COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENT NO 12/2024 – April 18, 2024
Strong business momentum continued into 2024 – organic EBIT growth guidance raised
Statement by Royal Unibrew’s CEO, Lars Jensen: “The first quarter has marked a strong start to the year. The business momentum we built throughout 2023 has continued into 2024. The continued strong performance of our markets in Northern Europe, combined with a normalized Italian On-Trade beer channel and a strong rebound in our International segment, drove solid organic volume growth of 6% in the first quarter. Strong value management efforts from our organization across all categories ensured organic net revenue growth of 10% in the first quarter.
Going into 2024, we further intensified our focus on delivering the efficiency improvements after some turbulent years with unprecedented high inflation, strong volume growth and a series of acquisitions. This increased focus starts to yield results towards the end of the first quarter. Vrumona has now begun production for the border between Denmark and Germany, and we are investing in the San Giorgio facility so the plant can take over more production for other Royal Unibrew entities in the coming quarters. Along with other general efficiency improvements, this resulted in the fourth consecutive quarter where we can present positive organic EBIT growth and also an organic EBIT margin that is higher than last year.
We upgrade our expectations for organic EBIT growth from 5-15% to 9-19% as a consequence of efficiency improvements and acquisition-related benefits being delivered ahead of plan for the Group. We maintain our expectation that the acquisitions of Vrumona and San Giorgio will contribute by a further DKK 80 million to EBIT, resulting in a reported EBIT of around DKK 1,875-2,025 million,” Lars Jensen concludes.
Key highlights of the quarter:
Organic volume growth of 6% (Q1 2023: -2%)Positive price/mix of
