Earnings Labs

Molson Coors Beverage Company (TAP)

Q4 2009 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 9, 2010

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you all for attending Molson Coors Brewing Company 2009 fourth quarter and year end earnings conference call. I’d now like to read a prepared statement. Before we get started, we want to paraphrase the company’s Safe Harbor language. Some of the discussion today may include forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from what the company projects today, so please refer to its most recent 10-K, 10-Q and proxy filings for a more complete description of factors that could affect these projections. The company does not undertake to publicly update forward-looking statements, whether a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Regarding any non-U.S. GAAP measures that may be discussed during the call, please visit the company’s website www.molsoncoors.com for a reconciliation of all these measures to the nearest U.S. GAAP results. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference Mr. Peter Swinburn the President and Chief Executive Officer of Molson Coors Brewing, Sir you may begin.

Peter Swinburn

Management

Thank you again hello and welcome everybody and thanks for joining us today. With me on the call are Stewart Glendinning, Molson Coors CFO, Leo Kiely, CEO of MillerCoors, Gavin Hattersley the CFO of MillerCoors, Dave Perkins, CEO of Molson Coors Canada, Mark Hunter, CEO of Molson Coors U.K., Sam Walker, Molson Coors Chief Legal Officer, Bill Waters, Molson Coors Controller, and Dave Dunnewald, Molson Coors Vice President of Investor Relations. On this morning I would also want to extend the special welcome to Kandy Anand who has joined Molson Coors as President of our international business in Asia, continently Europe and Latin America. Kandy brings with him more than 20 years of global brand and marketing experience most recently with Coke and Unilever, and we are delighted to have him on board with the Molson Coors team. On the earnings call today, Stewart and I will take you through highlights of our fourth quarter and full year 2009 results for Molson Coors Brewing Company. Along with some initial perspectives on 2010, and then as usual we will open the call for questions. So, we will get started. Underlying earnings for our company increased more than 85% in the fourth quarter versus the year ago driven by one time reduction in tax rate. Behind the headline number, our results were affected by weak volumes across all markets. Cost increase in the U.S. and UK and brand investments in Canada. Overall, consumer demand remains sluggish and we see these conditions continuing to impact volume and mix in the near term. Our strategy remains consistent however, as we are focused on investing in innovation on our brands, on ensuring we maintain the strong sheet so that when the market conditions improve we are better positioned to accelerate our growth and capitalize on opportunities. Our forums in the quarter and over the past year has benefited from this strategic focus. While our underlying earnings in the fourth quarter were aided by one time reduction in our tax rate, it’s important to point out that we grew or held our net pricing and market share in both the U.S. and Canada. (Audio Gap):

Operator

Operator

Your line is now reconnected sir.

Peter Swinburn

Management

Okay, well my apologies everybody, I am not quite sure what happened there and I don’t know how much everybody. So, for completeness I am going to start from the beginning again. Underlying earnings for our company increased more than 85% in the fourth quarter versus a year ago driven by a one time reduction in tax rate. Behind the headline number our results were affected by weak volumes across all market cost inflation in the U.S. and UK and brand investments in Canada. Overall consumer demand remained sluggish and we see these conditions continuing to impact volume and mix in the near term. Our strategy remains consistent however, as we are focused on investing and innovation on our brands and ensuring we maintain a strong balance sheet so that when market conditions improve we are better positioned to accelerate our growth and capitalize on opportunities. Our performance in the quarter under the past year has benefited from the strategic focus. While our underlying earnings in the fourth quarter were aided by one time reduction in our tax rate, it’s important to point out that we grew or held our net pricing our market share in both the U.S. and Canada. Our Canada share performance represented a significant trend improvement from previous quarters. In the UK we continued to forego low profit volume and share which helps us drive positive pricing and margins. For the full year we expanded our brand portfolios in Canada and the UK exceeded our goals for cost savings and maintained price discipline all of which contributed to a significant increase in our full year underlying earnings. Looking at the regional headlines for the fourth quarter our Canada team launched 3 new products and new ad created for Molson Canadian. As well as accelerating promotional activity…

