Feb 11, 2026 (MarketLine via COMTEX) --
Heineken reported a well-balanced performance in challenging market conditions.
Growth: Quality volume and mix with market share gains in subdued market conditions
Total volume declined 1.2%, with consolidated volume down 2.1%, and licensed volume up 17.8%.
Heineken® volume grew 2.7%, global brands volume grew 1.9%.
Net revenue grew 1.6%, net revenue per hectolitre up 3.8%.
Over 60% of our markets, including over 80% of our priority growth markets gaining or holding share.
Marketing and selling expenses expanded to 9.9% of net revenue.
Profitability: Strong productivity gains enabling margin expansion
Gross savings in excess of €500 million, with an increased flow-through to profit.
Operating profit grew 4.4% with operating profit margin expanding 41 bps to 15.2%.
Diluted Earnings per Share (EPS) of €4.78, up 3.6% (2024: €4.89).
Capital Efficiency: Another year of solid cash flow generation, with improved ROIC
Free Operating Cash Flow of €2.6 billion, translating into a cash conversion ratio of 87%.
Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) absolute increase of 57 bps to 22.7%, incl goodwill & intangibles up 21 bps to 9.4%.
Completed first tranche of the €1.5 billion share buyback programme, second €750 million tranche to start shortly.
Dividend of €1.90 per share proposed. Dividend payout policy to be expanded to the range of 30% to 50%.
2026: Accelerating the disciplined execution of EverGreen 2030, integrating FIFCO
Increasing investment in growth focused on global brands, faster innovation and sharper execution.
Accelerating productivity at scale to unlock significant savings, reducing 5,000 to 6,000 roles over next two years.
Integrating FIFCO beverage and retail businesses in Central America, expected to be immediately accretive to EPS.
Anticipating FY2026 operating profit to grow in the range of 2% to 6%.
In 2025, we delivered a resilient and well-balanced performance. We gained share, drove cost and cash productivity, and increased investment behind our brands. Combined with agility and our advantaged footprint, this helped us navigate volatility and deliver within our guidance range. We reinforced our footprint through the acquisition of FIFCO in Central America, our largest acquisition in more than a decade, positioning us even more strongly for growth in the future. As EverGreen 2025 concludes, we have made meaningful progress and advanced major transformations that strengthen our fundamentals. EverGreen 2030 builds on this with a sharper strategy, clearer resource allocation, and a stronger focus on value creation. Now we pivot to the disciplined execution of EverGreen 2030. Our first priority is to accelerate growth, funded by stepped up productivity and operating model changes that will involve a significant cost intervention over the next two years. This will unlock stronger people productivity and enable greater speed and efficiency. At the same time, we remain prudent in our near-term expectations for beer market conditions.
Dolf van den Brink, Chairman of the Executive Board / CEO
Outlook 2026
Based on current conditions in the macro-economic landscape, we are assuming an unchanged consumer environment in most of our markets and remain prudent in our expectations for 2026. Furthermore, we are accelerating the disciplined execution of EverGreen 2030, stepping up our investments in growth and adapting our operating model with speed. As such, we anticipate:
Operating profit to grow between 2% and 6%, reflecting our current assessment of inflation and other macroeconomic conditions as well as the investments and changes required to accelerate our EverGreen 2030 strategy.
Variable costs to rise by a low-single-digit per hl, predominately from currency impacting the local inflation base notably in Africa. From our productivity initiatives, we expect gross savings to be at the upper end of our medium term guidance the range of €400 to €500 million.
An average effective interest rate of around 3.5% (2024: 3.4%).
Other net finance expenses (ONFE) to be in the range of €175 to €225 million (2025: €199 million), depending on exchange rate fluctuations.
An effective tax rate (ETR) in the range of 27% to 28% (2025: 27.2%).
Capital expenditure as a percentage of net revenue to be below 8% (2025: 8.4%).
The completed acquisition of FIFCO's beverage and retail businesses is expected to be circa 2% to 3% accretive to EPS.
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COMTEX_474948910/2227/2026-03-09T15:03:08
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