Molson Coors Beverage Company

Good day and welcome to the Molson Calls Beverage Company fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 earnings conference call. You can find related slides on the investor relations page of the Molson Calls website. With that, I'll hand it over to Tracey Mangini, Director, Investor Relations.

Thank you, Operator, and hello, everyone. Following prepared remarks today, we look forward to taking your questions. In an effort to address as many questions as possible, we ask that you limit yourself to one question. If you have technical questions on the quarter, please pick them up with the IR department in the days and weeks that follow. Now, today's discussion includes forward looking statements. Actual results or trends could differ materially from our forecast. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in our most recent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update forward looking statements. Gap reconciliations for any U.S. or non-U.S. gap measures are included in our news release. Unless otherwise indicated, all financial results the company discusses are versus the comparable prior year period in U.S. dollars and in constant currency when discussing percentage changes from the prior year period. Also, U.S. share data references are sourced from CERCANA unless otherwise indicated. Further, in our remarks today, we will reference underlying pre-tax income, which equates to underlying income before income taxes on the condensed consolidated statements of operations. With that, over to you, Gavin.

Thank you, Tracy, and thank you, everybody, for joining us today. Before we get started, I want to mention that Tracy Joubert, our Chief Financial Officer, is unable to attend today. We moved our earnings date earlier this year, so it didn't conflict with CAGNI. And Tracy had a very long-standing family commitment at this time. So Greg Tierney, our Vice President of FP&A Commercial Finance and Investor Relations, will be filling in on her behalf for this earnings call. And you'll see Tracy next week at Cagney. You know, at the start of last year, no one, absolutely nobody, could have predicted what would happen in the beer industry. We had just grown the top and bottom line of this business. and we are committed to doing it again in 2023. Since then, we increased our expectations for the full year, not once, but twice. We've continued to raise the stakes, and I'm proud to say that once again, we have delivered what we said we would. In 2023, our global net revenue grew more than 9%, and we grew our bottom line by nearly 37%. These are our highest reported dollar results on record, ever. on top of the already impressive results in 2022. We've proven that Molson Coors is the kind of business that can turn itself around, deliver against its commitments, and continue to grow no matter the volatility of the external environment. Every year for the past three years, our industry has faced challenges. We've gotten good at managing them, even when they're massive enough to permanently alter the beer industry. And every year for the past three years, we have navigated successfully through the challenges. We have delivered against our vision, and we have grown. But growth is not a strong enough word to describe what we achieved in 2023. We've set a new baseline for our business, and you don't need to look any further than our bottom line. In fact, our 2023 underlying pre-tax income was higher than we thought it would be, and frankly higher than anyone I am aware of said it would be, in 2028. So Molson Co. has delivered six years of profit growth, six years of growth in just one year. That folks is a new baseline. We are ready for this moment. So let's get into why we are confident. In 2023, our top five brands around the world drove over 2 million more hectolitres than they did the prior year. This is like adding the entirety of Blue Moon's global volume to our portfolio. In the US, our core brands are growing distribution and space at retail, and as I will discuss in a minute, we expect to gain significantly more space in the spring. Last year, our brands in the US also grew more share of the on-premise than any other brewer. This includes our core brands, and it also includes growth for Blue Moon. And as of the latest 12-week CGA Nielsen read, we are going three times more share in the on-premise than Constellation. Three times more. To put this performance into perspective, Coors Light and Miller Light each grew more dollars in the on-premise than Constellation did as a total brewer. I'll let that sink in for a second. Because of this momentum, we added an incremental $1 billion in distributor revenue to our network in 2023. And our distributors are just as motivated to grow again this year. Perhaps most importantly, the consumers who've come to our portfolio over the past 12 months have stuck with us, and they are more loyal than we have historically seen. So we brought new consumers into our portfolio, we've retained our loyal base, and our plans for 2024 are designed specifically to bring in even more new consumers. And there's no better place to start than with our core brands. Let me start with the US. In the fourth quarter, Coors Light, Coors Banquet and Miller Lite all grew brand volume by double digits. Miller Lite leapt an especially strong end to 2022 and still grew a half point of industry dollar share in the fourth quarter. And Coors Light grew dollar share by nearly a full share point in the quarter. You've also heard us talk more about Coors Banquet, and for good reason. Brand volume grew by nearly 20% for the full year in 2023, and it has grown industry share for 11 straight quarters. We have a lot of runway on Banquet, especially with younger legal age consumers. We gained more distribution in 2023 and grew on-premise draft plans for Banquet by nearly 50% in the fourth quarter alone. So you can expect to see us putting a lot of focus behind Banquet this year, along with Coors Light and Miller Lite. Coors Light and Miller Lite have grown significantly at retail, gaining more dollar share of displays in 2023 than any other beer brand. And that trend has continued in 2024, with Coors Light, Coors Banquet and Miller Lite growing dollar share of displays by nearly 20% in the four weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. This is an incredibly important point, and the reason why is quite simple. Store shelves and coolers have a finite amount of space, so floor displays represent incremental space and high visibility. This added space also means more days of inventory at retail for our brands. And from a consumer perspective, it means our brands are placed in areas of the store where they're more likely to sell quickly. Now, we can't talk about our presence at