Heineken shares tumble as profits fall short | Progresiv
In the six month period to 30 June, Heineken’s operating profit, excluding exceptional items, rose just 0.3% to 1.78 billion euros with margin slipping 47 bps to 15.6%. This was well below the 6% growth expected by analysts, with Heineken blaming wet weather in June and higher input costs after the price of aluminium rose. 
However, Heineken’s beer sales continued to grow, with revenues rising in all regions, including double-digit growth in Asia Pacific, Africa, the Middle East and eastern Europe. Overall revenue grew 5.6% to 11.4 billion euros with beer volume up 3.1%, despite tough comparables with the period last year which was boosted by the football World Cup. Volumes of its core Heineken brand grew by 6.9%, supported by the global roll-out of its no alcohol variant.
James Edwardes Jones, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets told the Financial Times that nothing was especially “wrong” with the results, the problem was they weren’t “very good” and suffered in comparison to other companies, not least fellow brewers AB InBev and Carlsberg, which had all recently reported results that were above expectations.
Heineken retained its full year outlook, stating that, excluding any major unforeseen macro economic and political developments, it was on-track for mid-single digit growth in operating profit on an organic basis. (www.kamcity.com)
