Hello everyone and welcome to the HEINEKEN to acquire FIFCO's beverage and retail businesses. My name is Ezra and I will be your coordinator today. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, press star followed by two. We will be taking questions at the end of the presentation. I will now hand over to your host, Tristan van Strien, Director of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead. Thank you, Ezra. Good morning or good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's live webcast on our binding agreement to acquire the multi-category beverage portfolio and proximity retail business of FIFCO. Your host will be our CEO, Dolf van den Brink, and our CFO, Harold van den Broek. Following the presentation, we'll be happy to take your questions. The presentation includes expectations based on management's current views and of all known and unknown risks and uncertainties, and it is possible that the actual results may differ materially. For more information, please refer to the disclaimer on the first page of this presentation. I will now turn the call over to Dolf. Thanks, Tristan, and good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone joining us from around the world. Thank you for making time at shorter notice. We're delighted to announce our intention to acquire 100% of FIFCO 's beverage and retail businesses for approximately $3.2 billion, a landmark transaction that strengthens HEINEKEN's footprint in Central America. FIFCO has been our trusted partner since 1986, with HEINEKEN holding a 25% stake since 2002. We know this business well with board representation and an outstanding management team. This acquisition brings FIFCO into the HEINEKEN family, consolidating our leadership in Costa Rica, expanding our footprint in Panama, and acquiring the participation of FIFCO in Nicaragua's leading and fast-growing brewer, Compañía Cervecera de Nicaragua. We also gain further presence in Mexico, Guatemala, and the Costa Rica region, leveraging strong brands and distribution networks. As HEINEKEN, superior and balanced growth is our top priority, central to our EverGreen 25 strategy, and even more so as we look ahead to EverGreen 2030. This transaction of high-quality assets is compelling for several reasons. It enhances our advantaged footprint for growth, strengthening our position in markets with robust macroeconomic fundamentals and favorable demographics. We acquire full control of Costa Rica's beverage leader with iconic brands like Imperial, an established PepsiCo franchise, and strong adjacent businesses in wine, spirits, and proximity retail. We take full ownership of HEINEKEN Panama, a star performer within our group that has consistently outperformed the market. We become equal partners in Nicaragua's leading brewer, an extensive food and beverage platform in Guatemala, and have fast-growing beyond beer brands in Mexico. As Harold will expand upon, this transaction is value-enhancing for HEINEKEN, driving operating profit margin and earnings per share from day one. Let us go into a little bit more detail, starting with our footprint. HEINEKEN's growth profile is geographically balanced and advantaged. Over the last five years, we have further strengthened that advantage, actively sharpening our footprint. Exiting markets and segments where subscale or added complexity or risk, we're focusing on scalable growth opportunities. This includes divesting water-centric businesses in Slovenia, Tunisia, and soft drinks in the Netherlands. We exited the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and most recently, Sierra Leone, small and/or complex markets without a clear path to future sustainable and scalable growth. At the same time, we have stepped up our footprint with strong and emerging positions in the growth markets for today and the future. We're making calculated bets in big profit pools such as Peru and Ecuador. We established our very successful asset-blind partnership in China, allowing our global brands to thrive. Our leading position in India is now consolidated, taking advantage of its future potential. With the acquisition of Distell and Namibia Breweries, we're creating a Southern Africa beverage champion by combining it with our premium beer operation. Today's acquisition from FIFCO in Central America adds scale and another layer of growth, with profitability ahead of the group average. Costa Rica is a highly attractive market with strong macroeconomic and demographic fundamentals. The population is growing at nearly 1% per year and GDP at around 3%. Tourism is a major driver, accounting for 10% of GDP, thanks to the country's beautiful beaches and diverse ecosystem. Despite impressive growth, per capita beer consumption remains relatively low at 56 L, almost half that of Mexico and Panama, despite higher GDP per capita. External data and our own analysis project low to mid-single-digit annual volume growth for the beer market. Costa Rica offers exciting growth opportunities in a sustainable environment. In this attractive market, we are acquiring the clear leader. FIFCO has strong leadership in the beer category with over 2 million hL, led by the iconic Imperial