Coca Cola saves Anadolu Efes’ profit in 2013
Thanks to the consolidation of its Coke unit Coca Cola İçecek (CCI) within the group, Turkish brewer and Coke bottler Anadolu Efes saw net profit surge to TRY 2.61 billion (USD 1.2 billion/EUR 846 million) in 2013 from 609.8 million in 2012.
The company reported on 10 March 2014 that sales rose 113 percent to TRY 9.2 billion in 2013, although beer sales volumes declined.
Consolidated beverage sales by volume (including beer and soft drinks) increased 3.8 percent to 85.6 million hl last year. For the full year 2013, Turkey beer operations’ total sales volume was down 14.8 percent to 7.3 million hl year-on-year. Efes Breweries International’s (EBI) consolidated beer sales volume declined 12 percent to 18.2 million hl.
Commenting on Turkey, the Group President of Anadolu Group’s beverage arm including Anadolu Efes and CCI, Damian Gammell said: “While the summer season was adversely affected by the developments seen in May and June, the new legal regulations damaged sales volume in the second half of the year.” Obliquely, Mr Gammell referred to the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul that continued through the summer and the new regulations to limit alcohol consumption.
On the beer operations front, he said that 2013 was another tough year, marked by a significant contraction in two major markets: Turkey and Russia. In Turkey, Efes was able to maintain a flat gross margin, while the EBITDA margin receded to 27.7 percent in 2013.
When talking about EBI, he said that total volume was down organically by 12.0 percent in 2013 year-on-year, mainly because of declining volumes in Russia. Despite lower volumes and the challenging pricing environment in Russia that caused a significant drop in EBI’s proforma EBITDA (BNRI) margin, he expressed his hope that margins found their bottom in 2013 and would not drop further.
Anadolu Efes expects its beer sales volume to drop by low single digits in 2014, but forecasts higher revenues due to price hikes, said Mr Gammell, who succeeded CEO Alejandro Jimenez last year, following his retirement.
