Right. I think we're live. Our 35-minute clock has just started. My name's Rupert Trotter. I'm the consumer specialist here at Barclays. I am standing in for Lawrence, who seems to be yet further delayed in Gatwick, somewhere over the Atlantic. I'm afraid you still have to suffer in silence with me. I'm delighted to welcome Heineken back to Boston, in particular, Harold sitting here with me on the stage, and Tristan for trusting me. Before we start, I did also want to highlight there will be a breakout session after this around the corner for those. I think, we've got a breakout session? Yeah. We're out to the right and right, but we'll be going back through the delights of the kitchen so we get there without you being stopped and pestered on the way. We've got 35 minutes, so I'll jump straight in if that's all right. By all means. Harold, look, H1 was, I think, an important reporting point. We've transitioned from EverGreen 2025- 2030. Actually, we had strong delivery. We had strong delivery at the bottom line cashflow improvement as well. What allowed that to come to the fore, particularly in this period, and how do you see that evolving from here? Well, first, Rupert, thanks for having us. It's a pleasure. At Heineken here. Always good to talk. Indeed, maybe good to start with a compliment to the organization because we're in the middle of a CEO transition, as we know. One thing that we were very clear on as an executive team is the best thing that we can do is keep our heads down and keep working on our strategy. It's super nice to see in the first half of the year that there was volume growth across the world, 1.5%, that we had measured, but still revenue growth, and maybe we can talk about that a bit later. There's a lot of proof points of the acceleration of EverGreen starting to come to life. We've brought multi-markets organizations to life. We've grown our global brands. We have prioritized our local brand portfolio. We saw productivity coming in. We have implemented Freddy AI across more and more of our markets. The organization is actually moving. It's accelerating. The results that came are bearing the fruit of that. That was super happy to see. Now, I don't want to come across as complacent because there's a lot more work to be done in order to really unlock that potential, but it's a good start. I do not want to put the cart before the horse, and it is a bit of an unfair question because Rafa enters the house 1st of October, I think. Yep. But very much when the announcement was made, his commentary was, "I buy into EverGreen, and I want to build on it." I think I do not want to over extrapolate that, but incrementalism from here, what are you looking for from a new CEO internally and message-wise internally? Internally, we had the conversation about, look, EverGreen 2025 was a necessary foundation for EverGreen 2030. For those of you who do not know, we have sharpened our strategy quite considerably to put more focus on the growth engines, more focus on global brands, more focus on priority markets, more focus on driving the productivity to the next level. The first thing that we need to do is prove that we can do that. So what I am very much looking forward to is not Rafa arriving on the 1st October, but to actually see the continuation of the strategy happening. Secondly, I think this is only year one of EverGreen 2030. The whole point is about how can we mobilize the organization to do this over and over again, to deliver this consistent set of results, and to start to see a bigger impact as we drive it, both on top line, on bottom line, but also to your point on capital productivity and conversion of cash flows into shareholder value creation. I think we are going to touch on a little of that later on in a bit more depth. I suppose, when one looks into consumer staples from the outside in, we always originally start with its top line and the EBIT conversion. Actually, you have cleared the first half. This delivery of mid-single digit top line growth and profit growing faster seems to be, like you say, it is fair for me to walk away feeling a bit more embedded about that then. Yeah. I think so. Although I am a CFO and actually a chartered accountant, I do want to make a point here, because if you include the growth that we get from China and the growth that we get from our contract brewing business in India, our revenue growth will be well above 4%. I think it is an important point because if you would just look at our stated financials, you would potentially miss that. Actually, therefore, that mid-single digit revenue growth is actually within reach. The conversion of operating leverage, the cash productivity that we see coming into the business, we start to see it happening, but more to be done, as I said earlier. You mentioned Freddy AI, scaling automation, connect data across commerce. How are you seeing this and how can we see this advanced and how this is closing maybe the performance gap against, I suppose you have obviously going to bring up these? Yeah. Maybe good for the audience to first explain what is this Freddy AI. Of course, named after a very important person in our business, Mr. Freddy Heineken, who we believe is the best marketeer that the Heineken company has ever seen. But the notion that Bram