Stewart Glendinning

Management

Thanks Peter. Hello everyone now I will start with the fourth quarter financial highlights. Worldwide beer volume for Molson Coors declined 4% from a year ago, driven by overall industry weakness as well as our pricing strategy in the U.K. On the bottom line, underlying after-tax income of $190.3 million, or $1.02 per diluted share, was 85.5% higher than the fourth quarter a year ago driven by the favorable resolution of unrecognized tax positions and the year-over-year currency moments. Underlying pre-tax income declined 6% due to weak industry conditions in the U.S. and Canada along with cost inflation in the U.S. and UK. It is important to note that our fourth quarter underlying earnings exclude some one-time gains and losses and expenses, primarily related to the sale of our 19.9% interest in the Montreal, Canadians hockey team. Changes in the value of our Foster’s cash-settled total-return swap and income tax rate change Ontario and MillerCoors integration costs, as well as net special charges of $11.1 million. These adjustments to our U.S. GAAP results are described in detail in the earnings release we distributed this morning. Also, unless otherwise indicated, all financial results we share with you today will be in U.S. Dollars. In segment performance highlights, starting with Canada, underlying pretax income and local currency decreased 12% in the fourth quarter from a year ago excluding the impact of foreign currency hedges in other income. Lower production cost in the quarter were more than offset by increases in brand investments higher incentive compensation expense and the impact of deconsolidating our interest in the beer stores in Ontario, known as BRI Brewers Retail Inc. beginning in the first quarter of 2009 based on the strength of our brand investments and innovations we grew market share while maintaining net pricing versus the…

Peter Swinburn

Management

Thanks, Stewart. In 2010 we will continue to focus on brand building, reducing costs and generating cash. In Canada, we begun to implement against our commitment to include the brand portfolio with the launches of Rickards Dark, Molson M and Molson Canadian 67, a low calorie option for consumers and we have seen favorable volume strength in the later of the fourth quarter as a result. This focus is continued into 2010 with the first quarter launch of Keystone Light and Keystone Lager into the Ontario and Western regions as well as a redesign of our common packaging to reflect the visual appeal of the biggest beer brand in the U.K. Both of these portfolio enhancements leveraged our global brand set and are designed to strengthen our value offerings in the Canada regions where we have faced significant challenges specifically from the smaller brewers who have been the market share beneficiaries for the past several years. For the U.S. we are investing behind our brands which we demonstrated late last year with our stepped up advertising for MGD 64 and national TV advertising for Blue Moon. We believe that we have the right positioning for our brands and we are investing aggressively in big ideas, in marketing and innovation to bring them to life. You will see it in this spring with the Miller Lite and Coors Light as we grow with our toned draughts. You will see it as we expand distribution of the Miller Light aluminum pint and later this year introduce Coors Light aluminum pint. We also plan to roll our Blue Moon variety packs and introduce a new advertising campaign for Keystone Light and to start a big push for Miller High Life Light. Finally you will see stepped up investment behind MGD 64 as we…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Judy Wong of Goldman Sachs.

Judy Wong - Goldman Sachs

Analyst

My first question is on Canada and I'm wondering if you can give us some perspective on what the competitive dynamics look like in that market. Obviously we have seen your share improve in that market after some softness earlier in 2009 and I am wondering whether there has been any changes to the competitive situation. So if you can update on that is my first question?

Dave Perkins

Analyst

Its Dave Perkins. Yeah, look. During Q4 we didn’t see any meaningful change from the sort of activity that we saw on Q3. So I would say there is stability there. We continue to have closed our meaningful price gap as we did through the second half. We're satisfied with where we're at. And so overall I would say reasonable stability from Q3. Obviously during the first quarter of 2010 if you see that same level of pricing activity, that will cause us some year-over-year comparison challenges related to pricing because of prior year but I would say overall feeling stable and satisfied with where we find ourselves.

Judy Wong - Goldman Sachs

Analyst

Okay, and then Stewart, the free cash flow generation that you saw in 2009 clearly exceeding your guidance of $575 million underlying. So can you give us what the delta was in terms of what drilled that outperformance and then how we should think about that number as we look out for 2010?

Stewart Glendinning

Management

Yeah Judy, really two big drivers for the out performance. One was related to obviously our higher earnings, say year-over-year. The second piece was related to a slightly lower CapEx plus obviously some benefits that are coming from asset sales. I think if you look at where we sit right now, we got about $700 million in cash. This is a business, but working capital wise it would take somewhere around $300 million. We are at the moment in a cash usage period of the year and it's not obvious until we get into the second and particularly the third quarter that we start to really generate cash. And at the same time, we do have a couple of opportunities to look at in terms of our balance sheet. Specifically our liabilities are ledged to the Brazilian tax credits. Also we later this year will have some debt maturing and something you will see in our 10-K is that we have a very large pension liability as a result of reduced discount rate. So you're looking at pension liabilities as somewhere in the almost $900 million range. So we've got some fairly big items out there on the balance sheet. Clearly, as we move into the back half of the year and we get into the cash generation phase of the year, we'll have a little bit more flexibility to look at other alternatives which we've highlighted in the past which would include obviously growing our business and sharing some of that cash with the shareholders.

