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SABMiller managing director Mark Bowman will underline his confidence later today in the growth potential for the brewing giant in Africa. The Peroni and Grolsch maker sees more affordable beer and middle-class aspirations as the biggest opportunities on the continent. Bowman will set out why he believes SABMiller is best-placed to take advantage of this at an investor seminar in London today.
“Africans drink nine litres of beer per head per year, compared with a global average of 45,” he said. “So as Africa develops and levels of disposable income increase we expect the rate of beer consumption to grow significantly. Additionally we anticipate strong GDP growth in Africa which supports our optimism.
“Consumer access to affordable, formal alcohol and developing brands that tap into local pride and unlock the aspirations of the growing middle class who are seeking more premium brands will be the key drivers of top-line growth for our business across Africa.
“The informal market continues to dwarf formal alcohol in Africa. While homemade or illicit alcohol poses a potential health risk to consumers, it is considerably cheaper so our challenge is to ensure that we provide price-sensitive consumers with affordable, high quality alternatives.”
SABMiller expects to take some of this share away from the informal alcohol market by developing cheaper brands, such Chibuku Super and Impala, and maintaining moderate pricing on its other beer brands.
The brewer reported volumes in Africa were up 4% in the third quarter, partially offsetting a decline in China in the period.
Shares in the group were 1.1% down this morning at 3,701.5p.
Morning update
On Friday, consumer goods company Unilever announced more changes to its board. The group has added Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao to its list of candidates proposed for election to the boards at the upcoming 2015 AGMs. Colao, who will join as a non-executive director, has been a member of the Vodafone board since 2006 and chief executive since 2008.
Elsewhere, on a very quiet morning on the markets for grocery, Marks & Spencer (MKS) shares have fallen 1.7% to 502.3p as the retailer revealed it was replacing its dividend payments to investors with a discounted gift card.
City diary
Two of the biggest grocers in the UK will release their yearly figures this week on Thursday.
Morrisons is expected to report disappointing sales and profits, although easier comparators toward the year end should have helped some. The underlying pre-tax profits figure is already known following a massive profits warning in March 2014 when the retailer said the bottom line figure would fall to between £325m and £375m for this financial year – analysts had expected a profit of about £732m. Bruno Monteyne at Bernstein expects the total to be at the bottom end of the range.
He said this week: “We think the company should give clear guidance that because so much work is still to be done, profits are likely to be even lower in the year just started. That would disturb the view that Morrisons’ recovery plan, which started first in March last year, is really on track or has achieved meaningful improvements in trading.
“Therefore the company may well go for the ‘our new pair of eyes [David Potts] is starting in a few days, let’s not pre-judge what will happen.”
Monteyne added that Potts, who starts in the CEO role on 16 March, may want to take a similar approach to Tesco boss Dave Lewis and get bad news out of the way before he gets going and bring down expectations.
On the same day John Lewis and Waitrose hold a press conference to announce their annual results. Despite Waitrose recording a strong sales boost during its 2014 financial year, profits have fallen (down 9.4% in the first half, despite a 4.1% rise in revenues). The upmarket supermarket’s commitment to match Tesco on price could mean profit margins were further squeezed in the second half. Additionally, Waitrose’s sales growth has slowed sharply in 2015 – over the past four weeks sales are up just 0.3%, representing a like-for-like sales decline of around 4%.
Elsewhere, Ocado is scheduled to put out a trading update on its first quarter. It follows the online grocer posting its first-ever profit earlier this year for the past financial year.
European drinks business Stock Spirits Group, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, has its finals out on Thursday; Wetherspoons reports interim results in Friday; and in wider retail Boohoo’s pre-close and N Brown’s quarter four are both on Wednesday followed by an quarter two update from ASOS on Thursday.
Away from the markets the British Retail Consortium Retail Sales for February and the latest Kantar Grocery monthly market share data are both released on Tuesday; the Office for National Statistics puts out monthly industrial and manufacturing production data, also on Tuesday, and balance of trade figures on Thursday; and Nielsen’s own grocery market share data is out on Friday.
Last week in the City
The FTSE 100 slipped from Thursday’s record high on Friday – dropping 0.7% to 6,915.4pts as weakness in mining stocks hit the market.
There were few fireworks in the food and drink sector. Perhaps most notably the cigarette firms lost some ground on Friday, with British American Tobacco falling 1.8% to 3,824p and Imperial Tobacco dipping just under 2% to 3,221p.
Volatility in Russia and Easter Europe is continuing to weigh on FTSE 100 Coke bottle Coca-Cola HBC, which slipped a further 2.2% on Friday to 1,155p. Tesco was also amongst the sector’s largest fallers (down 1.4% to 242.5p), though it is still up by over 28% so far in 2015.
Friday’s risers included Tate & Lyle, climbing 1.7% to 605p after dipping to 551.5p in February. John Menzies was up 2.4% to 409.75p ahead of its market update next week and Majestic Wine was 2.4% up to 341.75p.
There was sporadic good performance amongst the sector’s retailers, with Ocado ending the day up 1.3% to 362.2p and M&S rising 0.9% to 511p.
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