put behind this is how can we leverage digital in order to learn and scale across Heineken? There are three components to that. The first one is how do we get access to consumer research studies and best practice sharing? We call that Freddy Connect. Sorry, My Freddy AI. The second one is how do we build innovation and content creation through a digital ecosystem so that new advertising campaigns do not take six months, but take six days? That is the second one. The third one is, as we start to put resources into that, how do we measure ROI optimization through digital means? All three parts are the connection that we put in terms of Freddy AI. We have seen that working on the Heineken brand, and we are now scaling this across. Now, to your point, is this a competitive advantage? I do not think that we are at that stage yet. But certainly what we are is at competitive levels at this moment in time, and that is already a big step up. This is partly to do on efficiency, but it is very importantly partly to do is how do we get from consumer insight to product-relevant consumer offerings in a much faster timescale, because the world is not waiting. This is the beauty about the unlock that the commercial team is trying to get to. Meeting more occasions, lifetime. Absolutely, and faster. I am almost going to go back to a sort of big picture question. We have had long discussions about the changing alcohol consumption landscape. Heineken as an organization have made sort of think the decline in consumption is overstated. It feels like a lot more of the top line is in your own hands now, rather than would-be perceived themes. There is a lot more to go for. There is a sort of performance gap to close. Yeah, I think the way that we looked at it, and we were very explicitly making the case for beer in our Capital Markets Day in October 2025. Because at that moment in time, we felt that the world was somehow giving up on beer as a relevant consumer occasion. That is not right. The way that we are thinking about this is three different market archetypes. In markets where consumers are entering the alcohol, the industrialized alcohol category, the value markets, as we call them, beer is a very relevant category because it is affordable, it is accessible, and it is actually industrialized quality, which is better than homegrown alcohol. If you then go to advancing markets where there is premiumization on top, and this is in markets like Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil where it is happening, there is up-trading opportunity. And then you have got the last part, which is developed markets, where there is a fragmentation of choice. But what we often forget is that the world's population is sitting, to a large extent, in the value in advancing beer markets. You see that in India, for instance. You see that in the growth of Vietnam. And we have a role to play to shape the category. And that is why we wanted to really make the case for beer. And you also see that with new flavors, new variants, there is an opportunity to create new growth through new segments. And the Heineken 0.0 category is only starting at that moment. Now, what we also know is that there are new consumer occasions to be unlocked. So when we look, for example, at our acquisition, our most recent acquisition in Middle Americas or Central Americas, we acquired a full beverage portfolio, including RTDs. So I also think that the Heineken community is more and more looking at the total landscape of consumer needs rather than beer only, and those acquisitions are a proof point of that. Well, I had a question penciled in for that further down the page, so I am going to go off script, but stay on the questions we had agreed, Tristan, so do not worry. But on the Central American acquisition, like you say, you bought a bigger portfolio, but a different skill base in there as well. Yeah. You've got incremental retail route to market. What's the learning that is going to come out of that and how should we see that being transferred around the organization? Well, I think already what you see is that Alex Carreteiro, our new president of the Heineken Americas business, is really getting very excited about the skill base that we've acquired with FIFCO in Middle Americas. This is about the RTD category, but also about how you manage multi-category play. How we start leveraging with our Six stores, but learning actually from Central Americas, what more we can do with the Six stores in Mexico. Yeah. In order to really amplify the route to market and make that a more shopper-based occasion rather than a beer cased occasion. Let's talk a little bit about the Americas, and let's go on to talk about Mexico. I mean, Mexico, we've seen some volume declines in what has been a historically strong market for you. We know that Mexico is a market as yet to properly premiumize in a significant manner. What is the catalyst for the development now, getting back to sort of volume growth and actually the medium-term premiumization of the market? Yeah. Exactly those two words, Rupert. Maybe going back about half a year when we started looking at the outlook for 2026. I just want to caveat it, because I'm still relatively, concerned is maybe a too big a word, but I'm not very optimistic about