Judy Wong - Goldman Sachs

Analyst

And then Peter just from a strategic perspective or in an environment where all of your three markets are seeing an industry volume decline, so if trends really don't get better anytime soon, do you think there is maybe a greater urgency to look at some of the more growth opportunities outside of these markets whether it's in organic basis or looking at strategic opportunities from an acquisition or M&A perspective?

Peter Swinburn

Management

We're being pretty consistent on this Judy. We are investing, not heavily but we are investing in new markets and I mentioned the appointment of Kandy earlier. So we are actually going into new markets as we speak with Coors Light but that’s not on an acquisition basis. Our belief is that we can still work our businesses that we've got pretty effectively and we will certainly not at this moment go for a heavy investment in any market that we don’t really have the skill set to work in and we don’t yet feel we have that skill set to something we are building up internally. But we're not there yet.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. our next question comes from Kaumil Gajrawala of UBS.

Kaumil Gajrawala - UBS

Analyst

So when we think about the new Canadian portfolio, could you give us a bit of a read on what your picture of success is now in Canada. Your results are a bit better than they were perhaps the last quarter but if you could maybe give us a little bit of context done on volume or pricing or what you look at as the long term goals for that market?

Dave Perkins

Analyst

Yeah, what we're working towards is really a brand portfolio that covers the broad spectrum of consumer occasions. So, because we're not able to say with certainly what the trends across segments will be, I think it's important to have a portfolio that can deal with the movements that we see going on these days. If you look at the super premium imports, we are well lined up with Corona, Heineken and MVD. You think of about premium domestic, we have the Rickards family. The addition of Rickards Dark has been well received. That is a strong brand for us. The growth in the micro area really gets covered for us with pretty more and more now moving towards Granville Island which allows us to participate there. Premium which is really the significant segment in Canada, between Coors Light Canadian and now Molson M and Molson Canadian 67, we feel well positioned across consumer needs that were seeing there and then in value we've recently made some packaging changes on Carling which has been well received but as importantly we just introduced Keystone into Ontario and the Western markets and that will enable us to play in the value segment. So, as we look at our business overall in Canada, our strength is in the mainstream premium and the areas of development opportunity for us are the top end and in the value segment. The moves that we have made recently around our portfolio whether through acquisition or innovation have really helped line us up nicely against those segments. So, success for me looks like building our development in above premium and value while maintaining our strengths in mainstream brand name.

Kaumil Gajrawala - UBS

Analyst

Got it. And then one more follow-up on Canada. With the de-consolidation of the beer store, will that change the pricing dynamic in all that market?

Dave Perkins

Analyst

No that would have no implication to that.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from John Faucher of JPMorgan.

John Faucher - JPMorgan

Analyst

I wanted a follow up on Canada. If I remember correctly, you guys started off the fourth quarter relatively weekly and then rebounded. It appears pretty dramatically given the fourth quarter STR number to the point where you must have been positive potentially as you exited the quarter. So I guess the questions is, as we look at the weakness sequentially, I'm assuming in January, is there anything to that? Is that noise? Has something gotten a little bit worse as we entered into the first quarter of the year or is it something that we really shouldn't pay that much attention to? And also what caused things to get better as we went through the fourth quarter?

Dave Perkins

Analyst

Let me start with the second question. What caused things to get better for us through the final quarter was really the innovation agenda and price competitiveness. So we have been although its early days on innovation, we're very pleased with what we're seeing there in terms of volume and share delivery as well as obviously the strategic strengthening of our brand portfolio. As we look at January, I assume you're referring to the low single digit volume decline and we believe that is fully attributable to economy as opposed to anything that’s happening within our business specifically if that answers your question.

John Faucher - JPMorgan

Analyst

Okay, so it does I guess but given the fact that the economy was probably bad in the fourth quarter, it sounds like its more noise than anything else. In terms of looking at how you exited the year versus how you started, it sounds like it's just a bit of normal volatility. Is that fair?

Dave Perkins

Analyst

Yeah, I think that is fair. We do see ups and down in the industry. You will remember October was a difficult one. You go through all of 2009, you will see several months that bounced around quite significantly. So I'm certainly not reading anything more than the normal volatility and to where we're currently.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Our next question comes from Carlos Laboy of Credit Suisse.

Carlos Laboy - Credit Suisse

Analyst

You referenced fixed cost absorption in the U.S. in one of the releases. Do you have flexibility to scale back reduction capacity? Is that a consideration at this point? How are you thinking about that?

