Companhia de Bebidas das Americas – Ambev [BOVESPA: AMBV4, AMBV3; and NYSE: ABV, ABVc] announces today its results for the 2010 fourth quarter (Q4 2010). The following financial and operating information, unless otherwise indicated, is presented in nominal Reais and prepared in accordance with International Financial and Reporting Standards (IFRS), and should be read in conjunction with our quarterly financial information for the three and twelve months period ended December 31, 2010 filed with the CVM and submitted to the SEC.
OPERATING AND FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
Top line performance: Net sales grew 12.0% driven by volume growth as well as price increases across our regions, with Net Revenue/hl growing 9.0% in the period. Organic volume growth of 2.7% in the period was driven by a 3.6% volume growth in Brazil, 0.5% volume growth in HILA-Ex and 2.6% volume growth in Latin America South, which was partly offset by volume contraction of -5.3% in Canada.
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) and Selling, General & Administrative (SG&A) expenses: COGS/hl increased by 5.3% mainly due to sugar hedges as well as packaging costs, which were partly offset in the quarter by gains in aluminum and barley hedges and productivity initiatives. SG&A (excl. depreciation & amortization) was in line with last year as a result of volume growth, inflation, higher logistic costs offset by lower bonus accrual and phasing of marketing and sales expenses.
EBITDA, Operating Cash generation and Profit: Our Normalized EBITDA reached R$3,822.0 million in Q4 2010, an organic growth of +19.5%, while margin expanded 310 bps in the period to 51.3%, while for the full year our Normalized EBITDA was R$11,707.0 million with a 13.5% organic growth and a 10bps margin expansion. Cash generated from operations in Q4 was R$4,013.7 million bringing full year to R$11,556.4 million, an increase of 9.9% as compared to same 2009 period. Our full year Normalized Profit was R$7,712.2 million (+33.2%), while our Normalized Earnings per share (EPS) grew 32.3%.
Payout and Financial discipline: We paid approximately R$4 billion in dividends and Interest on Own Capital in the quarter, totaling R$5 billion in the year. On February 28th we announced an additional R$1.8 billion dividend payment to be implemented as of March 22nd.
Financial Highlights – AmBev Consolidated | |||||||||
% As | % | % As | % | ||||||
R$ million | 4Q09 | 4Q10 | Reported | Organic | YTD 09 | YTD 10 | Reported | Organic | |
Total volumes | 47,032.6 | 48,038.7 | 2.1% | 2.7% | 154,722.3 | 165,142.5 | 6.7% | 6.7% | |
Beer | 33,655.0 | 34,426.6 | 2.3% | 3.0% | 110,686.5 | 119,158.6 | 7.7% | 7.9% | |
CSD and NANC | 13,377.6 | 13,612.1 | 1.8% | 2.0% | 44,035.8 | 45,984.0 | 4.4% | 3.8% | |
Net sales | 6,778.6 | 7,455.3 | 10.0% | 12.0% | 23,194.0 | 25,233.3 | 8.8% | 13.2% | |
Gross profit | 4,527.0 | 5,002.9 | 10.5% | 13.8% | 15,462.1 | 16,784.3 | 8.6% | 12.7% | |
Gross margin | 66.8% | 67.1% | 30 bps | 110 bps | 66.7% | 66.5% | -10 bps | -30 bps | |
EBITDA | 3,017.8 | 3,755.1 | 24.4% | 17.4% | 10,557.7 | 11,590.1 | 9.8% | 10.2% | |
EBITDA margin | 44.5% | 50.4% | 580 bps | 220 bps | 45.5% | 45.9% | 40 bps | -120 bps | |
Normalized EBITDA | 3,021.3 | 3,822.0 | 26.5% | 19.5% | 10,361.1 | 11,707.0 | 13.0% | 13.5% | |
Normalized EBITDA margin | 44.6% | 51.3% | 670 bps | 310 bps | 44.7% | 46.4% | 170 bps | 10 bps | |
Profit – AmBev holders | 1,790.9 | 2,585.8 | 44.4% | 5,986.0 | 7,561.4 | 26.3% | |||
Normalized Profit – AmBev holders | 1,794.4 | 2,652.3 | 47.8% | 5,789.5 | 7,712.2 | 33.2% | |||
No. of share outstanding (millions) | 3,082.2 | 3,103.2 | 3,082.2 | 3,103.2 | |||||
EPS (R$/shares) | 0.58 | 0.83 | 43.4% | 1.94 | 2.44 | 25.5% | |||
Normalized EPS | 0.58 | 0.85 | 46.8% | 1.88 | 2.49 | 32.3% | |||
Note: Earnings per share calculation is based on outstanding shares (total existing shares excluding shares held in treasury). | |||||||||