the short-term nature of the markets in the Americas. I know that I may be a different voice that you hear somewhere out there. But I'm looking at macroeconomic uncertainty, consumer proliferation, less income, heightened competition. You do see that the Americas at the moment is a market that needs a lot of investment in order to bring the consumer back to the franchise. Now, to your point, what's the recipe for success? It's we will keep on investing in building a better infrastructure for our brands to flourish first. We will continue to expand the route to market in Brazil, we will continue to expand the Six stores, we will continue to leverage the Middle Americas as we just talked about. But what needs to come on top is consumer relevant brand portfolio. What we do see happening in both of the markets is that healthier choices, more flavors, and premiumization are still key category growth drivers, and that's what we will be investing in. Can you talk a little bit actually just about Six? Clearly in Mexico, as we've been through firstly the OXXO transition, but how Six is growing, and actually any other incremental plans, where you think that model could be relevant in Latin America? Yeah. So the solution might be different. First of all, we are now the second largest proximity retailer in Mexico with over 17,000 stores. So this is a very, very important route to market asset that the team has developed there. What we are starting to see is more and more, based on what I just said, is that this is not only a beer outlet, but this could be a consumer proximity retail outlet with a broader franchise than we are currently offering. What we're seeing is that there is at least consumer appeal to develop it into that. So we do see more opportunity to leverage our Six franchise further. What we see happening in Middle Americas is that actually FIFCO has done exactly that. What we are looking for is market by market, what are systematic ways to actually build a sustainable route to market for our products. Sometimes this is digital with our Eazle system, and sometimes this is physical with our Six stores. Yeah. Brazil, I think we alluded to, has also faced some sort of volume declines with the market share challenges. Lawrence, I have got to say, as we were, Lawrence has written about increased structural challenges in Brazil. Yeah. Volume growth becoming potentially more challenged at the market level. How do you see the market evolving then from here, volume versus price mix, this premiumization, it feels the bias built towards premiumization? Yeah. I have read Lawrence's piece, and I am sure that he will listen to this recording with a great degree of pleasure and interest, and I thought it was a good piece. But what it basically depicted is that in the 2005- 2015 late teens, there was an acceleration of income growth and population growth, particularly the younger consumer, which was conducive to the beer category, together with some advertising laws, specificities there. And I think he is right. This was the growth and flourish period of beer. Frankly speaking, we have built a fantastic trajectory of growth in Brazil on the back of that, and we are very pleased not only with our route to market model, but also with our brand portfolio that we built as a result of that or built back on that momentum. We really look towards both Brazil and Mexico as attractive, sustained growth markets going forward. Where I beg to differ is that volume growth is no longer possible. I think volume growth is possible. But what will happen is more consumer innovation and more consumer need state that need to be tapped into in order to get that growth going. For example, the launch of Heineken Ultimate 3.5% ABV gluten-free, which we just done, is off to a flying start. Amstel is still growing very, very fast, and we're experimenting and launching new brands in Brazil as well. The name there will be about quality of growth, not necessarily per capita consumption inclination. Right. As what we've seen in the previous decade. It's more nuanced, it's more. Yeah. Premium, but yeah. Yeah. Meeting the occasions, the consumer demands. We've got a fantastic platform to do that. In Brazil, we're seeing OXXO sort of move into Brazil as well, I think I'm right in saying. Yeah. Is that an incremental opportunity or just Look, we know OXXO well. We know FEMSA well. We think that this is indeed a good opportunity for the further development of that market, but we're embracing the change as we see it. Brilliant. Then finally on Brazil, there are a few sort of changes going on there. One is clearly the tax changes towards the end of the year, both in terms of VAT in U.K. parlance, but also we've got the introduction of potential sin tax in the new year. This is happening at a sort of peak demand period for you. How should we think about this? I know a lot of people will try and get worked up about phasing, but in terms of medium term demand, how do you see this and how do you manage it? Well, that's a bit of a difficult question to answer. I think first and foremost because all the nuances that are very important are not yet fully known. I know that the tax is very much up for discussion at this moment in time, but there is no formal, fully fledged proposal that we can