broadly in line with the market. We continue to invest in our channels and production footprint as our 17,006 stores boosted our revenue growth, and we started preparations for our new brewery in Yucatán. Our resilience in the first half was broad-based across the portfolio. Amstel Ultra and Miller High Life led the growth in premium, both expanding by a double digit. India grew by a high single digit, continuing to celebrate Mexican heritage, Tecate Original and Dos Equis delivered solid growth.

In Brazil, after beer volume declined in the first quarter, as we rebalanced and reduced excess inventory, we returned to growth in the second quarter. Based on sell-out data, we captured some significant market share in the first half, while seeing a softening in the market towards the end of the half. In the growing premium segment, both Heineken and Eisenbahn delivered growth. I was also pleased to see Amstel sustaining its momentum with growth in the teams. Our new 5 million hectoliter brewery in Passos is on track to open in the next quarter. The U.S. continues to be a challenging environment for beer. The recent tariffs impact our business, particularly expected in the second half of the year. Despite an overall weaker market, Heineken 0.0 accelerated its momentum with double-digit growth.

Moving on to APAC, where we posted both on all metrics as our key markets performed strongly in the first half of the year. Net revenue grew by 5.5%, beer volume by 3% and price/mix by 4.5%. Operating profit increased by 11%. In Vietnam, the market has returned to growth, and our investment to expand portfolio and broaden geographical reach are delivering strong results as volume expanded by high single digit and net revenue grew in the teens. We gained share in both channels and across the portfolio. The Heineken brand grew volume in the 50s, led by Heineken Silver. Our mainstream brand portfolio also continued to grow with Larue Smooth growing in the 60s.

In India, volume was up by a high single digit as our momentum continued, growing significantly ahead of the overall market and winning share in more states. The premium portfolio grew in the 30s, gaining share in the segment, led by Kingfisher Ultra and Ultra Max.

In China, Heineken continued its strong growth trajectory in the premium segment. Volume was up in the 30s, driven by the strong momentum of both Heineken Original and Heineken Silver. Amstel volume more than doubled, becoming a significant contributor to the growth. With the expanding contribution of royalties and share of profits, the importance of China to our business is increasing.

Lastly, Europe. Net revenue declined by 4% with beer volume declining 4.7%, mainly because of prolonged retail negotiations in Western Europe. Price/mix was positive, up 1.2%. Our operating profit growth declined by 5.2%.

In the U.K., we continue to win market share in both channels, where our broad portfolio delivered share gains, including in the premium and cider segments. Cruzcampo continued its strong trajectory, building on the growth of last year. Murphy's Stout expanded, benefiting from distribution gains and new draught placements in the on-trade.

In Western Europe, extended customer negotiations in Western Europe, particularly in France, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain impacted performance. These strategic discussions, aimed at preserving future sustainable category development, are now fully resolved, positioning us for sequential volume improvement in the second half of the year.

As such, in France, beer volume declined, but recovered strongly in June as negotiations concluded. In addition, we saw a recovery of growth in the on-trade channel in several key markets. Elsewhere, the beers were down in Poland and Austria, leading to volume decline, the latter due to the invitation of a new deposit scheme, resulting in a sharp decline in the canned segment.

In Switzerland and Romania, volume grew, led by the strong growth of global brands, Birra Moretti and Amstel, respectively. Our strategy in Europe remains clear. We're shaping the category and delivering value by investing behind our premium and mainstream brands, accelerating low and no leadership, fueling innovation as sharpening our revenue management capabilities, all while driving productivity to fund investments in growth.

Moving on to brand Heineken, leading our portfolio. The sustained momentum behind the Heineken brand continue to pace. The innovations of Silver and 0.0 have been additive to growing the brand power and volume of Heineken Original. Heineken's growth continued in the first half of '25, adding another 4.5% of growth with 27 markets in double digits, most notably in Nigeria and APAC, especially in Vietnam and China. Heineken Silver was a strong contributor to the portfolio with 34% of growth, primarily in APAC. Heineken 0.0 was, as mentioned earlier, flat, though returned to growth in the second quarter.

The U.S.A. and also Canada delivered strong growth, and we continue to expand into the on-trade. However, it was offset by the temporary actions of inventory adjustments in Brazil and the impact of customer negotiations in Europe. Our strategic intent is to continue the growth as we lead and shape the 0.0 category.

Let's call out another hero within the Heineken portfolio, Amstel. It's our second largest brand in our portfolio and one of the top 5 global beer brands. In the first half, Amstel grew by high single digits with over 10 million hectoliters sold globally in the first half of '25. Amstel is leading the charge for us in the affordable premium segment as a quality beer for quality bonding moments. The brand is sold in all regions in over 30 markets, growing double digits in 15 markets, including a doubling of the volume in China in the first half. Brazil has been leading the charge over the last years with the scale to partner with leading sponsorship platforms, including the CONMEBOL Libertadores, the biggest football tournament in the Americas.

We have created a repeatable model with innovation being core to Amstel as a global brand with local relevance. This is exemplified by the successes such as Amstel Grande in India, Amstel Ultra in Mexico and Amstel Oro in Spain with more to come.

Also an update on our sustainability strategy, Brewing a Better World, where we are progressing across all 3 pillars. In our ambition to achieve net zero carbon in Scope 1 and 2 by 2030, we continue to make progress during the first half of the year. For example, we agreed new Power Purchase Agreements in Italy and Nigeria and installed an industrial electrical boiler in Zoeterwoude brewery in the Netherlands.