brand, a brand's over 100 years of deep-rooted local history. Our premium portfolio, including HEINEKEN and so on, is already present in the market. FIFCO also leads in beyond beer with local brands like Adán & Eva and BAMBOO. In soft drinks, we're the number two player overall, leading in teas and energy drinks, complemented by the PepsiCo franchise. FIFCO's adjacent businesses support further system strength, distributing wines and spirits and operating over 300 proximity retail outlets with room for expansion. This strong system, number one in beer and beer beyond, has consistently delivered. Over the past five years, beer and beyond beer volumes have grown at mid-single-digit rates, with operating margins comfortably ahead of our group averages and accretive to the Americas region. Upon completion, Costa Rica will be one of HEINEKEN's top five operating companies by operating profits. There is more growth to be had as we see the transaction angle to generate both revenue and cost synergies. We can increase per capita consumption closer to levels seen in neighboring markets by shaping the category and applying our revenue management systems. We will accelerate our global brands, including HEINEKEN and so on. We will share global best practices in production and commercial execution. We will leverage procurement, scale, and shared services, including our Americas hub in Monterrey. This transaction also gives us full ownership of HEINEKEN Panama. Panama is an exciting market where we delivered 20% annual volume growth per annum over the last five years, driven by both market growth and continued market share gains. The economy is U.S. dollar linked with favorable demographics, supporting further expansion. With this acquisition, we also deepen our presence in Central America. An equal partnership in Compañía Cervecera de Nicaragua, Nicaragua's leading and fast-growing brewer with a strong Toña brand and approximately 250 proximity retail outlets. The acquisition of a food and beverage platform in Guatemala with iconic regional brands. In Mexico, FIFCO built a strong portfolio of beyond beer brands with superior brand power and consumer pull, giving us the opportunity to leverage our route to market of HEINEKEN Mexico. Sustainability is a core strength of FIFCO, complementing HEINEKEN's ambitions. Fifco is a regional leader in material circularity, water positivity, carbon neutrality, and zero waste. It is a pioneer in developing women in leadership and a benchmark for corporate governance. Their values align with ours, and together we will execute our Brew a Better World 2030 ambitions. With that, I will hand over to Harold to discuss the financial paradigm. Thank you, Dolf, and good to see you all. Very happy to announce this transaction today that will contribute to sustainable, profitable growth and strong cash generation. I will take you through the financial impacts, but before I do, let me remind you of our capital allocation priorities, which remain unchanged. In our value creation model, we prioritize capital allocation towards organic growth and do so within a disciplined financial framework with a prudent approach to debt. We remain committed to our long-term below 2.5x net debt to EBITDA ratio. We maintain a consistent dividend policy as we have had for decades, paying out 30%- 40% of net profit value. We also prioritize value-enhancing acquisition to boost our long-term profitable growth. This transaction will provide us with an enhanced growth platform and scale in an environment with favorable economics and further value-enhancing synergies. As previously indicated, we consider additional capital returns such as share buybacks, which we commenced earlier this year. I am pleased to confirm that we have had room to do both the transaction announced today and continue our previously announced $1.5 billion share buyback program. For today's acquisition of FIFCO stakes we do not currently own, the cash consideration will be approximately $3.2 billion. This implies an acquisition multiple of 11.6x EV/EBITDA based on 2024 results and excludes any synergy benefit. Our net debt is expected to increase by EUR 3.2 billion, with the net debt to EBITDA ratio to increase modestly. As I mentioned earlier, we remain committed to return to below 2.5x net debt over EBITDA and will continue to make progress on our previously announced share buyback programs. The financial impact as it stands today can be seen on the slide, with expected additional revenue in excess of $1.1 billion and operating profit close to $300 million being consolidated. The transaction will also support our operating profit to net profit conversion with increased profit from associates and joint ventures from the Nicaraguan operations offsetting the loss of associate income from Costa Rica. We will also have reduced non-controlling interest income as we take 100% control of HEINEKEN Panama. We furthermore expect a run rate cost savings of about $50 million through the application of HEINEKEN's proven best practices, which corresponds to a high single digit as a percentage of the cost base. This transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to our operating margin and earnings per share upon completion, with the latter to be in the low to mid-single digit range. As Dolf mentioned, Costa Rica will be our top five operating company in HEINEKEN based on the operating profit contribution. On the next steps, completion of the transaction between HEINEKEN and FIFCO is subject to customary regulatory approvals and the approval by the general shareholders' meeting of FIFCO, which will take place in October 2025. Closing of the transaction is expected in the first half of 2026. The deal has already been approved unanimously by the board of directors of FIFCO, which includes representatives of FIFCO key shareholders. Dolf and I will be happy to take your questions. Thank you very much. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. When prepping to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. If you change your mind or your question has already been answered, press star followed by two. We kindly ask each participant to limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Our first question comes from Sanjeet with UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hi, Dolf and Harold. Three questions from me, please. Firstly, why now? You've had a long-standing relationship with a 25% stake. What was the catalyst to take control now? Secondly, does this constrain you at all from doing other potentially similar sized transactions in the next 12 to 24 months? Thirdly, just on the retail outlet piece, why keep that part of the business? Why is it core? How much of the beer volumes in Costa Rica are going through those retail outlets versus other channels? Thank you. Hi, Sanjeet. Thanks for your question. On your first question, yeah, this has been a partner of ours for over the last 20, 25 years, a quality business which we know well and which we really like and respect. This was the right next step for all involved, both for the families. FIFCO was a family-controlled business. It was the right moment for them, and it's the right moment for us to increase our exposure to this high-quality business and in particular these high-growth profit pools in Central America. On your second question, Harold, do you want to quickly comment on that? Yeah, I think as we indicated, our net debt to EBITDA ratio will increase only moderately because of this transactional size. Our intent is to, over time, indeed go back to the 2.5 x that we are actually quite precious about. It does not constrain us from participating in the 12 to 24 months time window, of course, depending on the deal size. We don't believe that this is in any way impeding us to continue on our capital allocation strategy, including reviewing M&A opportunities as they come along. Very good. Let me then take on your question on the retail. We actually find that a very attractive part, Sanjeet. As you know, our six retail proximity format in Mexico is a very strategic, important part of our business model in Mexico. Over 17,000 stores, one of the largest proximity chains in the world. Therefore, we really like both in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, this emerging proximity store format. There might be good synergies between our experience and expertise in Mexico and these retail businesses in these two markets. For us, it's actually, yeah, explicitly part of the scope and parameter that we really value. Thank you, Sanjeet. Our next question comes from Chris with Rothschild & Co. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. I have a quick question on the HEINEKEN brand potential across these regions because they're good economies, as you say. Can you give us a sense of the HEINEKEN brand mix in each of the different countries and where you see the potential it could get to? In terms of any CapEx required in the business that you're acquiring, are these well-invested assets? Are they able to produce HEINEKEN to the volume and standard that you'd like, or do you think it will need some incremental capital post-completion? Thanks. Thank you, Chris. We believe there is a meaningful upside on the HEINEKEN brand. It's still a very relatively small brand, certainly if you compare it to some of our other key Latin American markets, whether it's Brazil or the emerging positions in places like Peru, Ecuador, Colombia. We for sure see upside on brand HEINEKEN. Harold, if you take that. Let me take the capital expenditure piece. These are, this is a very well-run, high-quality company. We're actually very pleased with the footprint that they've built and the quality of the assets that we have. There is still space to grow further in the existing asset base, although, of course, we do hope that over time our growth potential that we see will make it necessary to continue to invest in the business. We don't see any immediate need to spend a disproportionate amount of capital to upgrade the facilities, if that's the background to the question. Yes, thank you very much. Thank you, Chris. Our next question comes from Oliver with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon, Dolf, Harold, and Tristan. First of all, I was looking at the Q1 trading of FIFCO, looking at the H1 result. It appears that there