BUD - Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV

Operator: Welcome to AB InBev's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab in the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on demand playback later today. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see Risk Factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 12, 2025. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you and welcome everyone to our Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. It is great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we have made in executing our strategic priorities. After that, we'll be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with the key highlights. In the third quarter, we continue to navigate a dynamic operating environment with headwinds in China and unseasonable weather in the Americas, particularly in Brazil, constraining our results. After a slow start to the quarter in July and August, we saw improved performance in September. We remain focused on the consistent execution of our strategy and adapted where required. We maintained our disciplined revenue management plan and continued to deliver on our productivity initiatives. Consistent investments in our brands and innovations drove increased portfolio brand power and continued market share gains in key markets. Despite the challenging environment, we delivered another quarter of top and bottom-line growth, margin expansion, and U.S. dollar EPS growth. Our growth platforms of premium beer, non-alcohol beer, and Beyond Beer continue to outperform, and the quarterly GMV of BEES marketplace has reached nearly $1 billion. In the U.S., our portfolio is continuing to build momentum and gain share of the industry, led by Michelob Ultra, which is now the number one brand in the industry by volume year-to-date. Our solid financial results in the first nine months of the year reinforce our confidence in delivering our outlook for the year, given our deleveraging progress and strong free cash flow generation, the Board has approved a $6 billion share buyback program to be executed within the next 24 months, as well as an interim dividend of EUR 0.15 per share. We also continue to proactively manage our debt portfolio and have announced the redemption of $2 billion of outstanding bonds. In summary, we are confident in the resilience of our strategy and ability to deliver consistent results. We are investing to provide superior value to our consumers, and we are winning in key markets and growth segments. We are taking action where adjustments are required and are excited about the opportunities ahead to drive shareholder value creation through profitable growth and disciplined capital allocation decisions. Turning to our operating performance, while overall volumes were below potential, we grew revenue in 70% of our markets. The combination of our disciplined revenue management choices and portfolio of mega brands that command a premium price drove a revenue per hectoliter increase of 4.8%, resulting in top-line growth of 0.9% Our productivity initiatives more than offset transactional FX headwinds to drive an EBITDA increase of 3.3% with margin expansion of 85 bps. The strength of our diversified geographic footprint enables us to navigate the current environment and deliver profitable growth in the long term. Revenue increased in 70% of our markets this quarter, and we delivered bottom-line growth in four of our five operating regions. Now I'll take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the quarter from our key regions, starting with North America. In the U.S., the momentum of our portfolio continued, and we are increasing investments in our brands to fuel growth. In Beyond Beer, our portfolio growth accelerated with a revenue increase in the mid-40s led by Cutwater, which grew revenue in the triple digits. Cutwater is now one of the top 10 largest spirits brands in the U.S. and was the number one share gainer brand in the total spirits industry in August and September. In beer, our market share momentum was led by Michelob Ultra, the number one volume share gainer in the industry and now the largest brand year-to-date in both on and off-premise channels. Ultra has gained market share in all 50 states this quarter. The brand has 16% share of the industry in its top state and 8% average share nationally, but has less than 6% share of the industry in 20 states, so there remains a significant opportunity for further expansion and growth. Michelob Ultra Zero was launched early this year and is already the second largest non-alcohol beer brand and the number one fastest growing non-alcohol beer in the industry. Ultra is the superior light beer made for those who seek an active lifestyle and balanced choices. Now let's turn to Middle Americas. In Mexico, our revenue continued to grow, driven by disciplined revenue management choices. The industry was, however, impacted by a softer consumer environment and unseasonable weather, which resulted in our volumes declining by low single digits. With improved weather and consumer sentiment, our volumes improved sequentially throughout the quarter, gaining share and returning to growth in August and September. In Colombia, record high volumes drove low teens top-line and mid single digits bottom-line growth, with our portfolio estimated to have gained share of total alcohol beverages. In Brazil, market share gain and disciplined revenue and cost management offset a soft industry to deliver flat EBITDA with margin expansion. Our revenue declined by 1.9% driven by volume performance, which was negatively impacted by unseasonable weather and a softer consumer environment. When we look at our performance across both South America and Middle Americas, it is clear that the industry has been impacted by a combination of cyclical and one-off factors this quarter. Cyclical factors include inflationary pressures and low consumer sentiment, which have impacted demand not only for beer but all consumer categories to different degrees. What has perhaps been more acute for beer than other categories has been the unseasonable weather. Latin America accounts for 20% of the global beer volume, which is typically 1.5 to 2x the weight of other categories in the consumer goods area, and the region is even more relevant for our business while we are managing through the short-term headwinds. When we look ahead at the outlook for the category, the fundamental drivers are unchanged, and we see clear potential for industry volume growth as conditions normalize, as evidenced by Mexico where our volumes returned to growth in August and September. In Europe, continued market share gains and premiumization drove flattish volumes and margin recovery. We gained share of the industry in five of our six key markets, with our performance driven by our mega brands and non-alcohol beer. In South Africa, the underlying momentum of our business continued, maintaining share of beer and gaining share of Beyond Beer. Top-line grew by mid single digits and EBITDA grew by high single digits with margin expansion. Now moving to APAC. In China, revenue declined by 15.2% with our volumes underperforming the industry. While the overall industry has been impacted by a soft consumer environment, which has been even more pronounced in our footprint and key channels, we recognize that we have opportunities to enhance our execution and route to market to better align our results with our capabilities. We are a company of owners who strive for operational excellence. We have been working in China to right size inventories in line with the channel shifts, allocate resources towards areas of growth, and elevate our execution. We have a clear view of where to improve, and as we move forward, our priority is to reignite growth and rebuild our momentum. To achieve this, we are focused on increasing investments in our mega brands, leading innovation within the industry across packaging and liquids, strengthening our route to market in the in-home channels with an increased focus on online to offline, continuing our geographic expansion, and rebuilding our excellence in execution. We are moving with speed to ensure that our business emerges stronger and investing to be better positioned to outperform in the long term. Now let's take a look at the key highlights of our three strategic pillars, starting with leading and growing the category. Our megabrands continue to lead our growth with net revenue increasing by 3%. Corona continued to drive premiumization across our markets, growing revenue by 6.3% outside of Mexico and growing volumes by double digits in 33 markets. Through the consistent execution of our category expansion levers, we aim to increase participation across our markets by offering supreme core brands, innovating in balanced choices to provide consumers with no and low alcohol, low carb, zero sugar, and gluten-free options, and expanding our premium and Beyond Beer portfolios. On a rolling 12 months, participation of legal drinking age consumers within our portfolio was stable. In non alcohol beer, our portfolio momentum continued with net revenue growing by 27%, led by the growth of Corona Zero. We are now leaders in eight of our top 14 non alcohol beer markets and estimate to have gained share in 70% of them. Non alcohol beer is a key opportunity to develop new consumption occasions and increase participation, and we are investing and innovating to lead the growth. This quarter, we announced a partnership with Netflix, which is the world's most popular streaming service. They are creating content that shapes culture, and watching Netflix has become a new social occasion. Our iconic brands are part of the fabric of society in the markets in which we operate, and it is a perfect pairing to bring together beer and entertainment in this unprecedented way. What makes our partnership with Netflix unique is its global reach and scale of activations across our portfolio of brands. Consumers will see this come to life through co-marketing campaigns, activations, title integration, limited edition packaging, and even at live events. What we are most excited about is how this partnership will create more meaningful experiences for consumers across their passion points, including comedy, music, cooking, and live sport events. The beer and Beyond Beer category remains vibrant, and we are leading innovation to address emerging consumer needs, providing choice and superior value in different occasions and balanced choices. We are innovating liquids to provide consumers with different options to meet different lifestyles. From the rollout of Stella gluten-free in Brazil to Harbin Zero Sugar in China to Michelob Ultra Zero in the U.S. and Cass 4.0 in South Korea, we are leading the category in liquid innovation. In Beyond Beer, Cutwater continues to expand, growing volumes by triple digits, approaching $0.5 billion in annualized retail sales, and is now a top 10 spirits brand in the U.S. After a successful rollout in Africa, our flavored beer Flying Fish is now expanding to Europe and the Americas. In adjacent beverage categories, we are taking the learnings from developing a number of successful brands in the energy drink space in the U.S. and have launched Phorm Energy to participate directly in this segment. Let's now turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. In the second quarter, BEES captured $13.3 billion in gross merchandising value, an 11% increase versus last year. The growth of BEES marketplace accelerated with more than 500 partners on the platform. Quarterly GMV increased by 66% versus last year and is now approaching $1 billion. In DTC, our digital platforms continue to enable a one-to-one connection with our consumers and help us in developing new occasions. Our digital platforms generated $138 million in revenue, serving 11.9 million consumers and generating close to 18 million orders online. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, Optimize Our Business. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. I will take a few minutes to discuss the progress we have made in optimizing our business. Our EBITDA margins improved by 85 basis points this quarter, with expansion in four of our five operating regions. We know that each quarter will be different, but we are confident that the combination of our leadership advantages, disciplined revenue management, continued premiumization, and efficient operating model create an opportunity for further margin expansion over time. Moving on to EPS, we delivered underlying EPS of $0.99 per share, a 1% increase in U.S. dollars and a 0.3% increase in constant currency versus last year. EBITDA growth accounted for a $0.09 per share increase, partially offset by higher other financial results, which increased due to a higher cost of FX movements and cost of hedging. The objective of our capital allocation framework is to maximize value creation for our shareholders. Given the progress we have made on our deleveraging and our solid year-to-date financial results, we have increased flexibility on our capital allocation choices. We remain confident in the long term growth and value of our business and have announced today a new $6 billion share buyback program to be executed within the next 24 months. In addition, we have announced an interim dividend of EUR 0.15 per share, our first interim dividend since 2019. We also continue to proactively manage our debt portfolio and have announced a bond redemption of $2 billion. Our bond portfolio remains well distributed with no relevant near and medium term refinancing needs. Upon completion of the bond redemption announced today, we will have no bonds maturing through 2026 and we have no financial covenants. Our results in the first nine months of the year, the resilience of our strategy and the strength of our megabrands all reinforce our confidence in our ability to deliver on our 2025 outlook of 4% to 8% EBITDA growth. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments. Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap on our performance year-to-date. We are encouraged by our results for the first nine months of the year as we delivered EBITDA growth at the midpoint of our outlook range. Underlying EPS increased by mid single digits in U.S. dollar and by 12% in constant currency. While our volume performance has been below potential due to a combination of cyclical and short term factors, we remain confident in the long term fundamentals of our business. With strong free cash flow generation, we have increased capital allocation flexibility and announced a $6 billion share buyback program, an interim dividend of EUR 0.15 and a bond redemption of $2 billion. As Fernando just mentioned, our performance year-to-date and the strategic choices we have made position us well to deliver on our outlook for the year. Our brands have met consumers in some of the most iconic events in sports and culture this year, creating moments of celebration and cheers. But, as we look to 2026, there is an incredible opportunity to activate the beer category because next year, on top of our powerful lineup of mega platforms, we have the FIFA World Cup in North America. This iconic event encompasses 104 games across three countries. Each game is an opportunity to bring beer and sports together and create unforgettable moments for our consumers. With that, I'll hand it back to the operator for the Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first questions come from the line of Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Please proceed with your questions. Edward Mundy: Two questions for me please. The first is around the board's thinking around the shift to a two-year buyback program of $6 billion. Given the balance sheet repair, is it to signal clearer capital allocation priorities from here? Is there also a practical reason insofar as it gives you a little bit more flexibility in the pace of buybacks, given that historically you've tended to get your buybacks done ahead of schedule? That is my first question. My second question is around the broader category, the broader beer category. One of your peers recently highlighted a medium-term outlook for global beer of about 1% volumes. Putting the external environment to one side, how important is it that the rate of pricing required across the broader industry could start to moderate after the huge extremes over the last few years given inflation and negative transaction? How important is it that the pricing going forward might become less meaningful in helping to stimulate volume growth? Fernando Tennenbaum: Fernando here. Let me take the first question and then I will transition to Michel. When we talk about capital allocation, I think it's always important to put in context that the objective of the capital allocation is to create long term shareholder value. The framework is unchanged and remains very disciplined within our choices. What is evolving is that now that we have an improved balance sheet, we have increased flexibility and what you see is that we are exercising some flexibility. The share buyback in itself is an effective use of capital for shareholder value creation. If you think about it as we move from an inorganic to organic transition, I think the first thing that was important for us was to give a framework so people understand the sort of growth that we can deliver. That's the medium term outlook that we provided four years ago. If you look at what we did in the beginning of this year, we provide a framework with the ambition for a progressive dividend. I think now the share buyback is just another natural evolution on that, a two year share buyback of $6 billion, but that should not be seen on a standalone basis. It's the share buyback, it's also the interim dividend which is consistent with our ambition of progressive dividend over time and also the debt reduction that we announced which is consistent with our capital allocation priorities. Much more of an evolution and kind of the consequence of the additional flexibility that we have nowadays. Michel? Michel Doukeris: I think that just building on the share buyback point, there is a lot of consistency on the capital allocation choices and this, of course, is the return to shareholders, the debt, but that is the number one priority that we have, which is organic growth. We'll continue to invest for this number one priority, which is drive the category and the company forward on an organic basis. In terms of the category overall, I think that we shared with you during the capital markets day the view that we have around the category and the potential that we see for future growth coming from structural tailwinds related to economic growth, demographics, and where this growth most likely will come from developing and emerging markets where we have a strong footprint, strong growth to market, and scale. Therefore, we are in the same line where the full potential of the category today would be around 1% growth in normal conditions. The more we increase the addressable market with these Beyond Beer propositions, there are opportunities for us to further stretch this growth, right? Looking at the short term, I think that we see this Latin America impact on the beer category overall. Latin America is very important for CPGs, but is much more important for the beer category to the range of almost twice the size that it represents for beer versus other CPGs. We saw some pressure across CPGs overall in Latin America, but this is more impactful for beer and even more for us because Latin America is much bigger for us than it is for beer overall and for other CPGs. When you think about price, I think that there are two components on that. One is that beer is an affordable category and affordability is very important for beer. And after 3, 4 years of high cost pressure, high inflation for us and for consumers in general, of course we had to be very disciplined in revenue management and to recover our margins, as you just saw during the webcast, to continue to recover our margins over time because of revenue but also cost discipline. As we look forward, inflation is normalized, coming down, so we would expect less pressure on the prices coming from inflation. I'm of the view that we should be very disciplined as category leaders to continue to build over time the capabilities to move prices with inflation so we can continue to recover our margins, but also have a good category and ability to deliver on the investments and everything that we want to do for the future. And how you do that? You need to balance, as we always do, the affordability with the ability to build brands, because premium brands, they command premium price, use the right revenue management capabilities. A good revenue management strategy needs to deliver at least with inflation. This is in the long run, because in the long run we need to capture the cost increase and the opportunities that we have to premiumize in the market. Nothing changed on our side there. I think that what's going to change is a little bit of the environment because inflation is coming down, therefore less pressure will hit consumers. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Mitchell Collett with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your questions. Mitchell Collett: I've also got two questions, I think one for each of you. The first one is on longer term volume growth. I mean, you cited some of the external factors that have impacted not just this quarter, but overall 2025. How do you think about volume growth longer term for the category, particularly in your footprint? You gave the comment that 2026 offers an incredible opportunity to activate the beer category. Do you think you can get back to volume growth in 2026? My second question, which I think is for Fernando, is can you give us any color at this stage? I know it's early on the potential impact of input costs in 2026. I'm specifically thinking about the impact of FX and the timing of your FX hedges. Michel Doukeris: I think that you're right, like 2025 is being very typical and that is this combination of the pressure that inflation has been built over consumer and the consumer baskets. We see this overall across many markets, reduction on the total basket, while beer and alcohol has been maintaining the share of baskets. It's really about a little bit of pressure on consumption. There is this big one-off of this change in the weather pattern because of the La Niña that is impacting the Americas. Some countries such as Brazil were heavily impacted by that. The fundamentals behind the category growth remain the same. As we said before, a lot of this growth, projected to be over 80%, will come from developing and developed markets. Our footprint is very strong in these regions and I see no reason today why this will change over time. Next year then becomes a very special year. While you know that we don't guide for volume, we see the outlook as a positive one because there is less pressure on consumers coming from lower inflation. As salaries rebuild, purchase power rebuilds, prices tend to normalize. Consumers tend to be in a better position. I'm not making any forecast on the consumer sentiment, neither the purchase power for next year. Consumer sentiment is impacting this year and as everybody else, we hope that things will normalize over time. If this bounces back, it should be a positive as well. Overall for CPGs, it's hard to believe that's going to be worse than what we saw this year. The worst case scenario should be the same, but we think that can be better. Then we have FIFA. FIFA over time is being 0.20 to 0.25 impact on the category in the years that we have the games. The fact that's going to happen in North America is great for the category because it's going to impact the overall Americas, of course, but then has great viewership time across Europe and Africa and of course in Asia. People always adapt. The nightlife is much stronger as a consumer occasion in APAC. I think that's going to be a great year for FIFA. Everybody's very excited. The games will be longer next year because more teams, so more people participating. We can't wait to see the fans across the globe gathering and gathering over a beer to watch for that. We continue to work hard focusing on what we can control. You see that the growth of non-alcohol is a great opportunity for us. Our Beyond Beer portfolio continues to accelerate and we continue to innovate in the balance choices. We are providing more options for consumers in more occasions. We are doing our part and we are looking forward to see how consumers will react next year. Fernando Tennenbaum: Mitch, Fernando here. Your question on COGS. We don't provide any specific guidance on cost of goods sold, but you know our hedging policy always hedge 12 months ahead. If you look at where FX is today and what it was one year ago, you can get a good sense on that. From where the market is, it's kind of more like a normal year. Once again, I think we said normal year in 2025. I think 2026 is more of a normal year. Different dynamics in different markets, I think next year probably given where you see Midwest premium today, probably a little bit more pressure on the U.S., but then again, this is based on current market prices. They can always move around and effects a little bit the other way around as we saw in 2025. In 2025, we saw more pressure in the first half given the currency behavior in 2024 and more pressure in the second half, I'm sorry, and less pressure in the first half. In 2026, given how things are evolving, things continue to be the same way. Likely to be the other way around, but then again, this is basically on current effects. We still have two months to go, but let's keep monitoring that. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Laurence Whyatt with Barclays. Please proceed with your questions. Laurence Whyatt: A couple from me as well, please. Firstly, you kindly gave some information on the exit rate in Mexico suggesting that was improving throughout the quarter. I was wondering if you had a similar view on what was happening in both Brazil and Colombia just to see if we're getting a similar consumer improvement in other parts of Latin America. Secondly, perhaps Fernando, historically you would say that going below 2x net-to-EBITDA was value destructive for AB InBev, just wondering if you continue to share that view and what steps you could take if that metric were to be getting close to being hit. Michel Doukeris: Yes, we made a comment on the exit rate for Mexico because I think that was very telling the fact that once the price environment normalized a little bit, the weather was slightly better. We could see not only our market share bouncing back, but also volumes improving through August and September. Unfortunately, in Brazil it is a tale of two stories. I think that the industry overall remains very impacted by this very unseasonable weather. At this point, it can really be said that's unseasonable because the winter was cold. Yes, winters can be cold, but you see September is usually much better weather in Brazil, even October, and still cold and wet in a very strange way. Brazil didn't improve a lot for the weather. Of course, we've been adjusting our execution. Relative prices in the market improved after more than a year of prices being very open on the gap, and our share bounced back strongly, which reinforces the strength of our portfolio. The way that our megabrands are growing in Brazil and the share gains on the premium segment that continue to accelerate. When you look at Colombia, Colombia is not getting all this impact. Colombia volumes continue to grow, share of alcohol beverages continue to improve, very strong performance. Consumer confidence is not that high, but not as low. Inflationary pressures in Colombia are more moderate, so consumer is in better shape there than it is in some other parts in Latin America. Of course, this all is bouncing back and now we are looking at the summer so we can see really where the industry is going to land overall and how the weather is going to be. As we said, as we look forward for 2026, some of these one offs can actually be positive as we build back in 2026. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Laurence, it's Fernando here. Your question on leverage. We've been very consistently saying that our optimal capital structure is around 2x. It's also fair to say that most of the benefit of leverage you get once you get to 3x. The long term goal is still 2x, but you have less of an urgency to go there. You can have more flexibility once you're below this level, which we reached at the end of last year. Of course, every year is going to be slightly different. Sometimes you have effects, fluctuations, but the resilience of our business gives us the consistency to be more on the, as I can say, more on the offense now. Bear in mind that the priority #1 is always organic growth. We keep investing, we keep, if you see this quarter, sales and market, we continue to invest there, but definitely way more flexibility and kind of still 2x is the optimal capital structure. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your questions. Robert Ottenstein: Thank you very much. Two questions from me as well. The first one is I want to focus on the announcement that you've won the Champions League. That came as a bit of a surprise to me. So maybe put that in the context of how you're looking at sports and some of these big assets, how that's evolving. Most importantly, obviously there's a lot of big numbers on this. I don't know if you can talk about the numbers on this, but maybe talk about the ROIC, how you see that being an efficient use of marketing investment, and also a little bit about timing. My understanding is that Heineken still has it for the next couple of years. That's the first question on the Champions League. The second question, arguably in the U.S., perhaps the greatest success this year has been Cutwater. That's a brand that you've had for a number of years and it's just exploded this year. Maybe talk a little bit about the success that Cutwater is having this year, what you think the drivers are for that, whether you think that's sustainable, what you've learned from it, and can you take that model to other countries? Michel Doukeris: So starting with the recent announcement and the role of these events, sports and occasions, I would start by talking about consumers. This is the main reason why we do the investments and why we are lining up into mega platforms. Consumers are behaving different and consumers are as usual evolving. As such, it was very important as we build our strategy and we fine tune our execution to make sure that we are leading and moving fast to where consumers are and will be more and more. That is why when we start leading in terms of execution with this concept of mega platforms and megabrands, integrating our brands with big partner, big partnerships, big events and relevant cultural moments is key for our brands to win in the long term. As I said before, these winning brands that command premium price and premium positioning are very important on our strategy. This works for FIFA, this works for Netflix, this will also work for UEFA, which is an important component as we build this integration with platforms and culturally relevant moments that consumers are looking for, are talking about and are experiencing. It is all about the consumer, how we integrate our brands and these relevant cultural moments and how our brands over execute competitors within the category. That is a great addition. We could not be more excited with the opportunity. As everything moves, 2027 is the right timeline for us to start executing on that. The second part on the U.S. and Cutwater, I think that you have been following. We have been talking about this portion of the consumer and consumption occasions where bitter is not the choice, where more refreshing is not the choice, where people want to indulge a little bit more, where the palate is a little bit more sweet, right, and more mixed. We decided to bet on that back in 2018 with Cutwater. We have been building this brand very patiently, but we have built the brand in a very high quality way. Consistency, right distribution, right price as a premium brand, right investments, right consumer occasions and as the brand improves availability, as consumers get to know the higher quality that we have on this proposition and we position very right for the right occasion, I think that the brand is gaining relevance. What we saw over the summer now is consistent brand building and relevance getting to a tipping point. This brand is now the number one share gainer in spirits, triple digits over the summer, becoming one of the top 10 spirits brands in the U.S. and built from scratch. If one would say what we learned from that is that yes, we can build brands in a very relevant way, yes, we can build this Beyond Beer segment to be what we expect to be for us, so incremental and something that will increase our addressable market. We have been rolling out this notion of the Beyond Beer and how to tap into more occasions across many markets. I gave here during the webcast the example of us rolling out now Flying Fish across many different markets from Africa to Europe to Americas. The early results and indicators are very positive as well. There is more to come and we continue to build Cutwater. We are just at the beginning. I think that the brand, still very small for us, is accelerating and we have a big ambition to drive not only Cutwater but Nutrl and the other propositions that we've been betting on in this Beyond Beer space. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Andrea Pistacchi with Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions. Andrea Pistacchi: This is the first one. So your volumes have been more challenging this year. But after 9 months, you're still very much on track, in fact, you're at the middle of your 4% to 8% EBITDA guidance range. So I wanted to ask whether you had to make any adaptations to the plans that you would have had at the beginning of the year, maybe more agile revenue management or something more tighter cost control? And again, then you would have had at the beginning of the year. If you could discuss this a touch? And then just on the MAZ, the Middle America Zone, there's a question earlier on Colombia, I just wanted to broaden it slightly. So Middle Americas ex Mexico is very profitable for you. It continues to deliver solid volume growth. So could you just discuss a bit on how the environment is in these markets, why you think it's different from, say, Mexico, Brazil? How confident you are in your ability to continue to deliver volume growth in these high-margin countries in the next 12 months-or-so? Michel Doukeris: I think that in a way they are in the same vicinity right on volume and how performance and our execution is adjusting, adapting on this environment. I think that the environment is one that's very dynamic and we've been seeing this of course over the last few years. Every year there is some extra components. As I said before, to me, the extra component on this dynamic operating environment this year was the unseasonable weather in the Americas, but more pronounced in Latin America. I think that we've been adjusting. We often say here in house that our strategies, just like beer, can be used in many different occasions. We've been adapting the execution. We are very agile in reallocating resources. Our portfolio has breadth that is useful for us in this moment because we have from premium brands to value propositions that they can adapt and be used to accelerate a little bit our execution when it's needed. The discipline in cost management, the discipline in revenue management was very, very important for us. A differentiator, I would say, during this period because despite a very challenging consumer environment, we are able to deliver margin expansion, EBITDA growth, EPS growth. Saw very solid financial results that are a product of our very solid operational capabilities and delivers through the quarter. When you look at mass, it is not only very important for us and very relevant for our performance during the quarter and in the long run, but, of course, this quarter specifically because overweight in the beer category versus other CPGs and overweight for us ABI was a big impact on the volume. It is relevant. We are adapting, brands are performing very well, we continue to invest, we continue to manage the portion of the business that we control. And of course, in the long term we continue to see this as a very relevant growth driver for the industry. We are best positioned to capture this growth over time with the operations, scale, and brands that we have in the region. Thank you for the question. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Celine Pannuti with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your questions. Celine Pannuti: My first question, could you, coming back maybe on the Cutwater question, but in a broader sense, how big is Beyond Beer now for you in terms of the portfolio? You said it grew, I think, 27%. Where do you see the capabilities outside or the opportunities outside of North America? If you could help us a bit frame the growth journey and as well the profitability of that category both in North America and outside of North America. My second question, I think it was an impressive performance in gross margin despite some of the FX headwinds that you were facing. Could you give us a view on the building block on the gross margin performance in the quarter, please? Michel Doukeris: I think that I'll hit some numbers quickly here to cover the points that you asked about. I think that the last time that we talked about that, I mentioned that Beyond Beer is a great opportunity for us because it cuts across this interaction of the different alcohol beverages and is incremental for us, right, so, 2/3 plus of the volume that we capture in these occasions from these consumers is incremental to our portfolio. I also remember that the last time that we talked about this, this was around 1% of our overall volume. This today for us is around 2%. It is growing 27%. The opportunity here is huge because the addressable market outside of the beer category is very relevant and is bigger than the beer category itself. It is a huge addressable market. Today it is a very small portion of our volumes, but it is growing very fast. It is all about the consumers. There is a group of consumers there that indulge in different occasions with different liquid profiles. We have been learning a lot about that and we have been having some very successful launch and scale up products in this area. Cutwater, Nutrl, Brutal Fruit, Flying Fish, Busch Light Apple, to mention a few of them. On average, they are sold at higher prices than the beer equivalent products that we have. They have profitability per hectoliter per SKU that is higher than the profitability that we have with equivalent beer SKUs. I think that we continue to work hard on that. This is small for us today, 2% of the portfolio, but it is big in our opportunity to grow with more consumers in more occasions and in a very large addressable market of consumer occasions and volume pool. I'll hand over to Fernando to the second question. Fernando Tennenbaum: On the gross margin side, I think the gross margin side one is a function of your health brand portfolio. You see the net revenues per hectoliter. As Michel said, premium brands command premium pricing. You can move with the revenue management agenda. The second component of that is of course the cost of goods sold. In the cost of goods sold, you have one component that is the FX and commodities, which is market price, but you have the other components, which is the efficiencies, the kind of fixed costs. There is always a kind of opportunity for us to keep driving on that. For me, it's a combination of strong portfolio with premium brands and also driving efficiency on the cost of goods sold. If you remember, we talked about it several times that when we look for margins, we still see opportunities for us to improve our operations, to improve our margins and a lot of that would be coming from gross profit. It's just delivering on what we already mentioned several times in the past. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Simon Hales with Citi. Please proceed with your questions. Simon Hales: My first question, I wonder, Michel, could you talk a little bit more about China? Again, I wonder if you could quantify how big the destock was in Q3 in the context of the little over 11% fall in volumes, and should we expect some further destocking, do you think, in Q4? Is there any reason to believe in overall terms that your Q4 volumes in China will be less bad than they have been in Q3? Perhaps just associated with that, you highlight some new innovations that you've got coming in the market, Magnum and some 1-liter cans, are they in market yet or will they be in market in Q4? That's the first question. The second one, a little bit more briefly, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the early consumer and retail reaction to the launch of Phorm Energy in the U.S. and maybe highlight what really differentiates that brand from other competitors in the energy space. Michel Doukeris: On China, I think that what we highlighted in prior quarters is a kind of one third of what we see in the volumes is coming from really geographical footprint, channel footprint. One third comes from these adjustments on the inventories. You give me here an opportunity I'll take to talk about this. I think that just so I'm clear about the adjustments on the inventories, of course, when regions start to decline, we need to adjust our inventories with the wholesalers so we can have a healthy operating environment. This is what we are doing this year as channels shift as well. You have a second adjustment that needs to be done so we keep the channels healthy, and once they rebound, we can then grow with the channels without stressing the ecosystem. One third is really the shift that happened between on and off premise, where the off premise started growing faster. The propositions that grew in the off premise are more on the core plus sub premium, and then this caused a share loss for us because we were more on the off premise, and we are of course smaller and less distributed in the off premise. Here is where we are making most of the adjustments. When we look at China, most of this adjustment is being already done. There is still, of course, a little bit to be done as you go through October, November, December, but should not be beyond the fourth quarter. At the same time, because we start expanding distribution off premise, adjusting innovation, adjusting execution. That will be a combination of continuing to right size the inventories, but then having acceleration on our STRs and some of the innovations that we launched and tested. You mentioned BUD Magnum, very successful in India, very successful where we launched it in China. We will start to roll it out now, not only the product itself, but some very interesting new packaging that is making a big strike in China will come to BUD Magnum. We had the new Corona can called drop line can, which is a full lid opening can. That's very interesting. We launched it first in O2O, was a big success, and now we're going to expand distribution on this packaging. We have some new deals coming in Harbin as well, not only the expansion of Zero Sugar, but some new propositions there that will be helpful as we further enhance our route to market in the off-premise. Inventory adjustments, one-third channel shifts, one-third, these both should phase out as we go through quarter 4. And then we have increased availability in the off-premise, increased investments for execution and innovation that will start to kick in in quarter 4 and will be very relevant for us in the next year. Phorm is interesting because in a way we've been participating in the energy drink in the U.S. for over a decade, and we have had some very successful scale up of brands in our network, but we were never majority owners of any of these brands. While we were an important component of the scale up and growth of these brands, we were not the owners. The latest one we divested at the beginning of this year, end of last year, was a good divestment, was a good run of the brand. But now we have a brand that we are majority owners, committed to the long term. Incredible partners that are with us in the journey from our wholesalers to the Phorm partners to the UFC. Not UFC, but Dana White partner with us in building that. Brand launch is being very exciting. The product is great because I think that the most differentiated thing is the fact that we are focused on a very specific consumer cohort, those who do the work and need this energy every day. The product brings this clean energy approach, very balanced elements, and I think that the proposition is a strong one, is getting good traction, and we are just at the beginning. I think that there will be a nice upside coming next year because the launch was this year. Distribution is building, awareness is building, and we have some flavors that we are expanding on the back end of this year and will be fully available next year. The most important thing here is our commitment and investment to the long term, because now we are majority owners of the brand and we have incredible partners that are with us on the journey. Operator: These were the final questions. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the investor relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone, for joining, for the ongoing partnership and support for our business. I hope that you are all doing well. Remember to drink a beer for Halloween, and we'll talk soon. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today's earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines at this time and enjoy the rest of your day.

Operator: Welcome to AB InBev's Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ possibly materially from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see risk factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 12, 2025. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action and reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Thank you. and welcome, everyone, to our second quarter 2025 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we have made in executing our strategic priorities this quarter. After that, we will be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with the key highlights. The consistent execution of our strategy delivered another quarter of solid results, with EBITDA increasing by 6.5% and continued margin expansion. The performance of our premium brands and the strategic choices we made in revenue management drove an acceleration in our revenue per hectoliter growth, increasing by 4.9% versus last year. In the U.S., our portfolio is continuing to build momentum and gain share of the industry. We are continuing to increase our investments in our brands to fuel growth. Our non-alcohol beer portfolio continued to outperform globally, increasing revenues by 33%. The growth of BEES marketplace accelerated this quarter, increasing GMV by 63% versus last year to reach $785 million. And the ongoing optimization of our business drove an 8.7% increase in the underlying U.S. dollar EPS and $0.5 billion increase in free cash flow. Turning to our operating performance. Volumes declined by 1.9%, impacted by soft industries and performance in China and Brazil. While overall volumes were below potential, the underlying momentum in markets representing the remaining 2/3 of our business continued with volume growth of 0.7%. Double clicking on these two markets. First, Brazil. The majority of our volume decline was driven by a soft industry, which was impacted by adverse weather conditions. During the second quarter, we made strategic revenue management choices to position the business well for the second half of the year. Second, in China, the quarter 2 industry volume trends were in line with the first quarter, declining by low single digits versus last year, but our volumes underperformed with continued weakness in our regions and channels. Moving back to the global results. Top line growth accelerated with revenue increasing by 3% this quarter versus last year. EBITDA increased by 6.5% and the continued optimization of our business drove operating leverage through the P&L., resulting in EPS growth of 17.4% in constant currency and 8.7% in U.S. dollar terms. Our diversified geographic footprint enables us to deliver consistent results. Revenue increased in 70% of our markets. And we delivered top and bottom line growth across four of our five operating regions. Now I'll take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the quarter from our key regions. Starting with North America. In the U.S., the momentum of our portfolio continued, and we are increasing investments in our brands to fuel growth, led by Michelob ULTRA and Busch Light, the #1 and #2 volume share gainers in the industry. Our market share momentum accelerated and we delivered both top and bottom line growth. And in the spirits-based RTDs, our portfolio grew volumes by low teens, led by Cutwater and Nutrl. Now moving to Middle Americas. In Mexico, our volumes grew by low single digits, is likely ahead of the industry, which benefited from Easter shipment phasing, but was negatively impacted by a diverse weather in June. Revenue increased by mid-single digits, with growth led by our above core beer portfolio. In Colombia, record high volumes drove high single-digit top- and bottom-line growth, with our portfolio estimated to have gained share of total alcohol. In Brazil, our revenue declined by 1.9%, impacted by volume performance. EBITDA increased by 5.3% with margin expansion of 216 basis points as productivity initiatives more than offset the top line decline and transactional FX headwinds. In South Africa, the underlying momentum of our business continued gaining share of both Beer and Beyond Beer. Revenue and EBITDA grew by mid-single digits with our performance driven by premium and super premium brands, which grew volumes by mid-teens. In Europe, an improved industry, continued premiumization of our portfolio and further margin recovery drove top- and bottom-line growth. Our volumes were flat, outperforming the industry in five of our six key markets, led by our mega brands and our non-alcohol beer portfolio. While we are talking about Europe, I spent a lot of time with our team in the market over the last few months. And looking at the industry performance this quarter, we can see an interesting example of the resilience, momentum and relevance of the beer category. With more normalized weather, the industry delivered flattish volumes and revenue growth with beer gaining share of total alcohol. In our developed markets, we have the opportunity to innovate, premiumize, increase category participation, and be present in more occasions to deliver profitable growth. To mention just a few examples from Europe, consumers are enjoying the taste of Leffe with meals in France and Italy, the perfect serve of Stella Artois during Roland Garros and Wimbledon, celebrating 100 years of the refreshing taste of Corona during the summer. The PerfectDraft experience at home in the U.K. and our non-alcohol beer portfolio in more occasions. With the right portfolio, innovation and focus on consumers and occasions, the category has attractive growth opportunities across our footprint. Now moving to APAC. In China, revenue declined by 6.2% with our volumes underperforming the industry. We are committed to our strategy and are taking action to strengthen our execution by increasing discipline and excellence in our role to market, increasing investments in our mega brands, accelerating our expansion in the in-home channel and scaling up key innovations such as Harbin Zero Sugar. Now let's look at the key highlights of our three strategic pillars, starting with leading and growing the category. We continue to invest in our megabrands and mega platforms. In the first half of the year, we invested $3.6 billion in sales and marketing and have averaged more than $7 billion on an annualized basis over the last 6 years. Focused portfolio management, increasing market investments and improved effectiveness drove an increase in brand power of our portfolio, led by our megabrands. These consistent investments in our brands are reinforcing the strength of our portfolio. According to Kantar BrandZ, we own 8 of the top 10 most valuable beer brands in the world. Michelob Ultra and Stella Artois, two of our global mega brands moved up in the rankings by one position to reach #5 and #9, respectively; and Corona and Budweiser continued to lead at the top 2 brands globally. We have evolved our portfolio management approach to focus our investments in our megabrands to drive efficient, profitable growth. We have around 50 megabrands globally, typically five per market. And these brands continue to lead our growth, with net revenue increasing by 5.6%. Our global megabrand, Corona, continued to drive premiumization across our markets, growing revenue by 7.7% outside of Mexico and growing volumes by double digits in more than 30 markets. Through the consistent execution of our category expansion levers, we are increasing category participation across our markets by offering superior core brands, innovating in balanced choices to provide consumers with no and low alcohol, low carb, zero sugar and gluten-free options. And we are expanding our Premium and Beyond Beer portfolios. As a result, on a rolling 12 months basis, participation of legal drinking age consumers with our portfolio increased across our markets. In non-alcohol beer, our portfolio momentum continued with net revenue growing by 33%, led by the growth of Corona Cero. We are now leaders in 7 of our top 13 non-alcohol beer markets and estimate to have gained share in 70% of them. With 65% of the volume coming from new consumers and new occasions, we believe non-alcohol beer is a key opportunity to develop the category and drive incremental volume growth. Innovation is a key component of our ambition to drive increased participation and develop new occasions. Two good examples of our innovation capabilities this year are both from our U.S. business, where we are leading the industry in innovation year-to-date. Busch Light Apple is a seasonal offering that provides consumers with a crisp, refreshing taste and was brought back to the market by popular demand after a 3-year absence. Since launch in May, the brand is now the #1 innovation in the industry, driven primarily by 21- to 24-year-old consumers who have a 6x higher rate of purchase for Busch Light Apple versus the industry average. Michelob Ultra Zero, with only 29 calories, is brewed for those consumers looking for a great tasting, zero alcohol, low-calorie beer. Since launch early this year, the brand is the #2 innovation in the industry and is the #6 volume share gainer in the overall beer category year-to-date. Let's turn to our second strategic pillar: digitize and monetize our ecosystem. In the second quarter, this captured $12.2 billion in gross merchandising value, a 10% increase versus last year. The growth of this marketplace accelerated with GMV increasing by 63% versus last year to reach $785 million. In DTC, our digital platforms continue to enable a one-to-one connection with our consumers and help us in developing new consumption occasions. Our digital platforms generated $134 million in revenue, an increase of 6%. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy: optimize our business. Fernando Mommensohn Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I will take a few minutes to discuss the progress we have made in optimizing our business. Our EBITDA margins improved by 116 basis points this quarter with expansion in four of our five operating regions. We know that each quarter will be different, but we are confident that the combination of our leadership advantages, disciplined revenue management, continued premiumization and efficient operating model create an opportunity for further margin expansion over time. Moving on to EPS. We delivered underlying EPS of $0.98 per share, an 8.7% increase in U.S. dollars and a 17.4% increase in constant currency versus last year. EBITDA growth accounted for a $0.16 per share increase, with translational effects an $0.08 per share headwind. Lower net interest expense and the optimization of other below EBITDA line items drove the balance of our EPS growth. As we continue to focus on optimizing our business, in the first 6 months of this year, we increased our free cash flow by $0.5 billion versus last year through a combination of driving organic EBITDA growth, reducing our net interest expense through deleveraging, optimizing our net working capital and improving the efficiency of our CapEx through disciplined resource allocation. With this increase in cash generation, we continue to make progress on our deleveraging journey. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio reached 3.27x, an improvement from 3.42x year-over-year. As is typical, the ratio increased versus the full year given the seasonality of our cash generation and increased cash outflow from our full year dividend and completion of our share buyback program. In the first half, we continue to strengthen our debt maturity profile by executing a bond redemption and issuance, allowing us to extend our average maturity while maintaining our weighted average coupon. Our bond portfolio remains well distributed with no relevant near- and medium-term refinancing needs. We have approximately USD 3 billion worth of bonds maturing through 2026 and no financial covenants. Our results in the first half of the year, the resilience of our strategy and the strength of our megabrands all reinforce our confidence in our ability to deliver on our 2025 outlook of 4% to 8% EBITDA growth. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments. Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap on the first half of the year, and look ahead at the opportunities our brands have to activate the category. We are encouraged by our first half results as we delivered EBITDA growth at the upper end of our outlook. Underlying EPS increased by high single digits in U.S. dollars and by 19% in constant currency. The performance of our premium brands and our revenue management decisions drove an acceleration in our revenue per hectoliter growth. Our diversified footprint is proving to be a strength as our developed markets across the U.S., Canada and Europe, showed a resilient performance, growing top and bottom line in the second quarter of 2025. And as Fernando just mentioned, our first half performance and the strategic choices we have made position us well to deliver on our outlook for the year. In the first half of this year, our brands met consumers in some of the most iconic events in sports and culture, developing new occasions and creating moments of celebration and cheers. Looking ahead to the second half, we are uniquely positioned to activate the category. From the NBA and NFL, to celebrating 100 years of Corona around the world. To the buildup of the Winter Olympics, we will be focused on connecting with consumers and bringing to life our purpose of creating a future with more cheers. With that, I'll hand it back to the operator for the Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first questions come from the line of Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Mitchell John Collett: Michel, Fernando, I've got two questions, please. So firstly, given the volume decline in the first half and some of the headwinds you've seen that might persist into the second half. I guess, it looks unlikely that you'll see volume growth in fiscal '25. But how comfortable are you without -- with not achieving volume growth this year? And how do you think about volume growth longer term? I appreciate you won't guide on fiscal '26 today, but how confident do you feel about volume growth going into fiscal '26 based on what you know today? And then, the second question, I guess, is linked. Given those temporary headwinds to volume this quarter, you've actually had a pretty decent organic EBITDA growth delivery and you're in the top half of your range. So to what extent is that margin improvement permanent? And how should we think about organic EBITDA growth in a better volume context? Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Thanks for the question. So I think that to start answering this question and talk about volume, it's always good to remember, the business that we have, which is a large one globally with operations in over 50 countries, selling beer in over 100 countries. And as we always say, this is a great footprint. Because it allows us to navigate different environments and continue to deliver on a consolidated basis. But of course, this can also time to time expose us for different countries, specific challenge. We are all aware of the slowdown in China, the reset in Argentina, just to mention a few of them. In a business that is as large as this one, difficult to draw conclusions on a quarter or just taking one KPI, volume, for example, you can look at the volume this quarter, I can look at the volume evolution over the last 5 years. Since pre-COVID, our volumes have been growing 0.5% on average. And this quarter, specifically, driven by especially Brazilian industry, where both countries had tough industries, but also our performance in China and in Brazil were below our expectation. This volume was not where we would like to be. But if you go to other KPIs and you look at what we deliver, of course, revenue, all-time high EBITDA has been growing over and over in each quarter within the range that we have for the market. This is a year outlook, and we've been delivering EPS growth very consistent in constant currency but also in dollars, growing 8% this quarter, 7% since 2021. And we continue to make progress on our cash flow that continues to improve year-on-year. I think that -- all of that to say, we remain confident on the footprint that we have and the advantage of this footprint globally. The forecasts for the industry in the long run does not change this industry, will continue to grow, is gaining share of growth, and we are confident on the business and the strategy that we are executing. I will leave Fernando with the second part of your question. Fernando Mommensohn Tennenbaum: Mitch, Fernando here. So when you ask about margins, if you look like in the second quarter, the margin expanded by 116 basis points, and we expanded in four of our five operating regions. We don't provide margin outlook, but we said several times before that 2025 looks to be more like a normal year of cost inflation, somewhat in line with inflation across our markets for the year. But then when you double click and you said that several times, when you look at the FX curves, we always hedge 1 year out. So we have a very good visibility on what is happening. We expect the -- specifically Mexican pesos and Brazilian real, the phasing of cost inflation to be weighted from Q2 onwards. And then taking like one step back and a broader picture. We also said several times that the EBITDA performance that we have, especially during the COVID years has been driven by transaction effects and record high commodity prices. But none of these headwinds were structured. So the fundamental drivers of our industry-leading margins, they remain intact. So that's to say that we are controlling what we can control. And when we look forward, not specifically quarter-by-quarter and look forward, we still see a lot of opportunities to improve margins. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Robert Edward Ottenstein: Great. Michel, the results in the U.S. are really impressive. And it's really -- it's an incredible turnaround story and quite a success. As you kind of stand back and reflect on what you've accomplished in the U.S., what are the key learnings? And are there things from the U.S. that you can transport -- learnings that you can transport to other regions to help improve performance in those areas as well? Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Robert, thanks for the question. So U.S. is being a topic in our calls and conversations over the last several years. And I think that we always need to start with the idea that we proposed back that in 2017, this rebalance on our portfolio. And we have been since investing on the brands that we thought had potential for acceleration and that were in line with what we saw is emerging and consolidating consumer trends. And our share momentum on this quarter 2 improved. So we are -- any cut you take from Circana to BIR on the 60 to 70 bps. This growth so far has been led by Michelob Ultra and Busch Light. And because the intentionality of the innovations that we had during the year, so less innovations, but more meaningful innovations. You get a boost on this share, especially on the quarter 2, because we launched Michelob Ultra Zero on the quarter 1, but really hit the sets on the quarter 2. And Busch Light Apple came in too as a seasonal in the quarter 2. The learnings from this is consistency. We've been talking a lot about this. So a long-term plan, a very consistent view on the category on our portfolio choices and the investments we made for the long term. We called somehow last year this inflection point, because we've been following a lot this percentage of brands on our portfolio growing and where the industry is going. We see now a further acceleration that you don't capture on this share on the Beyond Beer space, because a lot of our choices were in the ready-to-drink cocktails and the vodka seltzer, but both Cutwater and Nutrl, very consistent growth. And some of those things, of course, they are embedded in our plans globally. When you think about the 10-year plan that we have in the company, the megabrand choices and the consistency on the investment behind these choices, but also for innovation and expansion of tools to increase penetration, such as the non-alcohol, the gluten-free, the zero sugar and the Beyond Beer choices that we have. So I think that there is more for us to see in the U.S. There is much more for us to do. But so far, we are pleased with the current momentum and especially with the demand for the brand. So Ultra continues to accelerate. Busch Light, very well positioned and innovations are working hard to help and to support this growth. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Olivier Nicolai with Goldman Sachs. Jean-Olivier Nicolai: Michel, Fernando, first of all, I've got a follow-up on Mexico. I think in the press release you commented that Mexico grew in the quarter, but in June, it was weak, blaming the weather. Is there any consumer slowdown in Mexico that you're seeing at the end of the quarter, which could have an impact in H2? And then, the question is going back to the Brazil Beer volumes decline. So beyond the weather, could you perhaps break down the key elements to explain the underperformance? Have you been increasing prices perhaps a bit too much or more than what your -- way more than the rest of the market? And would you believe that volumes could bounce in H2 when it comes to mainstream beer? Or is there something a bit more structural there? Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Good morning, Olivier, Michel here. I'll take, I think that there are the two questions. They are -- one more specific, one more broad, feel free to follow up if I didn't cover both of them. So I think that in Mexico, again, great industry, great business that we have in Mexico. Volumes during the quarter increased low single digits, outperformed the industry. Results were good top to bottom. We had different components during the quarter. So I think you can remember several of them. So Easter shifting from quarter 1 to quarter 2 comparables because last year was a very strong quarter in Mexico. I think we all remember that the government, because of the elections had more spending on the first half of the year, and this helped the quarter 2, was a great quarter last year in terms of weather, as a matter of fact. I'm not sure if I captured it well, but you said something like blaming the industry. We actually just state the fact. We are not blaming the weather, right? So I was just saying it was cold, was rainy. There was some storms in Mexico this quarter. So the back end of the quarter was rather slow versus the beginning of the quarter because of Easter. But all-in-all, we delivered a great quarter, outperforming the industry. Underlying demand for our brands remain very strong. As in many markets, and I think that this somehow connects the first part of the question with the second. What we see is that the economy continues to progress. But across the board, we see consumer confidence, not at the high levels that we saw back that in '22, for example. And one would expect that at one point, as the economy continues to progress, consumer confidence will converge. But we are not there yet. And more specifically, if you look at the different consumer cohorts by socioeconomic level, the more value- seeking consumers because of inflation we see are under pressure in some specific markets. And when we look at the basket, I'll give an example of the U.S., the consumer basket, a different consumer cohorts and economic -- socioeconomic levels are being somehow stable like they are buying on average the same dollars that they usually buy. But we all know that the same dollars with inflation will mean less units being bought in the basket. And this is a point that we all need to be carefully monitoring and following. And beer, alcohol so far has been keeping the share of these baskets stable. And in markets where the purchase power is already rebuilding. You take Europe, for example, that suffered more after COVID, because of the cost of electricity and fuel and energy, because of these costs those are normalizing, purchase power is recovering, then you see the industry recovery in line, not only on the euros that people are spending, but also in quantity. So I think that situation globally for the consumer is economy continues to progress, consumer confidence below historical levels. At one point, we all expect that this will converge. Baskets somehow stable in dollars, euros, but where there is more inflation, consumers, of course, are much choiceful in their quantities. So we need to continue to monitor economy, do our job on the parts that we can control, and then we will see, as we move forward, those things converging like purchase power, consumer confidence and volumes. Thank you. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with UBS. Sanjeet Aujla: Michel, Fernando, a couple from my side, please. Firstly, on China, can you talk us through how you're seeing the on-premise channel progressed through the quarter? On the one hand, you're cycling some of the macro headwinds from last year. However, it feels like the government has really stepped up the anti-extravaganza campaign. And maybe talk us through how you're thinking about that into the second half of the year. So the first question on China. Second question on Brazil. I think one of your peers confirmed they had taken a price increase in July. Have you noticed an improvement in your market share trends as you're going into Q3 on the back of that? Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Sanjeet, good morning, Michel here again. So two points on the question there. First, China, I think that is not new on our conversations that the industry had a big slowdown. And as we look at quarter 1, quarter to this year, as anticipated, comps not easy for the industry and the industry continue to perform slightly negative. So that was the picture on first quarter of the year, remained the picture on the second quarter. Of course, the size of the underperformance now is much smaller relative to what we saw last year. And we continue to think that as we move through the quarters, we will see this impact reducing, the comps becoming more in favor of the industry. And at one point, this industry should start fire on the right direction, but not there yet on quarter 2. The on-trade channel which is an important component of that stubbornly continues to be very weak. So the on-trade is not rebounding. The growth that we see in the industry is more in the off-premise. So a big portion of our plants in China now are improving the role to market, improving the propositions that we have for the off-premise. The good part is that we under-index in share, in the off-premise. So there is a lot of space for us to capture and to grow, but it demands adjustments on the execution. I can tell a lot about any new measures from the government on the on-trade because it's new. I was in China a couple of weeks ago, and I heard a lot about that. And you could see that there was less traffic in the on-trade, especially Chinese restaurants. But I think that we need some more time to see where this will land. While on the other hand, we all see growth on the off-premise. The off-premise looks to be already beyond the declining of the industry, already turned into growth. And it's a big opportunity for us, given the fact that we under-indexed there. Second, Brazil, I think that we commented a little bit on the press release and during the call now. But in Brazil, industry was soft in quarter 2. So the same weather conditions that we saw in the U.S., in Mexico, they extended throughout the Americas. To be honest, Brazil, Argentina, but because the nature, the size of Brazil, that's a tropical country, so you had tough winters in the south but mild weather in the Southeast, when the weather is too bad across the whole country, then this has a big impact. That was the main adverse impact that we saw in the industry in Brazil in the quarter 2. But we also have our revenue management calendar. We discussed this the second half of last year hedge that we have transactional effects, have a component on cost that are big for Brazil this year, and the revenue management had to follow our plans. So we had prices as we have every year in our calendar. Relativity in terms of price was rather tough during the first half of the year for Brazil team. And we see the market somehow adjusting throughout the year. Prices are moving and we expect to have better relativity as we move forward. But of course, we only control our own agenda, our own revenue management. So we are monitoring, executing, preparing the business for the good second half of the year. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Andrea Pistacchi with Bank of America. Andrea Pistacchi: Yes. Michel, Fernando, two questions, please. The first one on the U.S. I mean, you had a very solid performance, particularly on profit in the U.S. But the industry -- the rate of decline of the industry in the last couple of months seems to have got a bit worse. Clearly, weather impact, pressure on the low-income consumer which we know. But should the industry continue to decline at a greater pace than it has been historically, that historic 1%, 2%. Do you think you have enough levers to continue to at least hold profit flat or maybe grow it a bit in the U.S.? And what are these levers? And then the follow-up will be, I think, for Fernando. So I wanted to ask about share buybacks. You completed the EUR 2 billion finished back in June. Free cash flow in H1 was very solid. Yes, most of the cash is generated in H2, but H1 very solid. The yen currency is relatively stable. So what held you back from increasing the buyback already at this point? I know over the past couple of years, you announced a buyback in October, but particularly given the attractive level of the share price, why not increase the buyback earlier? Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Andrea, Michel. I'll take the first one here and hand it over to Fernando to follow up on your second question, okay? So I think that the U.S. industry and our own performance, we discussed it a little bit on the question before from Robert. But we see this good momentum on our portfolio, good brands for us leading this. So Michelob Ultra is a premium brand in our portfolio. So it's one of the levers for us not only to continue to grow share, but to improve our financials. Busch Light and innovation continue to fire, and this is very positive. When you look into the industry, you are right, like remain below the long-term trend. And as you mentioned, we mentioned this before as well. So very strange weather with many, many different events over the first half of the year impacting the industry. So mathematically, we see this in the states where these events and the weather was worse versus the other states. So a big portion of what makes the difference between historical trends and what we see today. The second topic, pockets of consumer constraint, as we said, baskets pretty much stable in consumption, but because of the food inflation, inflation, of course, quantities are impacted. The share of alcohol beer on these baskets remain stable. Therefore, as economy continues to progress, as purchase power rebuilds for these consumers, one can only expect normalization. And we keep working hard on productivity as we always do. So we are managing costs, improving productivity. Those are very important levers together with mix and the growth of the Beyond Beer to continue to yield for us the top and the bottom line that we have seen on this quarter too. But let me take your question and use a little bit of the call that we have now the material. Just to give you one example, which I think that could be very useful for everybody that's why I brought, which is Europe. So you don't take a market that's more developed than Europe in the beer industry. You don't take a more diverse and dynamic economic environment than we see across Europe. And we talked a lot last year, was a little bit of the reverse of this Americas weather that we are seeing, how complicated the weather was last year in Europe. So this year, we are having a very good summer, sunny, a little bit dry than average. We monitor consumer purchase power, which has been restoring in Europe to what was before 2021. And the industry is in growth in dollars, pretty much stable in volume. And our portfolio is outperforming the industry. So you get all the components that we discuss in every call about all the trends and headwinds to the industry, good weather, consumers in good shape, and then the industry is growing dollars, euros, in this case, in Europe, and our portfolio is performing. So I think that the long-term trends to the industry will not change. What we need to cycle is this more dynamic environment and getting to see consumers in a better place. So the industry will continue to grow as Euromonitor, IWSR forecast for the years to come. So every quarter will be different, but the long-term trends, I don't think that are too different. Fernando Mommensohn Tennenbaum: And Andrea, Fernando here. So on your question, what I can tell you is that our capital allocation plans aren't changed. We are always very disciplined how we use our cash. But what is fair to say and you made this point is that with the increased cash generation and the lower leverage, we have increased flexibility in our capital allocation choices. The main goal of our capital allocation policies, we stated several times, is creating value for our shareholders. And as you said, well, cash flow is weighted towards the second half of the year. Although first quarter was strong, it was $0.5 billion better than the previous year. So we have, of course, nothing to announce at this time, but if there is one key takeaway is that plans are unchanged, and we have increased the flexibility as we continue to progress on our stronger balance sheet and very good cash flow generation. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Edward Brampton Mundy: Good morning, Michel, Fernando. So first question is coming back to the concept of volume growth where you're growing probably below your potential. I think historically, some of the developed markets have probably held you back a little bit, but you're sounding much more assured on Europe, and we've seen outperformance for a couple of quarters now in the U.S. Does this give you more reassurance in your ability to grow group volumes over the medium term as you get through some of these short-term issues in Brazil and China? And then second question is on your plans to activate category. I think Slide 31 shows some of the sports properties against which you activate. Thinking about FIFA 2026 and probably some of your learnings from the FIFA Club World Cup this year. I think relative to 3 or 4 years ago, it's fair to say that you're getting sharper on marketing. Do you see there's a bigger opportunity for the business and the category as you look out to next year? Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: So two-fold, I talked a little bit about this before. That is the gift of our global footprint and then the idiosyncratic issues that we face in challenging environments in some countries time to time. And we keep the focus on the things that we can control. So you look at our EBITDA growth, EBIT growth with leverage. And then EPS, while we manage the specific conditions on volumes here and there. The long-term perspective is that we continue to focus on this optimized portfolio. We continue to focus on the advantages of our footprint for the long term, the growth that the developing and emerging countries can add to the category. And we are very pleased to see this quarter that our developed markets, you can cut from Canada, U.S., Europe, the share gains in South Korea, they are all building on our full potential. So we will continue to see specific events in each and every market, differences in the quarters, but we continue to believe that the long-term category opportunity in our business because of our footprint remains in place for us to deliver growth in the long term. 2026, this question is an interesting one. So FIFA and the event in itself is always a great opportunity for the category. So our models show that in the years that we have the World Cup, there is a bump in volume, both in the month of the World Cup as well as for the whole year, given the magnitude of the event. Curious to see what's going to happen next year is a larger event. So there will be more countries, more excitement, more weeks on there. And this will, of course, be part of the buildup for the category for our business next year. In our case, the location, meaning U.S. and the fact that this will span across the Americas could not be better, it's where most of our footprint sits. So it's going to be very welcome to see the time of the games, the participation of the countries from the continents and what's going to happen here. And if you take the momentum that we built with Michelob Ultra this year as a sponsor of the FIFA Clubs World Cup. There is a lot of excitement building for next year. And just as a reminder, in between now and there, we also have Winter Olympics that will be very interesting, because it's going to cut from the back end of this year into the first quarter of next year, and we have now more experience, more knowledge on how to activate the Olympics. So we will continue to invest on these mega platforms. They have very good ROI for us and very helpful for the momentum of our brands. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Laurence Whyatt with Barclays. Laurence Bruce Whyatt: A couple from me, if that's okay. Firstly, on the U.S. business, you hopefully showed the slide showing the very strong brands you have across the world and included in the Bud and Bud Light. I think over the recent years, those brands have struggled, as you pointed out that mainstream beers been outperformed by some of the premium brands and imports. But of course, recently, you've shown a success with Busch Light, which sort of holds a similar category. Do you think there's any opportunity to reinvigorate those two brands? Or do you think there's simply the potential for other brands to take your marketing spend and make better use of it with better returns? And then secondly, on Europe, you've highlighted almost the perfect conditions across that market, excellent weather. You've taken share in a number of five out of six of your markets. But of course, volume growth, you said was flat. Sort of going back to a couple of the earlier questions, are you surprised by that? Do you think there's better opportunity to grow volumes in Europe? Or is it just going to be a very difficult market to be able to get volume growth in future? Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Thank you, Laurence. So U.S. on the portfolio, again, the key for us is to continue to rebalance this portfolio and making sure that the offers we have are aligned with the main consumer trends. So Michelob Ultra, very well positioned there, gaining both scale and momentum. And it's a brand that is just sitting on a very important place with many opportunities to continue to grow, like just to give you a couple of numbers there for you to reflect upon. So Michelob Ultra is growing this year in all 50 states in the U.S., all 50 states. I don't think that there is many brands in the industry or outside the industry that are having growth across all states. When you think at the brand in some states, the brand is as big as 11% share. If you take the entire West Coast or the Northeast of the U.S., the brand is only 6% share. So it's half the size in the Northeast and West Coast, that it is in the leading states for the brand in the U.S. So there is much more that we can invest and continue to expand Ultra there. The case is similar to Busch Light. So in the Busch Light strongholds, the brand is very big. So the brand is the leading brand in the mainstream and has share above 10% in some of the strongholds. It's the second fastest-growing brand now in the U.S., but the distribution is still very limited. So the brand can continue to find growth areas across most of the U.S. because it's very concentrated in the inland and is now expanding South, West, North, and Northeast from there. So we continue to increase. And same statistic for Busch Light, leading states, 11% share of the industry. In the rest of the U.S., as I was mentioning, is less than 3%. So a lot of headroom there. And when you think about Bud Light, Budweiser, the other brands, the answer for your question is yes. But we have choices, priorities and work to be done across all these brands. We are more advanced with Ultra, more advanced with Busch Light while we continue to work on the other brands and make, of course, the right choices in terms of allocation of capital and investments for these brands. Thinking about Europe. The question is also very interesting. So conditions were good. Industry was flat, growing in dollars. We know that the underlying trend of the industry in the last few years was not that. So there is an improvement that we can see under the good conditions. And because the industry is a much bigger thing, of course, the improvements are never overnight, but it's good to see the industry, but also the share of throat. So part of the trip that I had in Europe, went to countries like Italy, France, and beer is gaining share of throat in these countries. You see beer growing a lot in new occasions in Italy, for example, led by Leffe. You see the positioning of our brands, plus the portfolio that we have in France, working very well from south to north of France, different occasions, different brands, but all of them increasing penetration and gaining more occasions in the country. So markets move, consumers move, the innovation that we have, the portfolio that we have is working for consumers across the continent. And I think that we'll continue to see under the right conditions this industry to progress in Europe, but also as we see in other markets. Operator: Our final questions will come from the line of Chris Pitcher with Rothschild & Company. Chris Pitcher: Thank you very much, Michel, Fernando. Just a couple of quick questions. Just following up on the China question. There's a lot of talk about it being a cyclical shift by category. But do you think given how long it's been going on now that there may be a more fundamental change in the way beer is being consumed. And have you had to reweight your sales force to target that off-trade opportunity? Or do you still generally believe the economy comes back, people go back to night clubs, it will return to normal. And then secondly, it looks like you're sort of stabilizing and growing share in India, which is encouraging. How much are you investing in that market for the next sort of 10-, 20-year story? Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Chris, thank you. So on China, as we said before and addressing in a very straight way, your question, I think it's both. So we need to continue to protect the strength that we have on the on-trade, the share that we have and look for the bounce back of the channel. While with no doubt rewinding the whole business, not only the sales force for the off-premise is key. And what I mean by that? The SKUs that we sell in the on-trade are different from the SKUs that we sell on the off-trade. And we need to improve our portfolio assortment. We are doing that and our offers and our distribution in the off-premise. The execution of the off-premise is very different than the execution of the on-trade. We need to have the right people, the right supply, the right wholesaler, the right merchandising, so the brands can harvest the high equity that we have on average of consumers by being present and executed in the right channels. And of course, because our business was over skilled in the East in the on-trade channel, making these adjustments in China takes time, but we are working very hard on that. The team there is pretty focused on rebalancing our presence on these channels and building the distribution. As I said before, the exciting part of that is that we're under-indexed by a lot in the off-premise. So the headroom for growth is very good. We did just need to realize that. And then, back of it, that -- sorry? Chris Pitcher: So just to clarify, because the margin's holding up in China quite well despite the volume declines. That's happening at the same time as you're doing this investment. It's not being delayed. That's quite encouraging. Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Yes. And the premium products are premium, regardless the channel. We sell more premium products, and we have a very efficient business in China. So we have space to invest as we are investing now and we will continue to invest. And in India, the story of India is, a sort of like, vitality in the growth of the industry, because the industry is really growing. But it's also a little bit of volatility, right? So our business is a national business, but it's not the same across all states. The states have their own rules, the idiosyncratic issues that you deal with time to time. But what is really important for us there is the size of our premium business. So we lead in premium and super premium with a very high share. We broke into double-digit share now with Budweiser as a brand in India overall. And of course, in the premium, the share is very high. The growth there is good. We keep improving our business from systems, footprint, brand equity and capabilities. And this is a market that has, for sure, a very long-term growth prospect, because the beer industry is still very underdeveloped. And as more states improve flexibility in distribution, adjust the structure of the market in taxes and access, we will continue to have many opportunities to grow in India. So we are pleased so far with the quarter 2 and the momentum we have there. But that's a story that's just at the beginning. So there is much more to come. Thank you. Operator: This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Dimitrios Doukeris: Thank you. And thank you all for your time today and for your ongoing partnership and support of the business. So tomorrow, Friday, International Beer Day. So I hope that you have the time to grab friends, drink some beer and celebrate. So cheers. Thank you, and stay well. Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today's earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to AB InBev's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and Reports and Reports Centers page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. And the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions]. Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ possibly materially from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see risk factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the March 12, 2025. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Thank you. You may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to our first quarter 2025 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we have made in executing our strategic priorities this quarter. After that, we'll be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with the key highlights. The global momentum of our business continued with the consistent execution of our strategy, delivering another quarter of reliable growth. EBITDA grew by 7.9% at the top end of our outlook range with continued margin expansion. In the U.S., our portfolio is building momentum and has reached an inflection point, and we are increasing investments in our brands to feel this momentum. Our no-alcohol beer portfolio continued to outperform globally, increasing revenues by 34%. Beers marketplace continue to scale, increasing GMV by 53% versus last year to reach $645 million. And the ongoing optimization of our business drove a 7% increase in underlying U.S. dollar EPS, with 20% growth in constant currency terms. Turning to our operating performance. Our overall volume performance was impacted by calendar related factors, such as cycling the leap year and the later timing of Easter, resulting in a volume decline of 2.2%. We estimate these technical calendar shipments accounted for a majority of our volume decline this quarter. Despite these technical factors impacting volume, our revenue increased by 1.5% as the strength of our brands portfolio and ongoing premiumization drove a revenue per hectoliter increase of 3.7%. Our diversified geographic footprint enables us to deliver consistent results and has us well placed to drive long-term value creation. Revenue increased in approximately 50% of our markets and double-digit bottom line growth in the Middle Americas, South America, Africa and Europe drove overall EBITDA at the top end of our outlook. Now I'll take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the quarter from our key regions. Starting with North America. In the U.S, our portfolio is building momentum and has reached an inflection point, and we are increasing investments in our brands to fuel growth. We gained volume market share of both the beer industry and spirits based ready-to-drink category. In beer, Michelob Ultra and Busch Light were the top two volume share gainers in the industry for the second quarter in a row. And in spirits based RTDs, our portfolio grew volumes by strong double-digits led by Cutwater and Nutrl. While our portfolio continued to gain share, adverse weather in the later time of Easter impacted the overall industry performance in the first quarter. I thought it would be helpful to bring some data to the conversation so that we can look at it together. According to Circana, off-premise sales to consumer volumes declined by 4.7% and dollar sales by 2.9% versus the historical range of around 1% to 2% in volumes and flattish dollar sales. When we disaggregate the industry growth on a week-by-week basis, our analysis indicates that the majority of the underperformance this quarter was driven by adverse weather in the later time of Easter. When we look to April, we are encouraged that the industry has improved with better weather and the Easter shift contributing to volumes aligning more closely with the historical trends. The summer season is an important period for the beer industry, and we look forward to building on the momentum of our portfolio and activating the category through our mega platforms. Now moving to Middle Americas. In Mexico, the underlying industry momentum continued with our business delivering mid-single digit revenue growth and double-digit EBITDA growth. Volumes declined by low-single digits in line with the industry, which was impacted by calendar related factors. In Colombia, record high volumes and margin expansion drove double-digit EBITDA growth. In South America, our business in Brazil delivered record-high volumes for both beer and non-beer. Total volumes increased by 1.4%, with continued margin expansion, driving double-digit bottom line growth. In Europe, continued premiumization of our portfolio and further margin recovery drove double-digit EBITDA growth. Our premium and super premium brands contributed 60% of our revenue this quarter with performance led by Corona and Stella Artois. In South Africa, the underlying momentum of our business continued gaining share of both beer and beyond beer. Revenue and EBITDA grew by low-single digits with our performance driven by our premium and super premium brands, which grew volumes by low teens. In China, the industry improved sequentially. However, we underperformed primarily driven by softness in our key regions and the on-trade channel. We remain confident in our strategy, and we are focused on strengthening our execution by increasing discipline and excellence in our route-to-market, increasing investments in our mega brands, accelerating our expansion in the in-home channel and scaling up key innovations such as Harbin Zero Sugar. Now let's look at the key highlights of our three strategic pillars. Starting with leading and growing the category. We have evolved our portfolio management approach to focus our investments in our mega brands to drive efficient, profitable growth. We have around 50 mega brands globally. Typically five per market, and these brands continue to lead our growth with net revenue increasing by 4.4%. Our global mega brand, Corona, continue to drive premiumization across our markets, growing revenue by 11.2% outside of Mexico. 2025 marks the 100th year anniversary, since Corona's launch. And we just kicked off the celebration with an event on Copacabana Beach with over 2 million fans in attendance. We are looking forward to execute a strong lineup of activations around the world throughout the entire year in recognition of the heritage, premiumness and quality of the brand. This quarter, Corona volumes grew by double-digits in over 30 markets globally. In its home market of Mexico, Corona is the #1 brand and volumes grew by mid-single digits. The brand power and consumer preference for Corona has earned the right for a premium price point. Corona sells on average a 20% premium to the nearest competitor. And to crown its 100-year anniversary, Corona was again named the most valuable beer brand in the world in 2025. Through the consistent execution of our category expansion levers, we are increasing category participation across our markets by offering superior core brands, innovating in balanced choices to provide consumers with no and low alcohol, low carb, zero sugar and gluten-free options and expanding our premium and beyond beer portfolios. As a result, on a rolling 12-month basis, participation of legal drinking age consumers with our portfolio increased by 60 basis points across our key markets, the equivalent of adding 6 million new consumers to our ecosystem. In non-alcohol beer, our portfolio momentum continued to accelerate with volumes growing by 34%, led by the triple-digit growth of Corona Cero. While no alcohol beer is current, a relatively small portion of our global volume, we are leaders in more than 50% of our key non-alcohol markets. And estimate we gaining share in 75% of them. With 65% of the volume coming from new consumers and new occasions, we believe non-alcohol beer is a key opportunity to develop the category and drive incremental volume growth. Let's now turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. In the first quarter, BEES captured $11.6 billion in GMV, a 10% increase versus last year with 32 million orders transacted through the platform. This marketplace continues to scale, with GMV increasing by 63% versus last year to reach $645 million. In DTC, our digital platforms are enabling a one-to-one connection with our consumers and the development of new consumption occasions. Our digital platforms generated 19.2 million orders with revenue increasing by 12% to reach $117 million. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimize our business. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I'll take a few minutes to discuss the progress we have made in optimizing our businesses. Our EBITDA margins improved by 218 basis points this quarter with expansion in four of our five operating regions. We know that each year will be different, but we are confident the combination of our leadership advantages, disciplined revenue management, continued premiumization and efficient operating model create an opportunity for further margin expansion over time. Moving on to EPS. We delivered underlying EPS of $0.81 per share, a 7.1% increase in U.S. dollars and a 20.2% increase in constant currency versus last year. Organic EBITDA growth accounted for a $0.16 per share increase with translation effects and $0.09 per share headwind. Lower net interest expense and the optimization of other below EBITDA items, such as cost of hedging and FX losses, drove the balance of our EPS growth. Let me take a moment to talk about our operations. Our business is local. We procure, produce, distribute and sell locally. In fact, more than 98% of the volumes we sell are locally produced. If you look specifically at the U.S., as an example, we have 18 breweries, over 700 American farmers and over 7,000 local suppliers, with 99% of our volumes locally produced. As a result, we have limited direct exposure to tariffs. Our results in the first quarter, the resilience of the beer category, the strength of our mega brands and the continued momentum of our businesses, all reinforce our confidence in our ability to deliver on our 2025 outlook of 4% to 8% EBITDA growth. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments before we start our Q&A session. Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap on the quarter and look ahead at the opportunities our brands have to activate the category this year. We are encouraged by our first quarter results, and we delivered EBITDA growth at the top end of our outlook. Underlying EPS increased by high-single-digits in U.S. dollars and by 20% in constant currency, driven by organic growth and the ongoing optimization of our business. And as Fernando just mentioned, our first quarter results position us well to deliver on our outlook for the year. Looking ahead to the summer and the rest of the year, we are uniquely positioned to activate the category. The combination of our mega brands with the key global platforms that consumers love and that bring people together is a powerful opportunity to lead and grow the category. From the NBA to celebrating 100 years of Corona around the world, to the FIFA Club World Cup, to the buildup of the Winter Olympics and music platforms like Tomorrowland and Lollapalooza. We will be focused on connecting with consumers and bringing to life our purpose of creating a future with more cheers. With that, I'll hand it back to the operator for the Q&A. Operator: Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question today is coming from Rob Ottenstein from Evercore ISI. Your line is now live. Robert Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much and congratulations on a strong quarter. So I was wondering if, Michel, if you could discuss your U.S. Strategy and maybe put it in the context of the overall company. So kind of first, it looks like you've gained share now for the second or third quarter in a row. What's driving that? And does that look sustainable? Second, can you give us any color on your productivity programs that you've put in place? And will they build over the year so that you can get to more flat EBITDA? And then kind of tying it all together, you noted in the press release that you continue to increase investment in the U.S., why does that make sense in what looks like a mature and declining market, given the other opportunities that you have around the world to invest? Thank you very much. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Robert. Good morning and thanks for the question. It's an interesting one that is couple of components that I will try to cover all of them. I think that first, the U.S. is one of our key markets. It represents over 20% of the business that we have and we always talk about this as a mature market, very big profitable, very big headroom for growth for us as our portfolio reach an inflection point. And I think that this covers the part of the market share gain. We talked about this on quarter four last year and we saw this momentum building. And as a matter of fact, if you look to the latest weeks, the momentum continues to build as our balanced choices portfolio with Michelob Ultra, Michelob Ultra Zero and Busch Light as the number two brand continues to gain momentum and the innovation pipeline that we've been launching to this summer will further support that. And in the RTD, the choices we made behind neutral and cut water, they continue to build momentum and accelerate with strong double-digits. In terms of productivity, this is always on for us. So we don't -- we made the decision of not coming and launching new productivity initiatives, but we are working very steady on improving productivity quarter after quarter. And this is kicking into our results decision, you can see that we continue to improve. And in terms of investments, I think that is very logical. One, as the portfolio is at this inflection point, we are feeling the growth. And as I said before, there is a lot of headroom for growth for our portfolio. Second, we are in the business for the long-term, right. So three years ago, we said we would get into this multiyear investment growth in marketing that would feel the growth of our brands and that's not a one year program, it's a multiyear program. And we have massive upside as these brands that are growing continue to gain scale and more reach and penetration with consumers. So it only makes sense to continue to support the growing part of the portfolio and the sustaining part of the portfolio. Momentum is good for our team now in the U.S. Summer, we will have a lot of activation. So from FIFA, Club's World Cup to the finals of the NBA that are on fire now, to them the innovation that we have in the pipeline and then that's going to connect with NFL and later in the year with Olympics. So it's a very good lineup for the year in the U.S. We are encouraged by the results we've seen share. Industry in April, as I shared here in the call, much more normal and we know that summer is going to be intense and good for the industry because last year was subdued. Thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. Next question today is coming from Sanjeet Aujla from UBS. Your line is now live. Sanjeet Aujla: Hey, Michel, Fernando, a couple for me, please. Firstly, on China, it seems like the beer industry is sequentially less negative. You're clearly still underperforming, but can you give us a sense of where your channel mix is today? You've had a reset presumably in the on trade channel. Is the off trade now a bigger part of your mix or is the on trade still bigger? And then just taking a step back, clearly, you had some big macro challenges in a couple of markets over the last four months. But how are you thinking about your ability to get back to positive volume growth going into Q2 and the second half of the year at the group level? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hey, Sanjeet, good morning. Thanks for the question. First on China, I think that you are right. The industry has been improving sequentially. And I think that the more we go towards summer back end of the year, the more we see normalized industry. Channel wise remains a weaker on trade with a good off trade and of course the more you cycle the on trade, the more is going to be a less negative impact and then the more you cycle it, the more the strength of this off trade we will add to the industry overall. We're still facing a less positive impact on the footprint that we have because the Center West part of the market in China is still performing better than the Eastern part. But of course, this will also cycle as we go through the summer. And we have a lot to do in China ourselves because we continue to believe that our business can perform better than what is performing now despite of negative footprint impact. And we are increasing the execution, focused with more discipline on our roll to market and overall execution. We increased investments behind our mega brands, especially Budweiser and Harbin, and preference power is moving in the right direction, SPRs on these brands moving in the right direction, but more to do. We are accelerating the expansion in the off-trade, massive opportunity there. And as we focus more on our execution on the off-premise, we're going to get better results. And then, of course, innovation in China, Harbin Zero Sugar is scaling up very fast, and I think we're going to have a great summer with Harbin and with this innovation. When you think macro, look at the quarter one volume performance. If you take the leap year out, this is north of 1%. If you think about Easter shift, this can be anywhere from 0.3 to 0.5. So the underlying volume momentum looks good. And as we head into quarter two and the rest of the year, I think that we will see volume performance improving meaningfully. Sanjeet Aujla: Great, thank you. Michel Doukeris: Thank you. Thanks for the questions. Operator: Thank you. Your next question today is coming from Simon Hales from Citi. Your line is now live. Simon Hales: Thank you. Hi, Michel, hi Fernando. So a couple for me as well then, please. Michel, obviously, one of your big competitors today has just lowered the full-year guidance after a tough quarter. I appreciate your performance was certainly very different in Q1, and there's probably a number of specific factors that are impacting their business for the full year. But I wonder how you're viewing just the broader consumer environment now as we look forward into sort of the rest of 2025, given the increased macro uncertainty we've seen over the last sort of couple of months. How are you thinking on that as perhaps evolved since you last updated us with the Q4 in February? And then maybe just following on from that and specifically going back to the U.S., I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about the momentum you've seen around some of your new launches like Michelob Ultra Zero in Q1? How we should think about that as we head into the more important summer months? And any other key innovations you're excited about for the U.S. business, specifically in Q2 and Q3? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Simon. Good morning. Thanks for the question. I got like a couple of questions within this one, and I will take them one by one here, and maybe Fernando wants to comment as well on the outlook. But overall, we didn't change our outlook. Our outlook remains the same. And I think that we are encouraged by the quarter one delivery. So 4% to 8% is our outlook for the year with what we know now. Macro, and when you think about consumer, which is the portion on your question that I can address in more details. I think that we are actively monitoring the consumer environment. And I always like to make this differentiation between consumer sentiment and consumer behavior. While a lot was already said about the consumer sentiment, and we kind of see the same across the globe, it's almost like the same sentiment that you have in elections here, it goes a little bit down because there is a lot of news coming each and every day, consumer is more cautious. For us, it's very important to see and to monitor consumer behavior as well. And on the consumer behavior part, what we see is that beer is more resilient than some other categories. And of course, it's an everyday affordable category. We've been activating the category in the key moments and what we see is participation holding on very well. And as I said, our participation, our brands grew and grew the equivalent of six million consumers within the last quarter. So beer remains, as a category, resilient and the underlying demand for our brands is very positive. We are growing participation. And part of that, I think you are right to complement the question like this is a good question on this sense, comes from innovation. So non-alcohol is being an important driver for us, with growth coming on the portfolio north of 30%. Corona Cero globally, triple digits and Michelob Ultra Zero in the U.S. as the #1 innovation in the category this year. So we are north of 0.12, I think, in share in the last few weeks, which is great. We are the #1 player in the U.S. this year. Michelob Ultra Zero just started now media, because the first quarter was distribution. So we expect to see some acceleration now. Ultra Zero is now the #5 brand in Zero in the U.S. and we think that we soon will go up on this ranking. And the other innovation that the team is very excited and very excited to see in the U.S. is this in and out with Busch Light Apple. If you didn't see yet on the Instagram, Twitter, so people are traveling through the country, queuing inside the stores, volume is slowing very quickly out of the shelves and Busch Light Apple will for sure be one thing that people talk about during the summer. So watch for that because it's going to be big. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Simon, Fernando here. If I could add, you asked on the outlook. So on the outlook, I think Michel covered very well the top line. On our costs, two comments here. The first one is that you have hedges in place. So we have very good visibility in our cost of goods sold. And it's always a one year delay. So you know that last year, we had kind of the devaluation of emerging markets happening towards the second half of the year, which means that first quarter is probably the easiest comp. And then later on, you will start adding some pressure onto that. But then again, it's expected. There is no news here. On the translation side is the opposite effect, more pressure in the first half and then in the second quarter, probably heavier comps, because the devaluation happened in the second half of last year, mostly Mexican pesos and Brazilian real. And then always important to highlight that we talked about it during the initial remarks, but it's always important to remark that even our very local nature of the business, very little impact, if any from tariffs. So that kind of combining the top line with all this kind of cost comments leave us to kind of maintaining the same outlook we had since the beginning of the year. Thank you. Simon Hales: That's great. Thank you very much. Operator: Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Edward Mundy from Jefferies. Your line is now live. Edward Mundy: Good morning, Michel. Good morning, Fernando. So two questions, please. Just in your wording around the priority to lead and grow the category. There's a bit of a nuance in your wording from occasions development to balanced choices in one of your bullets. Could you perhaps provide a bit of context into this nuance? And does this sort of reflect any change in your strategy, perhaps a bit more focused, a bit more resourced behind some of these new growth streams? And then second of all, just a question around perhaps to Fernando, about driving leverage through the P&L. There's been a pretty decent drop through from EBITDA to dollar EPS, despite the FX headwind in the first quarter, below depreciation, lower financial charges. Could you perhaps talk about the sustainability of this overall shape due to the P&L? Fernando Tennenbaum: Okay, Ed. Let me start, Fernando here, from your question. I feel that we've been talking about it, but some of these things, there is a little bit of a delayed effect. We've been working on optimizing our business, one of the KPIs that you can see is CapEx and CapEx is coming down. But the first CapEx is coming down, and you see that happening on cash flow, and there is a little bit of a delayed effect when you see that coming through depreciation. So that's one of the components of the leverage throughout the P&L. And the second one which is kind of a function of our efforts on deleveraging. As you deleverage, you have less debt. As you have less debt, you have less interest. And if you have less interest, that flows through the EPS as well. So to maybe add to your question. As some of these benefits of lower CapEx, it still needs to come to depreciation. And as we continue to make progress on our leverage, as we continue to generate more cash flow, you should see this kind of operational leverage happening going forward. Now we'll turn to Michel for the -- your first question. Michel Doukeris: Hey, Ed. Michel here. Thanks for the question and good catch. So we are not less focused on the occasions, but we did this fine-tuning because as we interact with consumers and as our innovation pipeline comes to play on the actions that we have put in place in the market, we have been seeing a massive interaction on these balanced choices that we have, which today are a big business for us, over $5 billion, and occasions for consumers. Let me just cover this a little bit more. So non-alcohol is one that we've been talking and it's becoming very obvious because 60% are either new consumers coming into the category or the same current beer consumer having beer in more occasions, because now the non-alcohol opens up this opportunity to them. But this goes beyond only the non-alcohol because we see these barriers for consumers to interact with beer. And when we solve for these barriers, they actually prefer our balanced choices rather than other alcoholic beverage. And this, in some markets, is gluten-free, in some markets is zero sugar, for some consumers is the low alcohol organic proposition, and one very broad barrier that we broke for a while already is the carbs and calories that's why Michelob Ultra go so well in the U.S. So this balanced choices that we have is over $5 billion today, is growing high-single digits net revenue, is being very positive for innovation everywhere, and we are betting a lot as one of our main platforms to continue to grow the category as we remove barriers for consumers and we meet them on this healthier lifestyle, balanced choices, ideas that they have as they make their decisions every day. So from non-alcohol to low alcohol to low sugar, no gluten, low carbs, low calories. It's very fertile. We are very advanced. It's already a very big business for us. And we are investing big here to grow more occasions and to grow the category and our brands with consumers on the needs that they are attacking and tackling, and we are providing them a portfolio that is important for them on the needs that they have for their consumption occasions. Thank you. Edward Mundy: Great. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Your next question today is coming from Sarah Simon from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now live. Sarah Simon: Yes, thanks for taking my questions. I've got two. First one was on Mexico. A lot of consumer companies have been talking about Mexico being worse. You haven't really flagged that up other than the calendar effect. I wonder if you could talk about how you're seeing the market there? And the second question was a rather boy one for Fernando. Can you just help us with scope because I was expecting sort of positive contribution in Europe from San Miguel in terms of volume, but we had a negative. And obviously, that goes through the segment. So just if you could help on that, please. Thanks. Fernando Tennenbaum: Okay. So Sarah, let me take the first one, and then Mexico, take the second one. On the scope, there are a few things here, somewhat kind of between financial line and EBITDA, some to do with the hedges, and I think Shaun can go into more detail with you. But to an essence, San Miguel, it has just started, it's more a little bit of a phasing, you should expect some difference on other quarters. But these are kind of -- the main one is this financial one, which is the carry cost on some commodities and then on some gal phasing. Michel Doukeris: On the industry in Mexico and consumer sentiment, I think that I will start with the point I raised on the previous question, which is there is consumer sentiment and consumer behavior. So the behavior purchase penetration, everything looks very normal in Mexico. Consumers are interacting well with the category and the underlying trends remain very positive. Of course, in the quarter one, when you look at the Mexico volumes in the industry, there was the last one trading day and there was Easter, which is very relevant for the Mexican market. The same weather pattern that we saw hitting the U.S. was somehow extended to Mexico. So there was some impact on weather as well. But if you discount for that, the underlying trend was very good. And as a matter of fact, I think that we will see this shift on Easter from quarter one to quarter two, adding some good momentum to Mexico. So I think that we continue to monitor consumer environment, category moving well, underlying demand for our brands, very strong in Mexico. And at this point, there is not much more that we are concerned with Mexico. So we continue to activate the brands, work hard each and every day towards the business that we have there. Sarah Simon: Right. Thanks a lot. Michel Doukeris: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Next question today is coming from Chris Pitcher from Redburn Atlantic. Your line is now live. Chris Pitcher: Good afternoon. Thank you. A couple of questions for me. One follow-up. On China, you're talking about the importance to focus on the off-trade and build premium there. I mean that's a very different proposition to building Budweiser, et cetera, in the night club channel. Have you got the resources on the ground? I mean, clearly, you can borrow experiences from other markets. I just wanted to understand how easy it is to transfer volume into that channel? And then secondly, we don't often talk about the underlying business in Argentina, but it certainly sounds like things are starting to improve. And potentially, it could -- if inflation keeps falling, you could start to have a better backdrop there. I mean how healthy is the Argentinian business? You've done a good job to protect dollar profitability given everything. Is that a market we should be getting more encouraged about in the coming quarters, years? Thanks. Michel Doukeris: Hey, Chris, good morning. Thanks for the question. So first on China. In China, we will continue to have a very good business in the on-trade. Our brands are very strong. And the on-trade will rebound with time as consumer confidence gets recovered. So that business is a good business. We continue to support and will rebound over time. The growth in the off-trade is something that we actually see in all markets as the markets mature. Consumers tend to have more occasions, more in-home occasions. And the off-trade growth I think that in China, it's just that as many other things, is happening very fast. And the #1 asset that we need to have to have the off-trade consumption and volume is really strong brands. And when you think about