On our journey towards healthy watersheds, we improved water efficiency across all our breweries. We have been named the Water Basin Champion for The Rio Bravo/Grande Basin in Mexico.

On the solar pillar, we achieved our target to have at least 30% women in senior management roles, and we continue to strengthen our pipeline talent to ensure equal performance-based opportunities.

On responsible consumption, as category leaders, we continue making good progress on our ambition to normalize moderation. A recent Nielsen survey revealed Heineken being identified as the #1 drinks brand encouraging responsible consumption. To further strengthen this connection, we took our partnership with Formula 1 to the next level when Heineken 0.0 making an appearance in the F1 The Movie with Brad Pitt.

Lastly, while we remain focused on delivering strong results today, I'd also like to offer a brief glimpse of what ahead at our upcoming CME in Seville, Spain. We will present the next step in our journey, future-proofing Heineken, EverGreen 2030. Our #1 priority will be on growth, showing progress and latest plans to continuously strengthen our advantaged footprint and shape our brand portfolios with bigger and better brands and innovations.

On productivity, we have delivered over EUR 3 billion of gross savings and are now making the next step building more advanced capabilities to take better advantage of our scale and also step up our focus on capital efficiency. We're making the business future fit, implementing our digital backbone as we transform and digitize our organizational model while preserving what makes the Heineken culture unique and magical. I look forward to expanding on these topics at our upcoming CME in October in Seville.

And now over to Harold.

Thank you, Dolf, and good day to you all. Let me take you through the main items of our financial results. Starting with our top line performance for the first half of 2025. We posted an organic revenue growth of EUR 380 million or 2.1%, delivering EUR 14.2 billion of net revenue (beia) driven by positive price/mix and with a slight negative volume growth. The total consolidated volume decline of 1.1% reflects the decline of minus 2.4% in quarter 1 followed by a sequentially better second quarter at broadly flat volume with 3 regions in positive volume growth.

Europe beer volume was down for both the quarter and the half by a mid-single digit affected by a prolonged and now fully resolved customer negotiations, as Dolf just indicated. The underlying price/mix for the first half year on a constant geographic basis was 3.7%, with pricing at 2.6%, almost entirely led by the Africa and Middle East region as we price for inflation and foreign exchange-related cost increases. Overall, net revenue per hectoliter increased by 3.3%.

Currency translation had a major effect, reducing reported revenue growth (beia) by EUR 918 million, mainly because of the euro strengthening against most currencies significantly in the last 6 months. The consolidation effect primarily reflects the impact of our suspended operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Moving on to Slide 17. We delivered EUR 2 billion of operating profit (beia), growing 7.4% or EUR 155 million organically, taking the operating profit margin (beia) to 14.3%, up 26 basis points versus last year. Good to mention we ended up at the upper end of our expected range due to strong sales in June and for now limited impact of trade tariffs in anticipation of which we accelerated savings projects. Gross savings reached over EUR 300 million this half year. Given the sizable movements across regions, let me share some key drivers.

The region Africa and Middle East was instrumental in delivering the profit growth. To unlock the potential of this complex region, we must navigate risks, yet act on the significant opportunities we see. Across markets, we adjusted the portfolio mix to specific global conditions, leveraging both premium and mainstream brands. We accelerated revenue margin management initiatives, stepped up route-to-market grips supported by digital solutions and continue to lean in heavily on growth savings to drive productivity, transforming the cost base. This, combined with restrained upfront investment, led to an operating margin expansion of close to 400 basis points. The biggest contributions came from Nigeria, Ethiopia and Heineken beverages.

APAC delivered double-digit operating profit growth, led by Vietnam and India, an excellent performance of our 2 largest orders in that region. In Europe, continued gross savings in variable and fixed costs from our productivity programs largely offset the impact of significant volume deleverage for reasons detailed before. For the Americas, it's good to bear in mind that in the first half of 2024, we recorded 37% operating profit organic growth. So we are comparing to a high base. This half year is reduced by 2.3% organically, in part driven by a suppressed U.S.A. beer market and a one-off cost related to inventory reduction in Brazil to improve customer and portfolio mix going forward.

As Dolf already pointed out, sell-out remained strong, and we continued to gain share in Brazil throughout the first half of 2025. Volume growth also was restored in the second quarter. Our variable cost per hectoliter increased organically by a low single digit as lower commodity and energy costs in Europe and the Americas were offset by a double-digit increase in Africa and Middle East, inflation and ForEx driven, in particular, affecting Nigeria and Ethiopia. Marketing and selling investment was up 23 basis points compared to the first half of 2024, reaching 10.1% as a percentage of net revenue (beia). This supported our market share momentum with over half of our markets growing or holding share.

Consolidation changes had a negative impact of EUR 16 million (sic) [ EUR 6 million ] and the transactional currency effect was significant at EUR 190 million negative, mainly again from the euro strengthening against our major foreign currencies.

Let me now turn to other key financial (beia) metrics. Our share of net profit (beia) from associates and joint ventures grew 3.7% organically, led by our partners in China and CCU. Net interest expenses (beia) decreased organically by 5.8% to EUR 260 million, with an average effective interest rate similar to last year. Other net finance expenses (beia) amounted to EUR 104 million, an organic decrease of 27.5%, mainly caused by cycling the currency devaluation in Nigeria during the first half of 2024.