retail without mentioning spring resets. You'll recall that Coors Light and Miller Lite gained about 6% to 7% more space during the summer and fall adjustments, which is a huge increase for brands this large. We're now starting to get a clearer picture of what we can expect to gain as spring resets take shape. And based on the conversations we're having with top retailers, we expect to gain significantly more distribution and space for our brands in 2024 on top of the gains we made last year. In fact, one of our larger chain retailers has already confirmed added space that is well above the fall levels for our core brands this year. It's important to note, though, that this won't happen all at once. Unlike the unprecedented resets we saw last summer and fall, spring resets are phased between the spring and summer. The impact will likely show up over time, roughly between March and July of 2024. Eating up to those months and throughout, our core brands in the US will have large integrated campaigns running across TV, digital, retail, and live events. You've already started to see this with Coors Light and the Super Bowl, which got a great reaction from consumers and supported our success in the marketplace. In the four weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, we added an incremental 160,000 display units of Coors Light at retail. During the same time, Coors Light velocities grew by nearly 14%. So not only are we selling much more beer, it's also selling much faster. As far as what's next, Coors Light's Choose Chill campaign will run throughout the year, with strong media pressure and amplification from celebrity fans like Grammy award-winning country music star Laini Wilson. And in March, we plan to launch a campaign of comparable size for Miller Lite, I can't say much about that right now, but it's some of the best work I've seen on Miller Lite in a long time, and that's a very high bar, so we're excited about it. The growth of our core brands is not limited to the US. In our other global markets, we continue to see strong performance and have plans to continue the momentum in 2024. In Ontario, Coors Light and Molson Canadian are now the number one and number two beers in the total market, and both brands grew share of the industry in Canada for the full year. Miller Light, which sells at an above-premium price point in Canada, continues to grow at a rapid pace, with fourth quarter volumes accelerating, up nearly 60%. In Croatia, Ajusko achieved its highest share levels in recorded history and now holds more than a 50% share of segments. In the UK, Carling grew value share versus its competitive set in the fourth quarter. And we are very excited that Carling is now the first official beer partner of the Men's and Women's FA Cup, which will provide significant visibility and relevance for the brand in 2024. So our core brands have carried their 2023 momentum into this year, and the higher end of our portfolio has a lot of runway in 2024 as well. In the fourth quarter, Our EMEA and APAC business achieved a record high 52% of our net brand revenue at an above premium price point. In the UK, Madri Exceptional continued its growth streak. In the fourth quarter, Madri was the fastest growing major beer brand in the UK, both by volume and value sales. Madri's volumes grew by 80% for the full year, easily surpassing 1 million hectolitres. Growth like this does not come easy in the beer space. especially in less than three years for a new to the world brand that launched during a pandemic. We have something special with Nidri, so it should not be a surprise that we have ambitions to scale this brand and expand its global footprint. Last month, we announced that we're launching in Canada and product is rolling out onto shelves starting this week. We plan to grow this brand thoughtfully in markets where the opportunity and desire are clear. We're starting with Canada and select European markets this year. So that is our focus right now. And we'll consider future expansion when the time is right. In terms of our flavor portfolio, Simply Spiked continues to be a growth engine for our business and the industry. This brand more than doubled its volume in the US in 2023. And Simply Spiked Peach was the number one innovation by volume and dollar sales in the grocery channel. Simply Spiked is also gaining ground in Canada, where it launched nationally less than a year ago. Already, it has nearly a 4% share of the segment in a matter of months. And along with brands like Coors Seltzer and Vizzy, it has driven Molson Coors to become the only major brewer growing share of flavor in Canada. We plan to continue our growth in flavor this year, but our approach will be focused and deliberate. We're launching Simply Spiked Limeade in the U.S. this month. And in March, our new to the world innovation, Happy Thursday, will hit shelves and e-commerce platforms across the US. We've gotten great responses from retailers for both of these launches, and we plan to support them with strong marketing and sampling activations in every region of the country this spring and summer. So we are very confident we can go off our tremendous results from 2023. And we are very confident in the momentum of our brands and our plans for 2024. So you can be confident that we're going to deliver what we say we will deliver, just as we have for the past few years. We are confident because we've weathered every recent challenge imaginable, challenges in our industry and challenges in the macro environment. And from that perspective, we continue to see signs of improvement. Contrary to conventional wisdom, US beer industry volume trends improved during 2023, and particularly in the fourth quarter. which was consistent with strong improvements in consumer spending. In fact, the overall beer category gained dollar share of total alcohol beverage in 2023. Our brands led the industry volume improvement during 2023, and we are focused on our position as a leader of this industry. So we plan to grow Molson Coors top line again in 2024. Are we cautious about the year ahead? Of course. While inflation has come down, there are still plenty of reasons to be wary about the macro environment. But our strong results give us confidence in our ability to deliver in 2024. I know a number of you remain skeptical of our ability to grow this year. You were skeptical in 2022 and also in 2023. But the numbers don't lie. We delivered what we said we would. So for 2024, here's what I will say. We are committed to growth. And for the long term, we have shared our growth algorithm and we intend to deliver on it, just as we have delivered on what we have said we would over the past four years. And with that, I'll turn it over to Greg to share some details on our financials and our guidance. Greg?