Corona, Budweiser, Blue Girl, Harbin Ice, they are all very strong brands. But there is, of course, some tweaks on the sales force, on the road to market and this is where the team is working now. So we need now to see how the year will play, second quarter, third quarter, to see where our volumes will start to rebound and the rate of success and speed in which we can capture this opportunity on the off-trade. But the most important asset, strong brands we have in China. In Argentina, that's a good point. We talked about that last year a lot. It was a very abnormal disruption for the industry in Argentina that was unrelated to the category itself, but much more based on the macros. Macro is improving in Argentina, and as a consequence, sequentially, the industry is getting better. And I think that we'll see further improvement through the year. The business itself, very good cash flow brands, very strong. Market share remains positive. And I think that now is a matter of giving time to the macroeconomics to improve, consumer purchase power to return, and we will see gradually an improvement on volume. And as you said, because margins are in the right place, profitability is in the right place, brands remain strong, we will see this flowing through the P&L for sure. Thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. Your next question today is coming from Trevor Stirling from Bernstein. Your line is now live. Trevor Stirling: Hi, Michel, Fernando. Just one from my side, please. And probably a bigger picture one. There's been a big huge debate going in the USA, about the extent to which younger people drink less alcohol, participate less in the category and what that has implications for category growth. But if you think about your big emerging markets, about Mexico, about Brazil, about Colombia, do you see any similar trends emerging there may be amongst more elite users perhaps more being more influenced by the U.S.? Or is it business as usual? Michel Doukeris: Trevor, thank you for the question. And as you know, in our business, there is never a day when business is just business as usual. So it's fast, good consumer goods. We work very hard to earn the business every day. And we discussed in some different occasions, these COVID generation. And the fact that many, many of the behaviors that are naturally evolving when you are 21, 22, 23 years old for this generation was a little bit later, right? So from the college that you had to be one year or two years out of your home or from the dorms to participating in sports events, music events, gatherings with friends. And I think that when we look at that, it's somehow the same everywhere, but it's recovering and moving everywhere as well because behaviors, they normalize a lot as we look at the 24, 25 cohorts. And then there are idiosyncratic issues that are different in each and every market. So in some markets, very fast penetration of non-alcohol beer. In some other markets, you see economic disruptions like we just spoke about in China or in Argentina. But overall, participation is okay across the globe, it's smaller on these younger cohorts, but normalizing as you go from 21 to 24 to 27. We see on the other side the same thing. So participation is stronger on the older cohorts because people are just like living longer, going out more often, spending more money. So there is puts and takes on the participation, but there is a big normalization on the core of the category from 24 to 35 looks very normal. And we, of course, we are monitoring this very carefully. We are working on our balanced choices portfolio because it resonates very well with consumers from zero sugar to gluten-free, to low carb to non-alcohol. So we are offering a proposition that caters for every different taste in the moment. Thank you. Trevor Stirling: Thanks. Operator: Thanks. The next question is coming from Gen Cross from BNP Paribas. Your line is now live. Gen Cross: Hi, Michel, hi Fernando, thanks for the questions. Just a couple on costs from me. So SG&A looks like it declined by roughly mid-single digit organically in both South America and Middle America regions in Q1. Obviously, you've got organic revenue growth in both of those regions. So I was just wondering if there's any color you could share in how you've managed to achieve a decent reduction in your SG&A expenses in those two regions? And the second one is kind of going back to actually an earlier question on finance costs, which saw quite meaningful reduction year-on-year. And recurring net finance costs being below about -- below the $1 billion mark in the past couple of quarters now. And as you've commented on, Fernando, debt levels continue to come down. Do you expect to stay below the $1 billion mark per quarter going forward? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, again. So on the first piece of the question, SG&A, it's the ongoing optimization. I think we have this kind of ongoing effort, as Michel mentioned, it's not that we announced that we're going to do an effort or this or that. But on a recurring basis, we always look at our cost base and see how we can further optimize. So this is kind of part of our day-to-day. On the second question on finance costs, it's a function of same kind of rational ongoing optimization. And as you kind of reduce your leverage, you can start having kind of this benefit of lower interest expense kind of -- you just keep getting momentum on that. So we'll continue to work on that. We don't provide any guidance kind of on -- what is our next quarter finance expense is. We just provide the guidance on some of our accruals. But definitely, we mentioned that on the fourth quarter last year on the full year, the step change on the free cash flow helps, It helps because you have less debt and helps because you have more cash, which also an interest on it. But definitely, the two topics that you mentioned is part of the pillar three of our strategy to optimize our business. Gen Cross: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Olivier Nicolai from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now live. Olivier Nicolai: Hi, good morning. Michel, Fernando, just two questions, please. Just a follow-up on the U.S., first of all. You have a very detailed database in the U.S. by consumer, by post code. You flagged that April is effectively better, thanks to the weather and then the Easter timing. But do you see any consumer demographics or any specific states where you are seeing any sign of consumer weakness there, considering the overall lower consumer confidence since the beginning of the year? That's the first question. Then secondly, you had a very strong margin improvement in Q1 that was driven by gross margin being up strongly. Could you give us perhaps a bit more details on the driver behind this increase and if you think that will continue at this pace for the rest of the year? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Olivier, let me start by your second question on the margin improvement. I think the margin improvement and the gross margin improvement, as I said, the hedge kind of -- we have very good visibility on our costs. And given the dynamics of FX and commodities last year, which has a delayed effect on us, first quarter is the one that will have more of a tailwind. As you navigate throughout the year, probably you're going to have some more pressures on the cost of goods sold, starting already in Q2, but more pronounced in half two of the year. But having said that, we have our outlook, the 4% to 8%, kind of nothing changes here. We think kind of a while, you should have a little bit more pressure on the transactional cost of goods sold. If you look from a translation standpoint, that should be quite the opposite, you should have harder comps in the first half of the year and easier comps in the second half of the year. And on your first question, Michel? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Olivier, Michel here. So on the U.S., I think that we included this page on the webcast because we thought would be very helpful for us to look at this together. It's public data from Circana that shows better industry in April. The industry in January was rather more normal and the weather patterns being cold weather and precipitation being the main factors for this tough industry that we saw during the quarter one, that was the main, explains majority of what we saw in terms of deviation from normal. If you think about consumer, what we see is participation, normal. Our brands are gaining participation on the U.S., which is very positive for us at the beginning of the year. And we have a portfolio that covers all price points. So during the course of last year, there were several questions about inflation, where consumers were going and what we were seeing in other categories. And I emphasized this idea that we have Stella premium brands, Michelob Ultra, premium core plus, mainstream brands and a very strong value portfolio is not a surprise for us that Busch Light is the #2 brand now for two, three quarters in a row. So our portfolio is well positioned to cover the current environment because we offer and spend that goes from strong value brands to premium brands, and we cover nationwide all channels and regions. So I think that is weather impacting the quarter one. Let's see now the quarter two. We are positioned with a good portfolio, and we see that this portfolio is gaining participation in the U.S. Thank you. Olivier Nicolai: Thank you very much. Operator: Thank you. Our final question today is coming from Mitch Collett from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now live. Mitchell Collett: Hi, Michel, hi Fernando, just a quick question on Beyond Beer, which accelerated to, I think 16% growth this quarter from low single-digits in 2024. What drove that acceleration? And can you sustain it? And you're clearly a beneficiary of the growth in the ready-to-drink cocktails in the U.S. I'm sure that's a contributor. But where else are you excited about the opportunity in Beyond Beer? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Mitch. Thank you for the question. So I will start by stating something that three years ago when we discussed our strategy and the opportunities for growth as we aim to lead and grow the category. I mentioned this Beyond Beer space. And this interesting intersection between hot liquor, wine and beer that was very incremental for beer. So we know like two-thirds of the volume there adds to the beer category. The capabilities that we have because people want convenience, and they want small packs, cans, and we as brewers are well positioned for that. And we said that we would go after this opportunity and use this as a driver for our growth. And this is what we are doing, right? So on the strategy, a clear view on where to play. And on the how to win, we discussed it many times. Brands because people want to buy brands here. They don't want generic liquids. And they like brands that are new to the world. That's why Nutrl does well, that's why Cutwater does well or Flying Fish. And we had to reorganize our portfolio here because we had too many offers. So you're familiar with this idea that we streamlined our portfolio globally by 30% in terms of SKUs. Now we have clearly five global brands on this space, Flying Fish, BEATS, Cutwater, Nutrl and Brutal Fruit. We are rolling these brands to more countries, but in each country where these brands were born and we operate, they are gaining momentum. That's the case for Cutwater in the U.S., for Nutrl in the U.S., for Flying Fish in Africa and so on and so forth. So because we first streamline the portfolio, we had a very clear view that this is a growing segment and that we can win big globally. Now we are in full execution mode. And because of that, volumes are accelerating, top line is accelerating, the rollouts, they open a huge opportunity for us to be in more markets because consumers want this proposition across the globe and the brands that we have now, they fit for each of the needs that the consumers have there for more light and refreshing to more complex and full taste. So from Nutrl to Cutwater and everything in between, we can cover with these five brands. So it's an exciting space. It's a growing opportunity and we think that we are well positioned to continue to drive the growth of this segment with our portfolio and to be, of course, increasing our volumes and penetration with our brands as these propositions, they resonate somehow globally. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. We reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further or closing comments. Michel Doukeris: Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thank you for your time today, for the ongoing partnership and support for our business. Stay safe and well, and we'll talk soon. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.

Operator: Welcome to AB InBev's Full Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ possibly materially from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see risk factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 11th of March 2024. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to our full year 2024 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our operating highlights for the year and provide you with an update on the progress we have made in executing our strategic priorities. After that, we'll be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with the key highlights for the year. We made consistent progress across the 3 pillars of our strategy in 2024. Our global momentum continued delivering all-time high U.S. dollar revenues with growth in 75% of our markets. Our business in the U.S. is building momentum. Our portfolio is reaching an inflection point, and we are increasing investments in our brands to fuel growth. BEES marketplace continued to accelerate and delivered $2.5 billion in GMV this year, a 57% increase versus last year. EBITDA grew at the top end of our outlook for the year, reaching nearly $21 billion with margin expansion across all 5 of our operating regions. The ongoing optimization of our business drove a 15% increase in the underlying U.S. dollar EPS as well as a step change in our free cash flow generation, which increased by $2.5 billion versus last year. We also delivered an important milestone in our deleveraging journey with our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio reaching 2.89x, below 3x for the first time since 2015. With this progress, we have increased flexibility in our capital allocation choices. The Board has proposed a full year dividend of EUR 1 per share, a 22% increase versus last year. Now turning to our operating performance. Total revenue grew by 2.7% this year with our revenue management choices and ongoing premiumization driving revenue per hectoliter growth of 4.3% EBITDA increased by 10.1% in the fourth quarter and by 8.2% in the full year, increasing by $1 billion versus 2023. Our overall volume performance in 2024 was, however, constrained by the unusually soft consumer environment in both China and Argentina, which drove a total volume decline of 1.4%. While the performance in these 2 markets this year does not reflect our full potential, we remain confident in the long-term growth opportunity and are investing to rebuild momentum. Outside of these 2 countries, the Beer category globally remains vibrant, and we are winning with consumers across our footprint. Volumes grew in the majority of our markets. We estimate we gained or maintained market share in 2/3 of them, and our volumes increased by 0.9% in all other markets. Turning to our top line performance. Our revenues reached a new all-time high of $59.8 billion with organic growth more than offsetting translational FX headwinds. Net revenue per hectoliter growth improved sequentially throughout the year. Our financial performance was broad-based with revenue increase in 75% of our markets and EBITDA growth in 4 of our 5 operating regions. Now I'll take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the year from our key regions, starting with North America. In the U.S., our business is building momentum. Our portfolio is reaching an inflection point, and we are increasing investments in our brands to fuel growth. Our STR volumes grew in the fourth quarter, and we gained volume share in the industry, driven by Michelob Ultra and Busch Light, which were the top 2 volume share gainers in the industry. The beer industry overall remained resilient in 2024, improving in both volume and revenue trends sequentially since the second quarter and gained share of total alcohol by volume. Now moving to Middle Americas. In Mexico, our momentum continued as we gained share of industry and delivered record high volumes for the year. In Colombia, we delivered record high volumes with our portfolio continue to gain share of total alcohol. In South America, our business in Brazil delivered total volume growth of 1.5% with double-digit bottom line growth. Our beer portfolio is estimated to have outperformed the industry with market share gains driven by our premium and super premium brands. In Europe, EBITDA increased by mid-teens through a combination of top line growth and continued margin recovery. Our volumes grew slightly, outperforming the industry in 5 of our 6 key markets, led by Corona and Stella Artois. In South Africa, our momentum continued with volumes growing by mid-single digits, gaining share of both beer and Beyond Beer. In APAC, in China, the soft consumer environment impacted the overall beer industry and particularly the on-premise channel, which disproportionately impacted our business. We underperformed the industry, and we know our business in China has far more potential than we delivered in 2024. We remain confident in the growth opportunities for beer and continue to invest for the long term. The close of 2024 also marks 3 years since we introduced our 3-pillar strategy and our medium-term growth outlook. And I would like to take a few minutes to reflect on the progress we have made in executing our strategy. Let's start with our perspective on the overall Beer category. The category and our brands are a passion point for consumers. We believe beer has a long runway for future volume growth and premiumization across our footprint, supported by favorable demographics, economic growth and significant opportunities to increase category participation. In 2024, according to IWSR, the beer and Beyond Beer category continued to gain share of total alcohol by volume globally and has now gained more than 200 basis points since 2021. And looking ahead, beer is expected to grow volumes globally and continue to gain share of total alcohol. Our diversified geographic footprint and leadership positions across developing, emerging and developing markets has us best positioned to capture this growth. Developing markets represent 55% of our volume, are mostly comprised of countries where we have strong leadership positions and are expected to account for 34% of the category volume growth over the next 5 years. This cluster has been a key growth engine for our business over the last 3 years with record high volumes in key markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and South Africa and double-digit top and bottom line growth in U.S. dollars. Emerging markets represent only 10% of our volumes, but are expected to drive nearly 50% of the category volume growth. We have leadership positions across Africa and lead the fast-growing premium and super premium segments in India. Our volumes across this cluster have grown by 10% over the last 3 years with significant opportunities to increase category participation as these economies develop. Developed markets represent 24% of our volume with leadership positions across key markets in Europe, the U.S., Canada and South Korea and are expected to account for 14% of the category volume growth. In the U.S., our portfolio is at an inflection point. In Europe, our premium and super premium portfolio now make up 57% of our revenue and EBITDA increased by double digits in 2024. And in South Korea, our revenue increased by low teens in 2024 with our market share reaching the highest level in the last 10 years. And in China, while 2024 has been a challenging year for both the industry and our business, we remain confident that the long-term premiumization trend in the industry is a compelling profitable growth opportunity. We are the leaders in the premium and super premium segment and are investing in our portfolio, innovation and geographic expansion to regain our momentum. We have evolved our portfolio management approach to focus our investments in our mega brands and drive efficient