管理層發言
Good evening, everyone. It's a pleasure to welcome Molson Coors back to CAGNY this year. Joining us today, we have President and CEO, Rahul Goyal; and CFO, Tracey Joubert. Also, please join me in thanking them for their sponsorship of the beverage reception immediately following their presentation, which will be right outside the stairs. Thank you so much for that. Now it's an exciting time for Molson Coors as the company has made progress on its transformation journey, having changed over the course of a few years how it invests, how it markets and how it operates to return the company back to growth. Having completed its revitalization plan, the company is now into the next leg of its journey, which is to accelerate growth as well as take complexity out of their system, allowing them to deliver sustainable top- and bottom-line growth. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Rahul to hear more about their efforts. Thanks.
Thank you, Bonnie. Thanks for the introduction, and good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for being here. Before I get started, our lawyers said I got to read every single word on this slide. I think they were doing a new-guy joke on me. So the only thing I'm going to say is our discussions today include forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities law. So please refer to the forward-looking statements disclosure in our presentation materials for more information. I am excited to be here to share an update about our business. I'm excited about sharing our new plans and our new strategy going forward. After 25 years in the company, I get the honor of defining the next chapter for Molson Coors, a company that has a 240-year-old legacy in this country. For those who have followed us and those who are new to our company, we are a top 5 global brewer. We're in about 80 countries. We have about 16,000 people with one purpose: to unite people to celebrate all of life's moments. But more importantly, we're in some of the most exciting and largest profit pools of the world. And we've made progress. We've made progress around our core brands in most of our markets. We've kept share that we gained in the United States in 2023. We've kept about 70% of that share that we gained in 2023 with our core brands. We've been on our journey for premiumization and portfolio transformation, and we've increased that by about 5 percentage points. And we are in the early innings of our Beyond Beer beverage strategy. We are approaching about 10% of our revenue from Beyond Beer and have a lot more runway in front of us. We've done that on the back of brands like Topo Chico Hard and Fever-Tree. Along with that, we have strengthened our balance sheet. Our debt is lower than what we started with, and our leverage ratio is in a much healthier place. And we've been consistent in terms of delivering cash back to our shareholders, whether it's through a consistent increase in our dividend or by executing about 70% of our buyback program in just 9 months, which was a $2 billion program over 5 years. So we know we have delivered shareholder value, but we do know that the next chapter for creating shareholder value is going to be on the back of consistent, scalable and repeatable top- and bottom-line growth. And that's what the new plan is. Before I talk about the new plan, I want to address the 2026 guidance. It's no secret that our industry is facing significant headwinds. 2025 saw material industry declines, and that was a cyclical deviation from historical trends. That uncertainty remains for us. If you go deeper into the bottom-line guidance we just shared, there are two factors impacting our business right now. One is cost inflation from increases in the Midwest premium and aluminum pricing. The second is lapping of a one-time incentive compensation because we didn't achieve the targets in 2025. Now we're navigating this period of uncertainty and volatility with discipline. We took immediate action in Q4 focusing on costs. We're taking the right actions on pricing, making sure our brands by region are being competitive. And frankly, we're looking at everything around the Midwest premium. Along with that, we want to make sure we are investing in our business, investing in smart ways, getting our business back to growth. And this means investing in our brands, in our capabilities and in technology. We will navigate this period of volatility being diligent and taking the hard decisions, but we want to make sure we set our business up right for growth in the future. So what does all this mean? We have a strong foundation. We have brands that have scale. We have a historical track record of cash generation. We are doing a reset in 2026 just to navigate this moment of volatility and uncertainty to get our business back. And I'm excited to talk about the next chapter of figuring out how to grow our business, both top and bottom line, in the medium term. It all starts with our new plan, Horizon 2030. Folks, this is not just a new plan on a page. It is a plan and a blueprint of how we get our business back to growth. It is about rewiring our business in a world of constant change. It is about taking bold opportunities and reacting quickly. It means spending more time in the market where our consumers are and where our customers operate. That's what's going to get us back to growth. And it starts with our portfolio. Each segment has a role to play to make sure that we as a business can reach our full potential. But we are making different choices. We are investing differently and executing differently across our brands and markets. Across these portfolio pillars, we feel we have plans to grow share, revenue and profits for our total business. I want to take you a little deeper on that. The second part of our plan is how we operate differently. This is what I call rewiring our business. We're going to put commercial execution closest to customers and consumers. We're going to modernize our capabilities to drive efficiency and value. And then we are going to champion beer and beer occasions. In this industry where the category is under challenge, we're going to champion beer. And we're going to evolve our culture to drive ownership among our people. All of this has to be supported by being disciplined on cost savings and having a clear dynamic approach to capital allocation. We'll go deeper into these three areas. Starting with our portfolio: this is our bedrock. It spans beer and Beyond Beer to reach consumers where they are. It's based on the thesis that all segments matter. But within that, we are making clear