Carlsberg (Baa2 Pos, BBB+ Stable) lifts long-term growth forecasts, continues buybacks

Brewery Carlsberg has reported FY23 results, ~DKK 200m beat on headline revenue in the 4Q - most of it in organic sales growth but it did have favourable price/mix as well. Reported operating income was down 400m over the FY - driven by -120bp erosion in margins - it has organic operating income at +5% growth.

Net interest-bearing debt over EBITDA was up from 1.23* to 1.47* (ceiling unch at 2*)- avg. duration 5.7yrs - its attributed climb in rev's to Capex, returns to equity holders & acquisition of Waterloo Brewing. It returned 3b in share buybacks - its continuing to return to target shareholder returns with buyback of 1b in 1Q. Payout ratio unch at ~50%, proposed div. 27/share/3.6b - flat on prior year.

Its guiding to Operating profit growth of 1-5% for FY24 with assumed net finance costs of -1.1b and Capex of 5b - as reference Capex was 4.2b in FY23 and 4b in FY22. Its also moved long-term targets up ('24 baseline) to organic rev. growth of 4-6% (from 3-5%) & operating profit growth > rev. growth. Initial analyst comments see it as company bullish on China market growth; https://blinks.bloomberg.com/news/stories/S8H28PDWLU69

Conference call in a hour; https://getvisualtv.net/stream/?carlsberg-fy-2023-...