Net profit (beia) increased by 7.5% organically to EUR 1.64 billion, with the positives above largely offset by higher noncontrolling interests, notably in Vietnam, Nigeria and South Africa. The effective tax rate (beia) was 28.9%, similar to last year first half. The major currency translation impact of close to 9% more than offsets the strong net profit (beia) organic growth. This leads to an organic EPS (beia) decrease of 3.1%.

Now on to capital returns. As per our practice, the interim dividend is fixed at 40% or the total dividend of the previous year, leading to an interim dividend of EUR 0.74 per share, up 7.2% versus last year. We initiated and are making steady progress towards our EUR 1.5 billion share buyback program. Our net debt-to-EBITDA (beia) ratio ended at 2.3x for the half year, below our long-term target of below 2.5x.

Let me now turn to the operating -- to the free operating cash flow. We recorded a free operating cash inflow for the half year of EUR 257 million compared against the very strong inflow of EUR 655 million last year, a delta of EUR 400 million. Let me go through the main drivers. Cash flow from operations was EUR 142 million less than last year, mostly driven by foreign exchange and largely related to the strengthening of the euro against the local currencies of our key markets. The working capital movement was lower by EUR 152 million after the significant improvement of EUR 750 million we managed to achieve last year. We expect this to balance out in the second half.

On payables, we made progress as we continue to improve our position through structural initiatives. On both receivables and inventories, we had several one-offs, therefore, nonrecurring items. Late trade replenishments in Europe following the conclusion of customer negotiations, the customer inventory reduction in Brazil and promotional phasing in South Africa to call out 3. Last, CapEx was up EUR 144 million, which is purely project-related timing. Investments were, for example, in our new Passos brewery in Brazil, with our first brewer expected in quarter 3 this year, and we opened up our new R&D center in Zoeterwoude in quarter 2. We also continue to invest behind our D&T infrastructure as we prepare for a 12 market rollout of our digital backbone early next year.

We reconfirm our previous stated full year guidance on capital expenditure. And as a result, we expect free operating cash flow to be materially better in the second half of the year, returning to a normal average for the year 2025 as a whole.

Before going to the outlook, a reminder that our EverGreen strategy sets out to deliver superior balanced growth with consistent long-term value creation. Near term, we anticipate ongoing macroeconomic challenges that may affect consumer spending, including softening sentiment in Europe and the Americas, inflation pressures and the impact of a weaker U.S. dollar. Hyperinflationary risks remain in Africa, for instance, Nigeria continues to be on the watch list. We now expect volumes for the full year 2025 to be broadly stable with some rebalancing across regions, showing the advantage of our global footprint.

We expect a positive price/mix, leading to a continued positive net revenue growth. We update our gross savings outlook with clear line of sight of initiatives, we raised our ambition from EUR 400 million to over EUR 500 million for 2025, helping to offset lower volume, maintain a competitive level of marketing and selling investment, which we expect to increase for the full year versus the full year last year and finance our digitalization agenda. Following our solid operating profit delivery in the first half of the year, we expect the second half to be a bit more affected by import tariffs into the U.S.A., higher transactional exchange rate impacts in the Americas and in Africa as favorable hedges are rolling off.

All in all, we reaffirm our expectation to grow operating profit (beia) organically in the range of 4% to 8% and expect net profit to grow broadly in line. To summarize, we report solid profit growth in the first half of the year with an improved volume trajectory into quarter 2. Our broad geographical footprint is supporting us as some markets experience a softer consumer environment. We remain long-term focused, yet are making sharper footprint and portfolio choices as we future-proof our business. All in all, we confirm operating profit (beia) to grow organically in 2025 in the range of 4% to 8%. And as Dolf said, we are excited to host you in October on our Capital Markets Day in Seville. We will share with you more detail on our multiyear journey towards EverGreen 2030. With growth as our #1 priority, building a strong footprint and portfolio, a step-up in productivity and a future-proof, more digitally enabled and more productive organization, we are looking forward to it.

With that, happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Edward Mundy from Jefferies.

So one question and one follow-up, please. So volumes improved sequentially in Q2 versus Q1. And guidance implies further improvement into the second half. Could you perhaps provide a bit of color as to what gives you confidence why H2 volumes should be better than H1? And then my follow-up is on the profit side of things. You've delivered pretty strong profits in the first half despite Europe and the Americas hitting a bit more of a bump. How are you operating the business differently versus history? Could you perhaps provide some examples of increased agility that's allowed you to deliver on that 7% organic EBIT growth?

Thanks for your questions. Let me take the first one and Harold, if you can take the second one. So on the volumes, and we saw a sequential improvement in the second quarter. Beer volume was down 0.4% with growth in 3 regions. And in total consolidated volume, which is becoming more relevant since the Distell acquisition, we were broadly flat in the second quarter. Importantly, key markets like Mexico and Brazil were up in the second quarter. Europe was better, but still in decline as we were still facing these prolonged customer negotiations, which have now all been concluded.