discuss and already start thinking about. Secondly, because we have also learned that surprises will keep happening in the world. Therefore, what we call scenario thinking is very much what we do. If route A happens, what is then our response? If plan B happens, what would be our response? Suffice to say that we believe that Brazil will continue to be a very important and attractive market going forward, and I'm sure we'll be ready to deal with whatever comes our way. Whatever comes. Brilliant. Moving to our domestic market here, the U.S.A.. Been a challenging alcohol market for Heineken. You've had success with Heineken 0.0. You talked about Ultimate. Can you sort of talk about the sort of portfolio development and perhaps anything that we need to think about sort of more strategically for Heineken to deliver that sort of profitability that can move towards sort of group level? Yeah. Over what period? So again, maybe just to bring the group in, just dimensionalizing. The U.S., for us, is a relatively small market. It's a strategically important market, but it's 3%-4% of our global revenue. And we're actually making a profit despite an import model that we have there. Whilst it's strategic opportunity, it's not really making or breaking our current strategic momentum. Just as a context, that's important to know. You're right that we are there with Dos Equis, and particularly with Heineken and Heineken 0.0. It's a bit difficult for me to read what is going on in the U.S. market, and I know to the audience, I've said this already in the past 18 months, so it's like, "Hey, shouldn't you study that better in order to get to some answers more quickly?" But for me, the U.S. is a bit of a let's-wait-and-see market at this moment in time. Stick to our guns, know what we do best, bring innovation to market, focus on zero-zero and the brands that we have. Look at velocity, points of distribution, and this is one where I think we need to probably have time with a new CEO to really think strategically about what to do to unlock the strategic importance of the U.S.. Well, let's come back to one of your absolute core markets in Europe. Yeah. Again, much commentary in Europe about sort of alcohol per capita, although beer does seem to be gaining share. Can you talk about sort of the volume opportunities you have in Europe? I suppose actually also want to tie into this the sort of capital efficiency opportunities as well, because it seems to go hand in hand. Mm-hmm. Yeah, indeed. Europe is a market where population is not really growing, and per capita consumption is already high. What Glenn would say, our regional president in Europe, is that the name of the game in Europe is two things. The first one is how do we acquire new consumers into the category as older consumers are leaving the category or are moderating? Secondly, how do we tap into new markets, potentially outside of beer, that can bring us that new growth opportunity? This is where the role of innovation really becomes quite important. Whether this is Texels in the Netherlands, or Stëlz in the Netherlands, or converting, like we see happening now in France, where beer has now overtaken wine as the first alcohol of choice for the consumer. There are opportunities of growth, but we really need to tap into them. One of the things that Glenn, rightly so, has been most proud about is create the moments. We have done an amazing job in Q2 to win the summer in Europe, and that is with quality innovation, quality execution, and the right investment behind it. We saw accelerated momentum, and that is building. That is important for the category, but that is also important for our own belief that actually Europe can be a growth market. Now, to your point, we need to do so efficiently because Europe will not be high growth. It will be modest growth. Therefore, capital productivity and cost scrutiny will be a part of how we create value in Europe. Can I ask, with the U.K. hat on, how does the sort of managed pub portfolio sort of fit into that? Well, maybe good to know, but pub is actually one of the best value-creating opportunities that we have because we know how to run a fantastic pub estate. It is partly because of the premium mix that we can bring there, but it is also partly the role that it plays in portfolio conversion. This is the place where we can test innovation. This is the place where we can bring quality food, quality outlets, quality premium beer experiences to the market, which then has also a transversal impact into the off-trade. This is, for example, where we can test and scale Cruzcampo, for instance. For us, that pub estate is a very efficient, including on return on invested capital, way of actually how to grow profitably in Europe. Brilliant. Let's move on to some more growthy markets. Let's start with South Africa. Distell. The regulatory process took a little bit longer. The integration seems to have taken a little bit longer. But actually, South Africa seems to be remarkably resilient in its growth. How do you see it developing from here and the Distell elevating the overall experience for you in South Africa? Well, first of all, let's recognize indeed that South Africa, despite all of the pressures maybe that the economy are under, continues to be a growth market for