was some weakness on sales, being down 6% in H1. Even if I look at the very Q1 presentation, it was showing that beer volumes were down 7%. I don't know if my, maybe my Spanish is not great, but am I looking at the right accounts? Perhaps, could you comment on Q1 trading? That's the first question. As part of the transaction, you're going to inherit a small food and juice business in Guatemala. I was just wondering what was the plan there? Is there an opportunity to combine it with beer ultimately in the country? I believe that you are already produced under license by one of the local players. Very good. Thanks, Oliver. Impressed by your Spanish. For sure, we do see some weakness in the current trading. What's really important, and this is mostly driven by the U.S. business, which is not the part that we're interested in. FIFCO is assessing opportunities for that part. Our strategy in the U.S. is focused on premium, and we have no interest in getting exposure to the mainstream segment in the U.S. That part has been the biggest impact on the softness that you see in those first half results. On the underlying Costa Rican and Nicaragua business, also there, we do see some softness, but to a much smaller extent. We believe driven by what we are seeing across Latin America with consumer sentiment impacted by economic uncertainty. Mid-long term, we are very, very confident in the growth profile of this business, the underlying drivers of demographics, middle class income increase, and the track record of this business, which has been extremely strong over the long term, including the last five years. When it comes to the food and juice business in Guatemala, that normally would not be core to us, but these are very strong consumer brands with fast growth and good margins. This is something which we will focus to learn more about before we make up our minds what could be next. Thank you, Oliver. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Sarah Simon with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Yes, hi. Just a question about the soft drinks business. You've obviously been not particularly enthusiastic about bottling in other geographies. I'm just wondering if the bottling business is going to remain core or if that's another business that will be under review, as you were saying to Oliver about the other business. Thanks. Thank you, Sarah. Let me be very clear. There is no systemic position on soft drinks. This is something that we really look at market by market. It is true that we have been divesting some of it. For example, the water portfolio in Slovenia and Tunisia, which, as you know, is a very low-margin business that we didn't want to deploy capital against. The soft drink business in the Netherlands, because we saw very limited synergies with our beer business in that particular market, while the capital injection need was high. These were very important local circumstances. On a more global scale, we are a very proud bottler of both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola in different parts. There are many markets where combining beer and soft drinks makes a lot of sense from a logistics, a route to market, a system strength point of view. In this particular case, both the owned soft drink portfolio, which is of significant scale, as well as the PepsiCo franchise in Costa Rica, is actually a very important part of the business and absolutely considered core. We're proud to extend our long-term partnership with PepsiCo in this regard. They're fully supportive of this transaction. Perfect. Thanks. Our next question comes from Carlos with HSBC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning everyone. Dolf, to what do you attribute the low per capita consumption of beer versus Mexico that you can increase? Can you expand on what Mexican brands you think have the best potential in this market? Thanks, thanks Carlos. I think the low per capita is probably mostly driven by the relative price level. We do see an opportunity of balancing that. You know that's always a strategic thing to get right. We do believe that through price pack architecture, through applying our revenue market growth playbooks, we can accelerate beer volume and beer per capita volume. Nothing dramatic short-term, but mid-long term, we really believe that we can at least partly close the per capita gap with some of the surrounding countries. On the Mexican brands, at this point in time, also for competitive reasons, I don't want to go into the specifics, but we do believe that across our markets, there are cross-fertilization opportunities for the Costa Rican brands in our footprint and vice versa. We'll take that a step at a time and focus on that after closing. Thank you. Thank you, Carlos. Our next question comes from Rob Ottenstein with Evercore. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Congratulations. The Americas are becoming an increasingly important part of your portfolio. I was wondering if, with this acquisition, you can talk a little bit about management changes there, management and organizational structure, so that you can best optimize results both locally as well as part of the global company. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. Yes, indeed, the Americas region is incredibly important. For decades, our legacy European business was the largest region. With this acquisition, now the Americas region is still similar in size to Europe, but actually it will be our largest region. At this point in time, we don't foresee any major structure changes in that regard. We feel this can and will be managed within the confines of the current scope of the Americas region. In terms of the number of markets, it's still below the number of markets that we are managing, for example, in Europe. In terms of leadership, maybe good to highlight that the current incumbent, Rolando, who has been managing FIFCO for the last two years, who has been 20 years in the company, has agreed to stay on and lead the company going forward under a HEINEKEN ownership. We're very excited about that. We see Rolando as a very strong leader with further potential for the business, and it will also really reduce any integration risk. Either way, we deem integration risk on the relative low side as this is a business we know well. Incumbent leadership will continue, and there's no complex local integration happening. That's all I can say at this point in time on management. Thank you, Rob. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from [Celine] with JPMorgan. This will be our final question. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Good afternoon. My question is on the growth in Costa Rica. You said low to mid-single-digit market growth. What do you think is your playbook given the acquisition you've made in terms of, you mentioned increasing per capita consumption and I presume as well some top-line synergies? You also mentioned a $50 million synergy. To which extent would you need to reinvest in the market? I think in an earlier question, you mentioned that you probably needed to expand a bit the price positioning. I was wondering whether margin at the current level maybe will not increase given the investment you need to make. Lastly, Panama has been fantastic. What is your market share there and what's the outlook for this market, please? Fantastic. Thanks, [Celine]. First of all, growth in Costa Rica. The key core reason why we were so excited about this acquisition is for growth in very attractive profit pools driven by underlying demographics, income, 3% GDP CAC, stable macroeconomics, stable currencies. This is really multi-category. We do see that low single digit to mid-single digit on beer, driven by both demographics and the per capita. There's solid growth on the soft drinks portfolio. There's good growth on adjacencies, whether it's the retail business or the wine and spirits distribution. Across categories and formats, we believe there's a lot of further growth to be had. Let me speak to Panama and then maybe you take the synergy question. On Panama, we are now just below 50%, around 44%, 45%, and it has been an incredible success story over the last five, six years, combining both structural market growth and on top of that significant market share. We're quite excited about Panama and now being able to consolidate 100% of that value. Harold, over to you. Yeah, let me just give you a bit of insight into the synergies that we currently see in the business. This is really the $50 million bucket that we're talking about, primarily or actually exclusively cost synergies that we're talking about. Revenue synergies from best practices and R&D are outside of this number quoted, particularly because of the reasons, Celine, that you said, that we intend to reinvest and really make sure that affordability and key price points are being hit. That also may include a wider range of pack size variants than we currently see in the market. These cost synergies are really related to brewery processes. You've heard us speak, both Dolf and myself, extensively in the past couple of years about our connected brewery network, about how we really are starting to optimize brewery processes for more output and lower cost. This is a very significant part of the synergies that we see after the due diligence. The second one is transport management and optimizing that with our protocols and our processes. There are a very big part of the savings also related to, let's call it, back-office synergies as we start to leverage more of our shared services network, also for the benefit of Costa Rica and this fantastic business. The synergies are pretty well defined and clear. To your point on reinvestment, I think Dolf has already alluded to it. We really see that the profitability levels of this company are already extremely accretive to the HEINEKEN average. Therefore, the focus will be about how to sustain and accelerate growth where we can do it. At the same time, we also want a business case to deliver. That's a bit the balance that we're trying to find. Thank you, Dolf and Harold, and thank you all for your questions. This is a reminder, of course, we will see most of you for our Capital Markets event on the 23rd of October. We will look forward to seeing you in Seville next month. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you.