Importantly, for example, in June, also on the back of good weather, we saw strong performance in the on-trade channel, both in share, but also in absolute volumes. And we do expect better volumes consequently in the second half in Europe. The APAC region is performing very, very well. High single-digit growth in India, it's both market and share. High single digit in Vietnam, it's both market and share. With Vietnam, we need to be a bit cautious on Q4 because we had an early Tet last year, but now we will have a late Tet. So some of the volume will shift into Q1. But underlying, we see strong volume momentum in the APAC region as well as in the AME region, where a critical market like Ethiopia bounce back to growth. We're getting very good revenue and profit growth in Nigeria, but there, we are deliberately managing for euros and volume a little bit softer.

And we're starting to see sequential improvement in South Africa, very important where we start seeing the beer business, which is crucial, stabilizing in the second quarter with a good exit. So I think -- and that was also one of the key things we tried to emphasize in our release and that the diversity of our global footprint is very important where we are quite agile across our footprint, taking advantage of the market where there is momentum. We're seeing good market share results with more than half of our markets growing share. And we're also really, as always, focused on the quality of that volume growth, where economy volume was down, but mainstream volume was up in the first half.

Premium beer was up a bit more and global brands like Heineken and Amstel growing in the mid- to high single digit. So that's a little bit of a flavor across our footprint and the quality of the footprint. And indeed, we do expect volumes to be better in the second half compared to the first half.

Yes. And on your second point, Ed, the agility and planning, I think there are 3 main differences to call out versus prior practice. It starts with all expect the unexpected. And therefore, we are really starting to move from almost like fixed one plan, one execution to really look at different scenarios and also pay attention to things that might happen or might not happen. And this could be related to excise, it could be related to tariffs. So we're taking more variables into account in anticipation, less rigid planning, therefore, is the first point.

The second point to call out is that we have good visibility, as I now repeatedly say on productivity savings, but they're not all being committed upfront. We hold some in reserve for these scenarios and events that I just talked about.

And the third very big important shift that we've made is that we are more agile in resource allocation these days than what it was before. So when people in markets found savings, it was free to spend in that market. And these days, we're really looking as to Dolf's point, which brands, which markets can we dial up so that, for example, we can invest behind the acceleration in Vietnam, if we see some softer markets in Europe, for instance. And that helps with the agility in planning and balancing out, both in terms of growth, but certainly also in terms of profit delivery.

Our next question comes from Sanjeet Aujla, UBS.

A couple from me, please. Dolf, please, can you just give us a little bit more clarity on your volume expectations for Europe in H2? So with the retailer disputes now resolved, is it reasonable to get back to stable or slightly growing volume in the region? And in that context, what have you seen so far in July in Europe, please? And my follow-up is just, again, on Europe. Is there something you structurally need to change in terms of how you manage your retailer relationships so as to avoid something like this happening again? And if so, what sort of changes are you making?

Thanks, Sanjeet. I know everybody would love to have a very detailed number on volumes in Europe in the second half. For us, the third quarter is going to be key. You all know how important July, August are for Europe. And so we rather see through how volumes are responding there. But for sure, the weather has been helping so far. And again, we see that reflected in on-trade trends, which are materially better in the first half than our off-trades, the off-trade being impacted by those retail negotiations. And again, we do expect an improvement. But at this point, out of caution, we refrained from the specificity of a number.

On the retail negotiations, over the years, we have seen more and bigger European retail alliances come to [ Ford ]. We have seen increased aggressiveness there. And first, as one of the leaders in FMCG in Europe, it was very important to fight for a couple of key principles, and one principle being retaining and defending our ability to pass on at least a portion of the input cost inflation. What was in play negative pricing, which is something that we, yes, simply cannot allow for the long-term financial health of the sector. And the good thing is if you look to the first half, even under difficult market circumstances, we're able to deliver 1.4%, 1.5% revenue per hectoliter in the first half. That is absolutely key. And that's why we decided to fight longer to really make sure that we didn't have to concede on key principles. And by now, all the deals have been concluded. There's nothing open, and we are happy with the outcome. And we believe this was something to the benefit of the long-term health of the category.

Now there's no guarantee that there is no other disputes down the line. But this is for the first time in many years that we ended up in this situation, but we were quite deliberate in seeing it through. And again, we believe our revenue per hectoliter performance in the first half is proof that, yes, we are trying to do this the right way.

Thanks, Sanjeet. I think that covers both your questions, right?

Yes.

Our next question comes from Mitch Collett, Deutsche Bank.

Can you give us a bit more color on what you're seeing in both Mexico and Brazil, specifically interested in the health of the consumer, health of the category, your market share trends? And I guess what you're doing to improve performance given what you've said about some headwinds from -- within those 2 regions? I think that's 2 questions. So I'll stop there.

Okay, Mitch, thanks for your question. Very happy to see volume being positive in both Mexico and Brazil in the second quarter. Quite important to us, in Mexico, volume was slightly up, broadly in line with the market, positive revenue per hectoliter. So quite pleased with our performance in Mexico. Also in the context of other categories like soft drinks, we did see a softening in the overall market towards the end of the quarter that we have been able to navigate as well also with market share gains towards the end of the quarter. We feel that overall, Mexico is in a good place, and our strategy with a very broad brand portfolio and a broad channel mix with 6 as a critical strategic asset is kind of working out as we anticipated.

Brazil has been a little bit more volatile for us on the sell-in particularly as markets were growing less fast than we originally anticipated. We're sitting on too much stock. We were cycling the stock up of the price increase in April last year. We had to flush that out in the first quarter, leading to negative sell-in volume. Very important and positive, in the second quarter, our sell-in volumes bounced back, that is key. And all through the first half, our market share gains and sell-out remained positive. Our strategy focusing on premium and mainstream premium with the Heineken brand and a portfolio of craft brands like Eisenbahn continue to be positive.