total alcoholic beverages. This is good not only for the category but also for our portfolio because we are also there operating a multi-category portfolio, as you know. We are very pleased, in particular, with the fact that our beer category is starting to accelerate and are driving momentum whilst learning how to operate a multi-beverage business. We are not yet fully there in wine, but for example, in our RTDs part of the business, in the Bernini of this world, we are actually doing a fantastic job. I think that our South Africa business is now in a stable platform and conducive to growth also as we now start to unlock the opportunities that we see in the route to market that is conducive to our portfolio. Looking for what are perceived as some of the more growthy economies, like Nigeria, Ethiopia, delivering strong volume growth. I mean, I suppose one of the key things here is the volume growth is very strong. How do you manage the volume growth and profitability hand in hand? How should we be thinking about that almost mentalistic level? I think this is where the lesson of Nigeria a few years ago was really learned by the Africa team, and I really have to give them a compliment as well. We've learned that structurally lowering the cost base in more volatile markets is extremely important. How do you make sure that you're not getting into trouble the moment that some volume falls away? We've learned that painfully in Nigeria, have corrected that, but this is now becoming common place in many of the African markets. The second one is balance sheet health, that the moment your currency goes a bit wanky, that you're not ending up into hard currency problems because you cannot afford to actually import the product or import the ingredients. I do think that the cost and cash control of our African business is fantastic at the moment. The second important thing that we've changed is hard currency mindset. That I think is part of the proof point of success. Now, when you've got these basics in place, it's so much easier to then focus on growth and really about maximizing the mix for all the consumer cohorts, whether they can afford or can afford less, because you basically got your cost and cash base under control. That actually gives us the opportunity to actually start scaling new products, new more affordable formats, simply because you can afford to do that now. And then you've exited the DRC. Yeah. What signal is that to the market? Was this a one-off, or is this a sort of we're assessing some markets or? No, I don't think that we should see this as a one-off. I think it's an important one to start realizing that also in Heineken, we are becoming a more focused growth company with this return on invested capital very much embedded in our way of thinking. The China model is a fantastic example of that, where we really have this partnership model, so we are growing in our brands, but not deploying the full asset base. That is what China Resources Beer is doing for us. We start to see more and more opportunities across more and more of our geographies in order to consider that. DRC was a great example where we can license the brand but offload the asset base and still get an economic return for growing the business. You mentioned China. It's a top three. Yeah. Profit market for you. I mean, a couple questions within this. One, how do you see the top line continuing to evolve? I think as we see it year-on-year, you're effectively being rolled out within the CR Snow network. But how do we see that progressing? Then longer term, how do you see these sort of economics and top line bearing out in China? Yeah. Well, first of all, let's recognize that this is now the eighth consecutive year of strong double-digit growth. This is not a blip. This is a trajectory of fast and relevant growth that we have in China because of this partnership. Important to also realize that in Heineken, with Heineken brands, we're only at 30% of the addressable outlets from CRB, and Amstel has just got started and is already reaching one million hectoliter in one province only. We are quite confident that in the next five years, just to put a time dimension to it, we continue to see these levels of growth, and this is also what we've agreed in the joint business plan with CRB. Financials are very helpful to us, not always reported in revenue as I said before, but certainly a very big contributor to our net profit, and that will only go bigger. Final market I really want to touch on was Vietnam. Yeah. Obviously, a real success story in H1. Had some challenges in 2023, 2024. I was going to say, what were the learnings from that period that allowed us to see the superb figures we saw in H1? I suppose the question I have also got as a follow-on is that we are going to see some tax changes there as well. Is there anything we need to think about as we, I do not want to get the ruler out and extrapolate forward in Lawrence's model, what is going to happen? If you could just share on that a little bit, that would be wonderful. No, indeed, Rupert, and let me close indeed with that last point there. Importantly, what happened in 2022, 2023 is three things came together. The first one is the economic situation in Vietnam was deteriorating. Not massively so, but it came up