choices. We have to strengthen our big brands, the core and value segments, while we transform our above-premium and Beyond Beer strategy. Let's talk about the core. Loyal core beer drinkers represent the vast majority of all beer volume. This group has the strongest loyalty with premium lights, and we have the brands to compete there. We have the opportunity to continue to strengthen our brands with this core consumer and gain more share ahead of the category. How are we going to do this? It means investment in our brands and breakthrough marketing. You probably saw some of this in the NFL and leading up to the Olympics with the Miller Lite campaign. It talks about real-life connections and occasions with the perfect spokesman, Christopher Walken, spanning generations. You can expect more work like that for Coors Light. We're going to continue the journey on Coors Banquet and lean into that brand as we grow both volume and share. With Molson Canadian, we're gaining both volume and share in Canada. In this subcategory, we are also identifying new opportunities like lower-strength beer. We're expanding Miller Extra Lite, which is about a 2.8% ABV brand, in key markets and regions. These brands have the scale. They have the trust of millions of our consumers, and they have the right to win with our core consumers and get our share of the category. Now let's talk about the value segment. We are elevating that because in a T-shaped economy today, the value consumer is feeling pressure and looking for options within their budget. We have the scale. For context, in the value segment, we're probably the fifth largest beer company in the country. This category matters. This is not just defensive. This is how we lean in for consumers looking for budget options. We're going to increase focus on value in a very selective way with selective investment in specific markets and pointed innovation. We'll expand brands like Miller High Life Light across a few more states. We have new innovation coming with Keystone Apple in the summer, directed to this subsegment. Our value portfolio has strong reach and deep consumer loyalty; this is the way to win for us and for our distributors. Premiumization is not going anywhere, and we have the opportunity for more runway there. We're strong in premiumization in Canada and the U.K., but in the U.S., we are underrepresented. We have a new opportunity to lean into that. Things like Peroni—you probably saw that in the Olympics—leaning into the brand with on-premise brand ambassadors, the work we've done in Madrid in the U.K., and continuing to grow in the U.K. and expand across Europe and Canada. Blue Moon Belgian White is still work in progress, but the Blue Moon non-alc brand is growing 25% and is now probably the #2 non-alc craft brand in the country. The other side of premiumization is Beyond Beer. I talked about being in the most exciting profit pools, and this is where consumer needs are evolving. We're continuing our total beverage journey to make sure that our brands meet consumers in more moments. We're proud of the progress we've made. In the Beyond Beer strategy, first is flavor. This category has been volatile, and we need to be agile. We had some great success initially with hard seltzers, then had to pivot, and we did with Topo Chico. We pivoted from a hard seltzer brand to a full-flavor beverage with higher-ABV innovation and different packaging for more occasions. We've changed the trajectory of this brand. We had consecutive dollars and share trend performance improvements in all four quarters of 2025. With Fever-Tree, we're just getting started. We finished the transition last year. We're getting it into our network, and we have an excited distributor network, an excited retail network, and an excited team to get really behind it. There are a few brands where you can get the whole trifecta working, and we believe we have that opportunity with Fever-Tree. In this space, we have the opportunity to deploy M&A dollars in a very disciplined way to augment and fill gaps in our portfolio. Tracey will talk more about that. Hopefully that gives you a sense of the clear choices we are making in our portfolio. Now how are we going to make this happen? We are executing a big change within the organization because how we execute is critical. It starts by putting our customer and consumer at the heart of everything we do. People talk about beer being a global business. We talk about beer being a national business, but actually, beer is a very local business. We need to put P&L accountability at the level closest to the customer. That's where pricing decisions, promotions, assortment, and investment decisions are made. That's what we need to unlock for our teams. We must unlock clear accountability that drives outcomes. We must make decisions with precision where we can change tactics and move spend across actions that are working for our total portfolio in particular markets. We need to do it with speed—decisions in days, not weeks, not months, and definitely not quarters. This is not just an academic principle. This is how we want to change our planning process and execution model. We already started that journey in Q4 and going into 2026 with our distributors. The next part of our plan is capabilities. We are in the largest profit pools, but we also have the largest platforms in these profit pools, where we execute across the entire market. We will keep investing in capabilities that drive efficiency and value to the bottom line. This is in sales and marketing, where we're going to put capabilities in AI and analytics to make sure our sales teams are forward-looking and not reactive in the back. When I talk about AI, this is not just about using it in marketing to create new brands and assets—we will do that and drive efficiency—but how do we literally use it to make investment decisions. The third element of our capabilities is investment in our ERP and technology to augment and automate areas in our supply chain to drive value and optimize business processes. As we think about our internal business, we must keep an external lens. That involves championing beer. The category is challenged, and one thing I told our distributor network is none of us should accept a declining category. That should not be okay. We must find a way to get this category healthy again, and we need to do it together as an industry. This is not about one company changing it; we need to lean in to build beer relevance again and bring people back into occasions where beer fits. We'll do our part in marketing: how we talk about Miller Lite—you saw