Amstel, an absolute pivotable brand in the portfolio growing in the high single digits, even the low teens. And as such, again, we -- it's all about sticking to our strategy and agile in-market execution. Later in the year, our Passos breweries opening, as I said, 5 million hectoliters. So we're still optimistic about the mid- and long-term prospects for markets like both Brazil and Mexico for that matter.

Our next question comes from Olivier Nicolai, Goldman Sachs.

I got 2 questions, please. So first of all, volume seems to be accelerating throughout the quarter in many places like Brazil, South Africa and Europe, while you also increased your cost savings target. So what prevented you today from narrowing or even increasing the guidance at organic EBIT level?

And secondly, a bit more long term, but on -- what's the midterm estimates for 0.0 penetration in Europe and the U.S. without obviously this cannibalizing your beer volumes? And could areas like Middle East, for instance, offer some material opportunity for the group on the back of 0.0?

Yes. Let me start with the first, and of course, Dolf will happily take the second. Fully understandable question, Olivier, in terms of this volume progression that we sequentially see and an improved cost savings target, why is the second half of the year still not changing the guidance range? I think there are, frankly, 3 important factors other than, let's call it, the more general sentiment that we remain cautious about as we specifically called in the outlook. The first is that we really see that the tariffs, of course, have a disproportionate impact in quarter 2 -- sorry, in the second half of the year versus the first half of the year, where we had a very benign impact only the fact that there was a tariff pause in a way to April and hardly any tariffs that were really announced. So that is a very big shift between the first half of the year and the second half of the year.

The second main factor is that I called previously that we had a number of quite advantageous transactional ForEx exchange hedges that were in play, both in Mexico and Brazil, and they are rolling off in the second half of the year. That has a significant impact because, as you know, these are large markets for us. The third is also a simple small detail, but an important one, and that is the debt phasing this year. It falls really into 2026, and we had that comparator in our last year's base.

Now the last remaining point as you will have seen, the pricing impact that we've taken in Africa this year and we were basically significantly covered in terms of our raw materials already early on. So we took pricing in line with inflation and foreign exchange devaluation, but the replenishment of materials is now at higher value in the second half of the year. So also in Africa, that 100% operating profit organic growth will not repeat itself in the second half of the year. I know there are quite a lot of moving parts, but that probably explains why the guidance remains as it is.

Yes. And again, 4% to 8% operating profit guidance, that's something that we stand by and what's important to reiterate. On your question, Olivier, on 0.0, we really believe this is a long-term trend and it was ignited back in 2017 with the global launch of Heineken 0.0. We see continued momentum and growth for Heineken 0.0, a key market like the U.S., which is hypercompetitive with countless 0.0 brands being launched in the year-to-date under very difficult market circumstances. We see Heineken 0.0 still growing even in the double digits.

In Europe, there's a couple of technical factors that impacted particularly the first quarter. But in the second quarter, globally, we had growth on 0.0, including in Europe. And again, it is deep cultural change in a way. We are investing a lot of marketing in destigmatizing drinking Heineken 0.0 in social occasions. That's why we are deploying the Formula 1 platform, including F1 The Movie with Brad Pitt behind this. We see -- on the upper end of the spectrum, we see markets like the Netherlands and Spain, where 10% of beer market is already 0.0, Germany in the same. On the average in Europe, it's 5%.

So if only the U.S., Brazil, Mexico and a couple of other markets would just move to the current level of Europe, it would give us tremendous double-digit growth for years to come. As to the cannibalization, we see proof that the majority of this volume is incremental. This is really either lapsed consumers who stopped drinking alcohol because of health, age or other factors and will kind of return to the brands. We see existing beer drinkers for which this fulfills new occasions like lunch or a Monday evening, for example. So in the aggregate, it's very healthy. It's very complementing and it comes at good margins. We continue to be the global market leader. And by all means and purposes, we intend to stay the #1, and we keep launching new 0.0 propositions across our portfolios globally.

Our next question comes from Celine Pannuti from JPMorgan.

My first question is on Europe. I think you mentioned earlier that you expected organic profit to be flat in Europe. Now with H1 being down 5%, what is the outlook for the year? Are you still expecting to be flat? And more broadly, if I look into the midterm, what kind -- what do you think should be seen as the key driver for profit growth in Europe, which has been now pedestrian for a couple of years?

My second question is on Americas. So there are a few headwinds that you are mentioning in the second half of the year, the FX, the tariff impact. You had a tough comparative in organic profit in the first half, but do you expect any profit growth in the second half of the year in that region? And are you raising prices in Brazil?

Harold, do you want to start, and I will complement?

Yes. So indeed -- so your questions are all related to, let's call it, the profitable growth algorithm that we're trying to get in Europe. And I think what Glenn would say is that in order to grow Europe, we have to make sure that we are bringing consumers back into the category through innovation and building fantastic and very strong brands. And that's why it's also important that we keep on investing in the category, both in off-trade as well as in on-trade. But Dolf explained earlier today, we do that the right way, not by balancing, making sure that category and the beer category is affordable, but at the same time, that we're able to pass on certain levels of price increases so that we remain that we have the ammunition available to us to continue to invest in innovation, like, for example, the Cruzcampo launch in the U.K.