from 6% GDP growth to 3%-4% GDP growth. There was also not economic stability or political stability, and the consequence of also drink-driving regulation was also very prominent. So we had consumers who were feeling less confident. A channel mix that was starting to happen because of these policies. There was a shift from on- to the off-trade, and mainstream brands became acceptable socially. Those were the macro changes that were basically, in those years, putting a very strategic frame around the dilemmas that we were facing because we were a premium business and really very much skewed towards the on-trade. It was quite existential what happened. What the team has really done is basically went back to the roots and saying, "How do we unlock the off-trade channel? How do we build a more versatile portfolio, not only in premium but also in mainstream? And how do I get deep consumer understanding to unlock that potential?" All of that has now been in place, and I think that the results in the second half of last year and the first half of this year show that we can turn around these situations quite quickly, adapt portfolio and route to market models quite quickly, and we are very pleased to see the results. Actually, we are getting now to record market share levels. So a big call-out to the Vietnam team there as well. I do not think that this is a one-off, but to your last point, we see now market growth between 6% and 7%, and we are growing far above that. Let us be a bit modest about that. I am not sure that with excise changes, we should bank on a 6%-7% market growth. Let us halve that. I also believe that our acceleration of outperformance is something that we should take humbly. Yeah. Therefore, I don't think that we should indeed pencil in these growth rates going forward, but be proud of what we have been achieving. Will the tax change cause any sort of fluctuation? Is it something we need to overly worry about? We don't think so. We have had very good dialogues with the government about how to face these tax changes over the years. They are coming in a phase of the next seven years, and we believe that this is quite manageable. Yeah. I wanted to move on to actually, sort of appreciate we are in the last sort of three minutes, talk a little bit about cash, but also sort of COGS margins. We are in a sort of volatile world, but actually, I am sort of really interested to hear your views around it feels like almost the, I do not want to always call them emerging markets, but actually these developing markets are actually a bit more sort of adaptable to inflation than actually someone, Europe is. The real wage growth catches up a little bit more. I would love your observations on that, and then just how we think about COGS, whether it is sort of barley, and the sort of, not left field, but diesel and things, which often gets, you have to look at the oil price and draw a straight line, but diesel and things like that. How do we think about that in the context of Heineken over the next 12, 24 months? Yeah. The way that we are thinking about it is what is happening in the world of raw materials and packaging materials. Yeah. Which is inflationary driven because of energy. Yeah. In particular, aluminum at this moment in time. Secondly, about what is happening to currencies, because ultimately, we are pricing for devaluating currencies as well. Yeah. To your latter point, I think the developing markets have done an awesome job at the moment to look at the state of the world and manage their macroeconomic finances in a quite responsible way, whether this is the African markets or the Asian markets, temporary subsidies on diesel in order to get the machine going of their economic infrastructure. So a very responsible government policy that has helped contain that. Therefore, as a result, we have had a more benign foreign exchange environment in the context of what is still an inflationary environment from a commodity and energy point of view. Hopefully, that will set us up for a less disruptive effect, but still inflationary effect, we believe, in 2027. But it seems the demand backdrop, again, compared to previous cycles, therefore as well is, I mean, there will be volatility, there will be an impact, but it seems to be a more moderated impact. Consumer confidence does a lot. Yeah. Because in many markets, when there is consumer confidence, people go out and enjoy a beer. Yeah. This is good for our category. Well, coming back to cash and things like that, again, you are delivering, you have been, all the share buybacks announced and things. Net debt EBITDA is only slightly ahead of target. What is the plans for cash from here when you think about your capital allocation policies? Rupert, it is a fantastic question with 20 seconds on the clock. Cash gives us optionality, and one of the things that we really wanted to get right in Heineken is to really be focused much more on shareholder value creation and economic returns. Return on invested capital does that, and cash gives us optionality for share buybacks, organic growth, or inorganic growth. Yeah. Let's see what it brings. Thank you for that. Thank you very much for your time, Heineken team. Hugely appreciated, and thanks for everyone for attending. Thank you. Thank you very much.