that—and a new campaign over the holidays called 'Just Bring the Beer.' This campaign is designed to put beer back on the shopping list and in the center of social moments, driving category relevance. This is not an elusive idea. When we think about our sales teams, we have about 22% market share in the country and are category captains for 60% of our retailers. How do we really lead with category focus? The fourth pillar is building a culture of ownership. We have 16,000 people passionate about our business and brands. We need to change how we operate in this moment. I'm asking them to lean into two of our key values: be bold and decisive, and take accountability. This empowers our teams to move with urgency and pace and drive ownership. This matches the external complexity. How do you know we're going to make progress? Key metrics: market share improvements in key markets; acceleration of portfolio transformation across our portfolio; and the investment in capabilities and cost savings showing margin improvement. While doing this, we'll be disciplined about returning cash to shareholders. We are setting 2026 with clarity and transparency while rewiring our business and operating model for execution. We're investing in brands and capabilities, but we're deliberate about how we do that. We'll fund growth with discipline. Two key elements Tracey will cover are cost savings and a dynamic approach to capital allocation. So with that, Tracey?
Thank you, Rahul. Hello, everyone. Good to be back here. As Rahul highlighted, we have a compelling strategy. We're really focused on discrete actions that will support our medium-term growth algorithm. I want to give more color on our financial discipline and capital allocation priorities and highlight how they support our ability to execute against our strategy. Our ability to drive strategy starts with strong cash generation. We feel we have compelling cash conversion and continue to be a very cash-generative business. We delivered over $1.1 billion in 2025, and as we announced earlier with our release, we expect to deliver a similar amount in 2026. We plan to build on this strong base through profitable growth and a new cost savings program. Over the past five years, we have delivered over $1 in free cash flow for every dollar of underlying earnings, and we have among the highest free cash flow yields in CPG. Our solid cash generation has significantly strengthened our balance sheet. Moving forward, it should enable us to invest in ways that we believe will drive value for our shareholders. Let me take you through details around our new cost savings program, which we believe supports both our medium-term algorithm and strong cash generation. To help fuel our strategy, we are announcing a three-year cost savings program targeting up to $450 million, with savings beginning in 2026. The program anticipates savings across both our business units and will come through multiple lines in our P&L. In cost of goods sold, we have a very strong pipeline of plans and projects enabled by procurement, capital investments, productivity and efficiency improvements that will be delivered through our world-class supply chain program. In Americas G&A, we've already unlocked meaningful savings by implementing our new structure at the end of 2025. As you heard from Rahul, we expect to deliver further savings in the Americas enabled by technology and new capabilities that we'll be investing in. In EMEA and APAC, we have plans designed to expand operating margin and improve profitability in those business units. This will be done through implementing new technologies, evaluating supply chain opportunities and portfolio optimization. These savings are intended to mitigate the impact of inflation and allow appropriate levels of investment to fuel our business for growth. Now let's talk about how we're thinking about deploying capital to execute the strategy. Our first priority is to invest in our business to drive long-term sustainable growth through capital projects and new capabilities, investing behind our brands and using financial flexibility to fund M&A. From a capital standpoint, we are rebasing our medium-term CapEx expectations to approximately $650 million a year. This level should allow us to continue to invest in margin-enhancing cost savings projects and make investments in technology to drive efficiencies and increase capabilities. We target double-digit returns on our cost savings programs, and we have delivered against that goal over the last few years with programs including variety packaging capabilities we built in Fort Worth, added shelter capability in Canada, and domestic production of Peroni in the U.S. To grow our business, our aim is to invest in M&A to drive meaningful portfolio transformation. We would target deals that add around 1% to 2% NSR annually to the enterprise and are bottom-line accretive. To contextualize, these could be in the range of about $200 million to $350 million and are expected to be funded from cash from operations. These targets must be scalable, fill white spaces, and be in areas where we believe we have the right to win. Second, we remain committed to maintaining a leverage ratio below 2.5x. At the time of the 2016 MillerCoors acquisition, our net debt was $11.5 billion and our leverage ratio was 4.8x. By the end of 2025, our net debt was $5.4 billion and our leverage ratio was 2.3x, reducing both by more than half. We've continued to hold the highest credit rating we've had since 2016. Third, Molson Coors has a long track record of paying cash dividends, and it remains our intention to sustainably increase our dividend as we have done for the last five years. We've made tremendous progress against our $2 billion share buyback program announced in October 2023. As Rahul said, through just 9 months, we've executed 72% of that authorization, tracking to complete the $2 billion well ahead of schedule. Given what we view as a compelling valuation for our stock, our Board has approved an increase to the amount and extended the duration of our existing share repurchase program. This increases the initial authorization from up to $2 billion to an aggregate authorization of up to $4 billion, inclusive of the approximately $1.4 billion we've already spent through the end of 2025. That plan will now run through December 31, 2031. We believe this should help drive earnings power and demonstrates our confidence in our business, strategy and medium-term growth algorithm. With that, we look forward to taking your questions, and we'll come back up and ask Greg to manage the questions for us.