Now that all comes with an obligation to drive productivity extremely hard. And this is what we also do. So with a sequential improvement in volumes in Europe, you will also see a sequential improvement in profitability in Europe. Whether that lands as before, what I said in recovery of profit in Europe to absolutely 0, that I don't know. There is a lot dependent on the volume trajectory, but also important to remain investing in category, but that is something that we are aspiring to.

The return to better profit is, therefore, a factor of 3 things. The first is how do we return to growth in Europe, as we just said, with better innovation and better brand building. Secondly, in order to premiumize so that we get positive mix effect. And thirdly, to drive productivity in order to really see that volume growth and the premium growth coming through bottom line. That's basically what we're trying to do in Europe over time. It will not happen overnight, but certainly sustainable efforts will be made to get there.

On the Americas in second half profit growth? Do you want to comment?

Yes. On the second half, as I just indicated also there, we expect also improvement in the Americas in the second half, although what will be impacting us is the offset of that is the import tariffs as well as the favorable hedges that are rolling off. So also there, I think we need to be a bit cautious with profit growth in the Americas in the second half.

But there will be profit grow in the second half.

Yes. I think what's important to emphasize because we fully understand the spirit of the question. It's a volatile world, and there's a lot of ups and downs across the footprint. What we're really trying to do is be agile. There are things that we anticipated. There are things that we have not anticipated that we are trying to be very agile responding to. We try to make sure that we keep investing in our brands, that we keep investing in innovation, that we keep investing in capacity and to make sure in the end that across the footprint, it works. And again, as such, 0.4% volume decline in the second quarter.

Also in the context of, for example, soft drinks showed pretty decent. Of course, total consolidated volume almost flat, getting revenue per hectoliter in 3 out of 4 regions. And we're really trying to leverage the diversity of the footprint to make it work in the aggregate. And that's why reiterating the 4% to 8% is absolutely key. That's the line in the sense and we will make that work in the aggregate.

Our next question comes from Simon Hales from Citi.

So just a couple of quick ones, really some follow-ups. I mean just coming back to the Americas and Brazil, specifically, Dolf, obviously, you mentioned you saw some softness in the market at the end of the quarter. Can you just expand a little bit on what you think was driving that? Is that tariff related do you think? Is it broad-based across price points? Is it just sort of consumer sentiment driven? Any color or any further color there would be helpful.

And then secondly, just on a couple of your smaller markets. Obviously, the DRC has become more challenging as we've moved through the year. How do we think about how big of a volume negative that was in Q2? And how we should we think about the drag of the problems there into the second half of the year? And at the same time, Cambodia has been a tough market for the last 12 months for you. Are you starting to lap through now some of those tough volume declines we've been seeing there?

Yes. Thank you, Simon. So on the consumer, I think there are 2 sides to it, and not just in Mexico and Brazil, but I think that also applies to the U.S. and to Europe that on key fundamentals like unemployment as wage increases, disposable income actually across a lot of key markets that looks pretty healthy. It is more on the consumer sentiment that it looks soft. And I think it's a reflection of everything that's going on politically, geopolitically and across markets. As such, based on those fundamentals, we remain optimistic for the mid and the long term. And we try to be appropriately cautious in the short term to not be called out by surprise. And again, it's back to that point of resilience.

You mentioned DRC. I would answer that in the aggregate. There's a couple of things that we could not anticipate or did not anticipate DRC was a negative. The tariffs and the amount of the tariffs was something that we didn't anticipate back in January, February. The length of the negotiations lasted longer, but we're really trying to take responsibility and make sure that we find offsets. And as such, delivering 7.4% operating profit, even while absorbing those anticipated negatives, that's exactly the kind of resilient execution that we try to drive across the company. And again, therefore, reiterating our profit outlook for the full year.

Our next question comes from Laurence Whyatt from Barclays.

The first one on Europe. We've seen quite a big improvement in beer volumes as a sort of share of throat in many European countries. And that's sort of different to a number of other countries where spirit has been taking share, particularly in the U.S. over sort of recent, say, decade. What do you think is driving that in Europe? Is there any sort of differences that are happening there that are not happening in the U.S.? Is this sort of a category getting its act together? It's a very strong branding. Why do you think European beer volumes are doing well, taking share of throats?

And then secondly, you've had a good performance in Africa this last sort of few quarters. I'm just wondering of your appetite for inorganic expansion within Africa, if the right asset were to become available, would you take a look at it?

Thank you, Laurence. On Europe, indeed, it's good to see a good momentum on the share of throat. By the way, if you look over the last 10, 20 years, the European markets have performed better in that regard compared to the North American markets where share of throat has been under pressure for at least 20, 25 years in a row. In Europe, we have seen less of that, partly explained by the Mediterranean markets, which are actually growing significant share of throat against the wine market.

I think coming out of COVID, there was this bounce in spirits, but that has been unwinding now for, let's say, the last 12, 18 months. Also seeing good relative better performance in the on-trade in the year-to-date, which is positive and a good asset rate in the on-trade in June also on the back of positive weather. Again, we need to make sure that we see through the impact of this one-off negotiations, which will be gone for the second half of the year. And I think Harold also tried to emphasize that through all these twists and turns, we try to stay focused on the essential and the strategic priorities, which is investing in brands, investing in innovations, investing in premium. Premium and low and no are continuously doing better across the global footprint, but also in a market like Europe. You see them reflected in the global brands as Heineken and Amstel. So yes, we believe that in that dimension, the European markets are a bit more healthy. And again, also the reason why we keep investing in those markets.