David Perkins

Analyst

Just coming off news here. I think, the thing you remember about our capacity utilization is that we will be full out starting the end of the March through July cards, because if you look at last year we actually chased volume most of the year. So our utilization rates will be great during the peak. What we have to prepare for is more flexibility in the shoulders that’s where we get the leverage that were soft overall market volumes make us most venerable and that’s what showed up in the fourth quarter. So, are there ways to anticipate that better for next year than this year. I think there are yeah, we look at the plans to give us the most flex, and the plan that gives us the most flex in our system today is Golden, but that’s a decision we have to be prepared to take a really good look at coming at summer.

Carlos Laboy - Credit Suisse

Analyst

audio gap:

David Perkins

Analyst

Not in the short term just a pragmatics of cross border cost, tariffs etcetera, doesn’t look to be an opportunistic short term play perhaps in the longer term that’s implement beyond the game plan for North America but again you are dealing with a much different scale in breweries and much different tax and tariff realities.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). Our next question comes from Mark Swartzberg of Stifel Nicolaus.

Mark Swartzberg - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

Couple of technical questions I guess could you repeat the corporate MG&A numbers to what was your expectation for 2010?

Stewart Glendenning

Analyst

MG&A for 2010 we have $180 million that includes the international fees.

Mark Swartzberg - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

And then with Brazil we have been hearing about that for a while what's your best guess to when that gets result?

Stewart Glendenning

Analyst

We don’t have a specific date for that, Mark. We think we have got good number that fits in our balance sheet as our best guide. We have ongoing discussions with them as it relates to this regulatory process has also been underway so there are few moving parts we are actively working on brining it to a resolution but I don’t have a date to share with you.

Mark Swartzberg - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

Lastly Dave, follow-up to John's question about the volatility in the month by month volumes in Canada, can you talk a little bit about innovations, how many points of growth you got from that in the fourth quarter and is it right to think that, that growth moderated in the month of January. Just trying to understand what the underlying trend for your business is?

Stewart Glendenning

Analyst

I wouldn’t want to split out the growth that we have got from innovation and just for competitive reasons but I would say that innovation was a meaningful contributor but the underlying trends on the business we continue to see growth with Coors Light with Rickard we saw growth for our import, the micros and obviously through the innovation but where we continued to see difficulties with Molson Canadian was a mid single digit decline and somewhat moderated from the first half which is good news when you think of potential cannibalization issues and other Molson trademark brands that are being XXX and dry primarily would have been high single digit declines. So overall innovation played an important role for us, but the base business is still certainly the bulk of it.

Mark Swartzberg - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

How would you characterize it's role in January versus the quarter? Was it, did it have a similarly meaningful impact?

Stewart Glendenning

Analyst

Yes. I wouldn't characterize it as appreciably different than we saw through the last half of Q4 when those brands were in full effect.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Raghavan Selvaratnam of MainFirst.

Raghavan Selvaratnam - MainFirst

Analyst

Just that question regarding the U.K. and competitive environment, you have already weighed prices quite significantly in quarter 4 what are you seeing from your competitors and may you lead to the fact that the poor weather in January lead to large drop in volumes and is that also perhaps due to the large prices increases, do you see?

Mark Hunter

Analyst

Yeah, happy to do that. I think it's important to look at the context here we have now had 12 quarters of price increase and certainly over the last five quarters of price increases have been in the double digit range some of that by mix, some of that through our next selling price, you got to remember that not all of those price increases find out their way through to at the retail level, so some of them are renegotiations with our major customers are then absorbed by our customers, so we've been pretty I think consistent and regular with the need in a shrinking market to try and grow value ahead of volume. I really don't want to comment on anything we're seeing in the market place from a competitive perspective pricing out retail continues to remain very, very competitive because our customers remain very, very competitive with one another. Clearly as we commented in January things have been tough across retail and total its just been announced today that the retailing industry had its work candidate for 15 years so certainly the two weeks are very, very vital and well out of the effective all of our sales haven’t been too much into January and December seems a lot weaker to specially back to (inaudible).

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from John Faucher of JPMorgan.

John Faucher - JPMorgan

Analyst

Yes, actually just a follow-up on a question from before on Judy's question about cash flow. Did you guys provide cash flow guidance for 2010 I didn’t get it, so you can give us an idea what the order of magnitude is going to be there? Thanks.

Stewart Glendenning

Analyst

Thanks for that question, we have not given guidance yet. We expect in three weeks at our analyst meeting in New York that we will give you some more clarity then.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I assume there are no further questions at this time, sir.

Peter Swinburn

Management

Okay, that’s perfect timing. Thanks very much everybody, sorry about the glitch early on but thanks for hanging in there and thanks for interest in the company and we will see a lot of you I am sure in New York in a few weeks time. Thanks a lot, thanks.

Operator

Operator

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