I can repeat the question, Rahul.
分析師問答
Regarding your guidance under the impact on gross margin, certainly aware of Midwest premium and aluminum inflation. But why is that going to be such a drag on your business in 2026? Talk through that on the gross margin level. And then maybe help frame for us the marketing spend that you're expecting.
Yes. I'll take it and Tracey can add. If you look at the Midwest premium and aluminum pricing, we shared an estimate last year of our exposure. Last year that was somewhere in the range of $40 million to $45 million. We have an incremental headwind of about $125 million in 2026. When the Midwest premium goes up 300%, there are not immediate actions you can take to fully offset that. Obviously, we took all the actions we could in terms of cost savings in the Americas. The Midwest premium is the biggest part of our COGS inflation. If you look at our 2025 results and COGS inflation, we have initiatives and programs to manage through it. We're trying to manage a $125 million increase, so you'll see that show up in gross margin through the Midwest premium. The one-time incentive comp is a lapping issue and shows up more in G&A. On marketing and capabilities investment, the simplest way to think about it is we know we can get this business back to our medium-term growth algorithm—the mid-single digits. We want to make sure we're building and supporting our brands in a pretty competitive category. So that's how I'd break it down: Midwest premium being the big part of COGS, the lapping incentive comp in G&A, and then the marketing and capabilities investments to support growth. Anything else?
Kevin Grundy, BNP Paribas. Rahul, maybe on the longer-term guidance: I suspect some will be surprised by the decision to maintain it, given challenges in the alcohol industry broadly, where domestic beer volumes have declined over multiple years. What gives you confidence that things are going to get better given younger consumers moving away and broader industry trends? It seems like it will take the industry collectively to change. Also, we've seen some food companies invest in price to stimulate volumes. Does pricing come into your thinking as part of the solution to stimulate volumes?
Let me address a few parts. First, how do we get back to top-line growth? If you look at our share losses over the last few years, we've done a decent job on core share—we've lost a little but not dramatically. Our challenge has been other parts of our portfolio, which is why we're elevating the value segment. A big part of our share losses has been in value and flavor. So we need to ensure our portfolio strengthens the core and value to keep and gain share. What the category does we'll see, but share is where we can act. It becomes a question of mix: can we transform the portfolio fast enough to handle potential declines in the core. We think about driving top-line revenue with three levers: volume, price and mix. Those are the levers that give us confidence to get back to low single-digit growth. On pricing, we look at pricing by brand and region, but we also want to be competitive. That's why we're leaning into the value segment—we have a portfolio that meets consumers at the right price points. In beer, consumers usually stay with their brands, but they look for different pack types or channels. Singles and big packs are doing well in different contexts. With our core brands, we need to lean in. The value piece is where we aim to support volume. Between price, mix and transformation into Beyond Beer, that's where we have confidence we can get back to low single-digit growth.
Eric Serotta from Morgan Stanley. You mentioned that the midterm cost savings of $450 million would offset inflation and allow for reinvestment. Hoping you could expand on the reinvestment side a little. Can you give any context for what kind of quantum you're expecting for reinvestment in 2026 and the midterm—whether it's marketing, technology, or other capabilities, and how to think about that? And one for Tracey: on the midterm outlook—mid-single digit on pretax and then high-single digit on EPS—if you're spending more or investing more on M&A funded from cash from operations, the cash has to come from somewhere. Shouldn't there be less contribution from buybacks than historically, or dividends?