On Africa yes, Africa was extremely beneficial in our footprint during COVID. We easily forget that in 2021, we had strong performance in these markets, while direct -- the more mature markets suffered with COVID. Last 2 years triggered by these massive devaluations in key markets like Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt. Those markets suffered. We didn't waste a good crisis, and we're really intervened on resizing our cost structures, redoing our balance sheet, sharpening our brand portfolios. And so you see on the bounce back, whether it's Nigeria, whether it's Ethiopia, whether Egypt, you see us coming stronger out of the crisis. And as such, we remain long-term committed to Africa as also our acquisition of Distell and Namibia Breweries exemplified, and those are healthy markets and markets where we want to be in.

You know by asking the question on the inorganic, I can't answer it. But we will always be on the outlook of strengthening our global footprint. We believe that our footprint and its diversity, it's balanced between developed markets and emerging markets, it's balanced across regions is a huge strategic asset. And every opportunity of bolt-on acquisitions or filling in certain white spaces, we would take a serious look at.

Our next question comes from Chris Pitcher from Rothschild & Co, Redburn.

Can I ask a broader question on how you're managing the business? Because you talk a lot about the agility and you reiterate the 4% to 8% operating profit growth for the full year. But earlier to Olivier's question, that not change in the guidance means there's probably a 30% chance on the outlook that you'll be below 4% to 8% in the second half. And that doesn't sound like to me a business that has the agility to respond to factors like tariffs and currency movements and a Tet later phasing, all of which would have been known months and months ago, not in June, July. Should we think of it the 45 to 8% as an annual target and there will be intra-year volatility?

And as a follow-on to that question, part of improving agility is the digital backbone. You mentioned you've rolled it out in Rwanda, Serbia and Egypt. I think you said earlier there were 12 markets in train for next year. But in the statement, you said it's not going to be done until 2028. Can you give us a sense of are you doing the big markets now? Is there an urgency to actually get this digital backbone in place to improve that visibility and agility? Or is it going to be a more gradual rollout process?

Yes. Shall I take the first crack at it? I think it's important to state that we are not managing the business on a very narrow bandwidth on a quarter-by-quarter business. When we make that statement, it's for the full year outlook. Beer, given our global footprint, seasonality, weather impacts, currencies, there's always twists and turns. And what we want to make sure that in the aggregate for the year, we make it work. And so I don't think in any way, we want to suggest that on a monthly, quarterly, that it all stays within a very narrow bandwidth, we want to make it work across. And we feel that as part of agility and leveraging the global footprint.

On the DBB, let me leave that on to you, Harold.

So indeed, the digital bank, look, we're trying to get the balance right between the big markets and ensuring that there is sufficient benefit for the smaller markets as well, because what we're really trying to do is to bring a digital backbone to life that services the different varieties that we have across our business. At the same time, risk management is also a key factor because the operations in Mexico are very different and very different integrated than they are in Brazil or in Vietnam. The trade structures are different. The ways of working are quite different. All of this is what we're trying to converge and we want to do it right.

So we do have a mix between a broad portfolio of smaller markets and some larger markets year after year between '26, '27, '28 to make sure that we reap the benefits of scale, but also do the fine-tuning so that the smaller markets can also operate. That's how we think about it.

Yes. And by the way, I'm happy that you mentioned the digital backbone because this is such a strategic and critical project to future-proof the company, especially in a world of AI. It is long overdue, but harmonizing our core processes, data systems and future-proofing it in a more modular digital cloud-based way that's prepared for AI is absolutely key. So I find it personally actually quite exciting that in the next, what will it be 36 months across our global footprint, we were upgrading our systems. And we do it in a way, as Harold said, where we're trying to do it smart, where we spread it over time. We spread it over a big versus small markets to also mitigate an operational risk.

And again, the 3 first markets give us confidence that we're on the right trajectory. But this is an absolute necessary investment for the future of the company, which will enable both on growth and productivity of all, yes, let's say, next generation of opportunities.

I'm sorry to clarify, can you just quickly say which of the big markets is going to go first, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, U.K., which are the big markets to go first?

Yes. So in '26, we're going okay.

I'm not sure we should review market by market. Sorry. .

We almost did it.

No, I think that is the prerogative of the executives. And again, we will make sure that from a risk mitigation point of view, we spread those big markets out.

Our next question comes from Andrea Pistacchi from Bank of America.

I have 2 questions, please. The first one on Vietnam. So you had strong growth in the half year. You've stepped up investment to support this momentum you said. Can you talk about the health of the market and the consumer as we go into the second half, given geopolitics there? And is a reasonable portion of your growth now actually coming from geographic expansion as you're going into the central region? I asked this because I guess, geographic expansion would still be there as a driver even if the environment were to soften a little.

And the second question is on South Africa. Beer back to good growth in Q2. It's been quite volatile in the 18 months. So you've alternated maybe a couple of difficult quarters for beer. We have a good one, but then it was tough again. So a bit up and down in terms of market share. So what gives you the confidence that the better performance in beer is more sustainable now? And what will it take to fix the wine and spirits business there?

Yes. So thanks for the question, Andrea. Vietnam had a very tough '23. Last year, we worked incredibly hard of adapting to new realities, adapting geographically, channel mix, segment mix, cost structure, what have you. First of all, on the markets, the markets already, since the back half of last year, stabilized and then returned to growth. Year-to-date, we see not only off-trade grow, but we also see the on-trade market growing, so that's very positive. Even with all the geopolitical challenges, as you say, we have seen that continue. In that context, also good to see that Vietnam was one of the first countries to strike a tariff deal with the U.S., providing stability and clarity.

On our relative performance, I think we are really adapting our portfolio, but also leveraging the strength of the breadth of our portfolio. Most of our competitors are single or dual brand operators, and we are having multiple brands across multiple price segments. Brand Heineken is absolutely on fire since the launch of Heineken Silver back in 2019. It is now the #3 market globally for brand Heineken, larger than the U.S., as an example. It is #3 behind Brazil and China, it's still growing in the teens. We're seeing the Tiger brand slowly, but surely stabilizing. We're seeing good growth on the mainstream portfolio, particularly with the line extension called Larue Smooth.

So I think across premium, mainstream, different brands, we have been rebalancing. The markets have been adapting to a new balance between on-trade and off-trade, which we have been navigating quite successfully. And indeed, there are still, in certain geographies, especially towards the north, still a lot of opportunity for us. So across those dimensions, I think it's a good example of agile execution and also agile responding and adapting to new market circumstances. And I think that we are, by far, the largest share gainer in the year. we do see it from a consumer and market dynamic pretty positive and stable for the second half of the year, stable in sentiment, positive in volume, with only that caveat on cycling the debt loading of last year, but underlying feeling pretty good.

Do you want to take South Africa, Harold, just to share?

Yes, sure. So Heineken Beverages, right? Very, very still comfortable and very, very optimistic about the long-term prospects of Heineken Beverages. And we see that already coming through in some of the markets like Heineken Beverages International doing extremely well across different parts of the portfolio. Namibia, very, very strong performance this half year. And then on to South Africa, where your question is, do we believe that we are now confident in the stabilization of beer? You really see that we have worked or the South African team has worked extremely hard in getting the brand propositions, right?

Amstel is now in growth. The Heineken returnable bottle is really doing extremely well. And that has led to a stabilization of market share in close collaboration, I would say, with our customers because we have really stepped up in terms of customer business partnering in terms of really making sure that outlet execution is really a high priority for us. So we believe that in quarter 2 is the first signal of step-by-step improvement and that is also how we talk about it. We don't want to declare victory overnight. We know that this is a super competitive market, but we do believe we've got the fundamentals now in place to continue this step-by-step improvement.

By the way, Bernini drink is doing phenomenally well. So also, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is a multi-beverage company, and this multi-beverage company can really innovate as well as we've seen with Bernini, which is a real growth driver for us and hopefully are able to expand to some other markets.

Your specific question on wine. It's a very competitive category. And we know that in the first quarter of this year, we got the price/mix architecture and pricing wrong. We're in the process of adjusting that. And we already see a much improved performance in quarter 2, but not yet where we need it to be. So that will take a bit longer to adjust.

Our next question will be the final one for today's call, and it comes from Trevor Stirling from Bernstein.

Two questions from my side. The big questions have been answered. So hopefully, they're still valuable. Dolf and Harold, intrigued in Brazil, the weak volumes from the destocking in the channel, but also a negative price/mix, albeit a fairly modest negative price/mix. Maybe you could just give us a little more color about what's going on in Brazil and what the underlying dynamics are there.

And then the second one, probably for Harold. Harold, you've mentioned about the Passos brewery coming on stream. Yucatán not far away as well. Does that mean we're likely to see a big step-up in D&A in the second half in the Americas and a little bit of pressure on margins in the Americas coming from that?

Yes. On Brazil, indeed, as you note, Trevor, a difference between sell-in volume performance in the half year versus sell-out. On the sellout, we are pretty happy with ongoing and consistent market share gains driven by Heineken and Amstel and the rest of the portfolio. On the sell-in, indeed, we had to take out stock and also in the channel and customer mix have to make some adjustments in the first quarter. That has been one. And again, we saw volume bounce back in the second quarter on the sell-in, which is good and healthy to see.

On the revenue per hectoliter, indeed, we took pricing up last year in April. But candidly, we burned our fingers as we were left hanging out last year. So now we have done it in July, which is confirmed, and we have taken our pricing in July in the mid-single digits. So in the remainder of the year, you will see a positive revenue per hectoliter in Brazil as it should be.

Yes. And on the questions of the new breweries, well, Passos will go live, third brewers in quarter 3 this year. But the Yucatán brewery will take a bit longer because that's under construction as we speak. So indeed, we will expect some elevated levels of depreciation and amortization in the Americas, but manageable in that context. So I wouldn't want to overemphasize that point, Trevor.

Thank you, Trevor, and I think we're coming to an end. Thanks for all your questions. Again, we're happy with solid profit delivery in the first half. We are happy to reiterate our profit outlook for the year. We're working hard to keep investing in growth, keep building those important markets, platforms like India, Ethiopia,, South Africa, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico. And we're looking forward to see you all in Seville in October at the Capital Market event to further update you on progress and plans. And other than that, wish you all a lovely summer. All the best.