Thank you. I'll make sure to address cost savings and the investment profile. Our cost savings fall into three buckets: the Americas, where we took hard actions in Q4 to optimize teams and execution; supply chain, where we'll keep looking for optimization opportunities; and EMEA/APAC, where there's an opportunity to improve margins. Beyond the Midwest premium one-time issue, our teams do a good job matching savings to COGS inflation. On investment, we're not looking to step up investment significantly. We want to ensure our brands are competitive and that marketing dollars and people dollars go after the right things in market. Elevating the value segment is not about big investment—it's about pointed, geographic investments and targeted innovation. We do have investments in capabilities around systems and infrastructure to drive value and efficiency to the bottom line—ERP implementation being one example. All investments must drive outcomes. So there is not a significant step-up in investment overall; it's careful, targeted investment to support the strategy. Tracey, do you want to take the question on buybacks and cash allocation?
We're proud of the work on our balance sheet, reducing leverage from 4.8x to around 2.3x. That gives us optionality. We've reduced medium-term CapEx expectations—from about $750 million historically to $650 million—and we see opportunities in working capital. As we grow top line and expand margins through efficiencies and capabilities, that will contribute to the bottom line. We're a very cash-generative business and have delivered on free cash flow. With the new share repurchase program extended through 2031, we will make disciplined decisions about how much and when to buy shares. We've already completed 72% of our previous program in a short period, which gives us confidence. Our priorities remain: invest in the business to drive long-term sustainable growth, be disciplined on capital investments, sustainably increase the dividend and continue the buyback program as appropriate.
Robert Ottenstein, Evercore ISI. Can you talk about the fundamental change you're making in terms of how the organization is run—driving accountability more locally and making pricing decisions more local? Where did the idea come from, and how exactly will this be executed? How do you deal with national accounts and keep coordination without tripping over yourselves? How local will decisions be in practice?
Great question. When I took the role, we made leadership changes to drive better outcomes. We know the category is challenged and the shape of our portfolio, so we needed to execute differently. We reoriented our regions in the United States and similarly for EMEA and APAC to ensure investments are treated as a collective pool and optimized by geography for ROI. How the brands show up will remain consistent—there won't be multiple versions of Coors Light—but execution will vary by geography because beer is very local. We implemented changes in Q4 and are executing now. We reoriented our planning with distributors—this is our distributor-facing organization—and are already having different conversations with distributors about bringing funds and working together to win in specific geographies. We're reorganizing teams and changing incentive plans so P&L accountability is closest to the market. Incentives will measure people on top-line and bottom-line outcomes at the local level.
Chris Carey, Wells Fargo. A couple of tactical questions. Tracey, are there any phasing considerations in the guidance for this year—premium phasing, brand volume phasing—any phasing details you want to highlight? Relatedly, the exit rate for the business will be important for anchoring your medium-term objectives. At what point do we start anchoring you to the medium-term objectives you laid out today, and what metrics should we watch over 2026 to gain perspective on progress—market share improvements, volumes turning positive, and so on?
In terms of phasing, we expect quarters to look very similar to last year. The shape quarter-to-quarter will be similar. April falls into the same quarter as last year, with a bit of loading for 4th of July, but generally similar phasing. 2025 was different because we had contract brewing arrangements coming out, which created more volatility. Regarding the Midwest premium, it rose rapidly in the second half of last year, so the big rise was in the second half and we'll be lapping that only in the second half of this year. Pricing and marketing investments tend to be loaded into the summer selling season where spending mass. So you'll likely see similar phasing around that as well.
On metrics and how we show progress: market share is obviously a key one. We know the shape of our portfolio and where we can act, so we want to start seeing share improvements in key markets. Portfolio transformation and mix are important as more NSR shifts to premium and Beyond Beer. Fever-Tree coming into our portfolio for full-year 2026 is a key element—it's a meaningful per-hectoliter brand for us. Cost savings and capability investments need to show margin improvement. Those are the three: market share, mix/portfolio transformation, and margins, along with our disciplined buyback execution. We remain committed to the buyback while we reset and get the business back to growth.
We're running out of time, so we're going to stop there. Please join me in thanking Molson Coors again for the upcoming reception. The reception is right outside down the stairs. They'll be around to hopefully answer any more of your questions. As a reminder, please don't forget to take all of your belongings because this room will be locked. Thank you.