profitable growth. Our mega brands have increased revenue by nearly 40% since 2021 and now represent 57% of our total business. In 2024, we invested $7.2 billion in sales and marketing, and averaged more than $7 billion per year since 2021. Our investments are more effective than ever as we have concentrated behind mega brands and mega platforms and have leveraged the data and our digital platforms to drive efficiency. Led by our global brands, we are the leader in the premium beer segment globally and see a long runway for the category to continue to premiumize. The premium beer segment is forecast to grow volumes across all geographic clusters and at more than double the rate of the category overall. Within premium, the Corona brand continues to grow from strength to strength in leading the growth of our portfolio globally. In 2025, we'll be celebrating 100 years since its original launch. Since 2018, the volumes of Corona have nearly doubled. And in 2024, volumes increased by 9.4% in markets outside of Mexico. In its home market of Mexico, Corona is the #1 brand in the industry and volumes grew by mid-single digits. The quality, brand power and consumer preference for Corona has earned the right for a premium price point. Corona sells on average at 20% premium to the nearest competitor. In recognition of this past performance and its future potential, Corona was named the most valuable beer brand in the world in 2024. We continue to focus on innovating to develop the category and expand occasions to meet consumer needs. Our balanced choice portfolio includes options for consumers seeking low carb, low calories, sugar-free, gluten-free and non-alcohol alternatives. Our brands across these consumer trends are growing ahead of the overall beer category and are becoming a meaningful part of our overall business, now representing approximately 10% of our beer revenue. Looking specifically at non-alcohol beer, our portfolio momentum continued to accelerate, led by the triple-digit growth of Corona Cero, we estimate we gained share globally in 2024. While non-alcohol beer is currently a relatively small portion of our global beer volume, we believe it is a key opportunity to develop new beer consumption occasions, increase category participation and drive incremental volume growth. In addition to beer, we have been developing our portfolio of Beyond Beer brands to meet consumer needs and increase our total addressable market. The strength of our brands and our production and route-to-market capabilities provides us a strong right to win in this segment. In South Africa, Brutal Fruit and Flying Fish are 2 of the leading flavored malt beverages in the country, which have been expanded across Africa over the last couple of years. And in the U.S., Cutwater is the #1 canned cocktail brand in the country and Nütrl is the #2 vodka seltzer brand. The combined revenue of our focused spirit-based RTD and flavored malt beverage brands have increased by approximately 20% since 2021, and the category is forecast to grow volumes at double the rate of the overall beer category. Now let's turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. In 2024, BEES captured $49 billion in gross merchandising value, a 19% increase versus last year with 124 million orders transacted through the platform. BEES GMV has now more than doubled versus 2021 with our percentage of revenue transacted through digital channels increasing from around 50% to 75%. BEES marketplace continued to accelerate and delivered $2.5 billion in GMV this year, a 57% increase versus last year. And in D2C, our digital platforms are enabling a one-to-one connection with our consumers and the development of new consumption occasions. We have expanded the availability of our digital platforms to 21 markets with revenue reaching $560 million. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimize our business. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. For the next few minutes, I want to take you through a few tangible examples of what we mean by optimizing our business and the financial results we are driving. In 2024, we made progress on 4 key areas of focus: improving margins; compounding U.S. dollar EPS growth; growing our free cash flow; and making disciplined capital allocation choices. Our EBITDA margin improved by 179 basis points this year, with margin expansion across all 5 of our operating regions. We know that each year will be different, but are confident that the combination of our leadership advantages, disciplined revenue management, continued premiumization and efficient operating model create an opportunity for further margin expansion over time. Moving on to EPS. This year, we delivered underlying profit growth of $900 million. Underlying EPS was $3.53 per share, a 15.4% increase versus last year and a 7% CAGR since 2021. Organic EBITDA growth accounted for an $0.81 per share increase this year with a $0.26 per share headwind from translational FX. As we continue to optimize our business, improvements in below EBITDA items drove the balance of our EPS growth such as lower net interest expense from active net debt management and continued deleveraging as well as lower cost of hedging and reduced FX losses. Next, let's take a look at free cash flow through a combination of revenue growth and margin expansion, reducing our net interest expense through deleveraging, optimizing our net working capital and improving the efficiency of our CapEx through disciplined resource allocation, we increased our free cash flow by $2.5 billion to reach $11.3 billion in 2024. With this increase in cash generation, we continue to make progress on our deleveraging journey and delivered an important milestone for our business. Net debt-to-EBITDA reached 2.89x, below 3x for the first time since 2015. In 2024, we continue to strengthen our debt maturity profile while maintaining our weighted average coupon. Our bond portfolio remains well distributed with no relevant medium-term refinancing needs. We have approximately USD 3 billion worth of bonds maturing through 2026, a weighted average maturity of 13 years and no financial covenants. As we continue to make progress on our deleveraging, we have increased flexibility in our capital allocation choices. The Board has proposed a full year dividend of EUR 1 per share, a 22% increase versus last year with the ambition to continue a progressive dividend over time. Additionally, we have completed approximately $750 million of our $2 billion share buyback program announced last year. As we look ahead to 2025, we expect EBITDA to grow between 4% and 8% on an organic basis, in line with our medium-term outlook. In terms of phasing of growth in the year, it is worthwhile reminding that due to technical factors such as fewer selling days, the timing of Easter and shipment phasing comparables in the U.S. and China, the first quarter will have a high comparison base. As we continue to invest to execute our strategy while optimizing our resource allocation, we expect net CapEx to be between $3.5 billion and $4 billion, and we expect our normalized effective tax rate to be between 26% to 28%. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments before we start our Q&A session. Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap on 2024 and look ahead at the opportunities our brands have to activate the category in 2025. Driven by the consistent execution of our strategy, we delivered high-quality financial results in 2024. EBITDA grew at the top end of our outlook. Underlying EPS increased by 15% in U.S. dollars, and our free cash flow grew by $2.5 billion. Our geographic footprint, leadership positions and portfolio of mega brands position us well to capture future category growth. With leverage below 3x, we have increased capital allocation flexibility. While the operating environment has been dynamic over the last few years, we are encouraged by the consistent performance of our business. EBITDA has grown within or above our medium-term growth outlook in every quarter over the last 3 years, and we are confident in our ability to deliver in 2025. Looking ahead, we are uniquely positioned to activate the category. The combination of our mega brands with the key global platforms that consumers love and that bring people together is a powerful opportunity to lead and grow the category. From the NBA to the FIFA Club World Cup to Wimbledon and music platforms like Tomorrowland and Lollapalooza, we will be focused on connecting with consumers and bringing to life our purpose of creating a future with more cheers. With that, I will hand it back to the operator for the Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from the line of Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Edward Mundy: Two questions, please. So there's been a huge step change in free cash flow. I was hoping to try and sort of tease out the types of things that you might be able to consider given this increased flexibility that previously might not have been on the table. I think, Michel, you laid out very clearly on Slide 16 and 17 that you've got a best-in-class footprint and strong brand portfolio, so that argues against the need to make major acquisitions. Is this really around getting the balance between deleveraging and accelerating returns to shareholders? That's the first question. And then the second question is on China. You've appointed someone internal with a very strong commercial and supply chain background. Could you help us think about the balance between both investing for growth and optimizing that footprint? Fernando Tennenbaum: Ed, this is Fernando here. Let me take the first question. So the first question is on capital allocation. It's worth reminding that the objective of our capital allocation policy is value creation. And it's kind of -- the framework is unchanged, and we remain disciplined in our choices. So priority #1 has always been investing in the organic growth of our business. We have a very good business with no shortage of opportunities to invest. And if you look from 2021 to 2024, we invested like around $55 billion across CapEx and S&M to drive organic growth. With the excess cash that we generate, then we need to solve for maximizing value creation. And we always dynamic balance between deleveraging, return of capital to shareholders and selective M&A. If you look at 2024, in the organic growth of our business, we invested in S&M $7.2 billion and in CapEx, $3.7 billion. So when you add all of those, almost $11 billion. On the net debt side, we reduced $6.9 billion, so almost $7 billion of net debt reduction. And we were able to do all that while announcing a share buyback of $2 billion and also increasing dividend by 22% to EUR 1. With leverage now below 3x, it's fair to say that we have increased flexibility in our capital allocation choices to continue to invest for growth and return capital to our shareholders. On the second question to you, Michel. Michel Doukeris: Ed, I will just complement here on what Fernando described on the capital allocation. And then if you can please confirm that your second question was in China. I think that I heard that, but just please confirm to me. Edward Mundy: Yes, it's on China. Michel Doukeris: So Okay. Thank you. On the cash flow generation and the strategy that we have today. So we've been articulating this to you over time that the main priority is organic growth. And we believe that based on the scale that we have today, the footprint that we have today, the compounding effect of this organic growth is a massive value creation opportunity. And of course, as we materialize and execute this strategy, generate the cash, reduce leverage. As Fernando said, we gain financial flexibility so we can really allocate capital in different ways. So priority #1 is organic growth. But with the compounding effect, we gain growing financial flexibility. In China, I think that there is a couple of things. First, last year, last 2 years, very soft consumer environment. We have seen some shifts in channels, we see geographically the Eastern part of China having more difficult than the Western part of China and Central China. Nevertheless, we think that our business there has much more potential than what we have delivered in the last 2 years. We have a plan in place since the end of last year with increased investments, more focus on our mega brands, huge execution now during Chinese New Year, where we saw Budweiser in the big stage, front and center on everything that we are doing. We have been introducing innovation in the market with Harbin Zero, and we want to increase the level of execution so we can harness the opportunities that we have there and reignite the business for growth once now we expect this year the comps in China to sequentially improve as we get through the year. Thanks for the questions. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Simon Hales with Citi. Simon Hales: Michel, Fernando. So a couple for me, please. Can we start on the U.S. and the margin delivery, particularly in Q4? It's clearly a little bit lower, the expansion we saw there than we've seen in the prior couple of quarters. I think, Michel, you referenced in your presentation the investment we've seen going into the business. I think we've also seen probably higher COGS and some of the aluminum tariffs kicked in. How should we think about sort of the outlook for margins in the U.S. as we head into 2025 and the trade-off perhaps between further productivity savings versus the investment into the business and those ongoing COGS pressures? And then secondly, maybe just a quick one for you, Fernando, around the number of the factors you highlighted as we head into Q1, which will be weighing a little bit on volume performance. Can you share a little bit more detail perhaps on how we should think about the scale of those combined factors on volumes in Q1, please? Michel Doukeris: Simon, thanks for the question. I will take on the U.S. first. I think that each quarter, of course, is unique and it is going to be different. The important thing here is in the U.S., we are gaining momentum. Our portfolio now much healthier and accelerating, reaching an inflection point, I would say, because with the #1 and #2 share volume brands in the market growing as Michelob Ultra is growing and Busch Light, we start seeing this market share growing every week and every month. Margins are recovering, and we continue to work on productivity. But the main priority for us now is to invest to make sure that this portfolio continues to accelerate. And we are doing this, of course, as we always do in a very efficient way. We continue to work very hard on our productivity across all lines and generate efficiencies in the business. But what we really are glad to see is the commercial momentum and the share momentum that the portfolio has in the U.S. now. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Simon, on your question, maybe trying to give some more color here. The first one is that 2024 was a leap year. So it means one extra selling day. If you just do a simple extrapolation, that's a 1% impact. The second one is Easter phasing. So Easter is going to be 3 weeks later in 2025. So it's going to be April 20. So the inventory build shifting from March to April. Then on the U.S., we have the STWs versus STRs. Remember that last year, we built contingent inventory ahead of labor negotiations. So this will have somewhat of an impact. And China, we mentioned China as well is a tough comp on a relative basis because volumes declined 6.2% in the first Q of '24, and they trended more negative throughout the year. So this is kind of try to give some color and hopefully, you can be able to quantify a little bit more of the higher base in Q1. Operator: Our next question is from the line of James Edwardes Jones with RBC. James Jones: I guess following on from Simon's question, you're talking assertively about investing in the U.S. and behind mega brands, but the ratio of marketing and selling costs as a percentage of sales fell last year. Will it increase in future years? And how is it affected, sorry, by your increasing digital capabilities? And secondly, can you just say a word about the raw material outlook and COGS? I know you don't guide on it specifically, but there has, I think, been quite a lot of concern, particularly around currency depreciation in Latin America and the effect that, that might have. Michel Doukeris: James, Michel here. Thanks for the question. We've been talking about this ratio and absolute dollars and efficiency of the dollars that we deploy for quite a while. And I always go back to the point that we look at ratios, but we are not guided by ratios. And as we look at the decisions that we are making as we grow our business and we optimize the business, it's very important always to highlight that we made very important portfolio decisions with this idea of focus on mega brands. So we streamlined the portfolio by reducing SKUs and secondary brands. Therefore, we are putting more weight in less brands and getting, as a consequence, more pressure, if you say, on the system execution and what we are doing. At the same time, we elevated our game massively in terms of data. And through BEES, through D2C, we have much more data today that we leverage with our draft line, our internal agency, so we can target better. We can be more agile in the way that we organize our campaigns and focus more with the resources that we have to get better reach and better amplification on our campaigns. And the combination of these brands, data and the mega platforms, they allow us to drive in a more effective way the dollars that we have. So the same dollars, they work much harder. And therefore, we measure the ratios. We measure the total dollars, but our main leading KPI is effectiveness. And if I can give you an example, so Super Bowl this year, we got incredible ads that were integrated very well in our execution that they allowed us to have leadership in terms of visibility and engagement during Super Bowl with consumers. Our share accelerated in the market in both off-premise and on-premise during the Super Bowl week. In the on-premise, we had the #1 and #2 brands and it was a while that we didn't have this combination. And to top it up, Budweiser got the #1 spot on the meter and our 4 brands got very well positioned amongst the top 10 brands in consumers' view in terms of quality of advertisement. So it's really great creative, good usage of data, a very good quantum in terms of dollars that we invest, but invested in a much more effective way. So we are looking at the return. We are not holding ourselves in any of the ratios specifically. Fernando Tennenbaum: And James, Fernando here. You asked about raw material cost of goods sold. And we said last year on our third quarter earnings call that 2025 is looking more like a normal year, more like a normal year on average, more or less in line with inflation, if I could try to qualify or quantify what a normal year is. But having said that, our hedging policy always hedge 12 years -- 12 months in advance. And then you know that by hedging 12 months in advance, most of the emerging markets currency devaluated throughout the middle of last year. So one could expect easier comps on the first half of the year and higher comps on the second half of the year. But for the full year, on average, a normal year. Operator: The next question is coming from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with UBS. Sanjeet Aujla: MIchel, Fernando, 2 from me, please. Firstly, coming back to free cash flow and CapEx in particular. Fernando, can you just help us understand where you're seeing the CapEx efficiencies? What is maintenance CapEx for the business these days? And secondly, just coming back to China. Michel, you highlighted that you've got a plan in place since the end of last year. Can you just elaborate a little bit more on that? How are you evolving your strategy for the new normal in China? Fernando Tennenbaum: Sanjeet, Fernando here. Let me take the first one. So as we continue to implement our strategy, we look to optimize all lines of our business with our disciplined capital allocation. CapEx is one of the areas where we are making meaningful progress. As we deploy CapEx -- capital for CapEx projects, and $3.5 billion to $4 billion is a meaningful investment to support growth. We are doing this in an ever more efficient way with the following focus areas. The first one is technology. We are deploying, for example, deploying AI, improving our ability to code with less man hours to deliver products. The other one is capacity. We are using our scale and our ZBB approach to be able to design better, procure better and build in a more efficient way and kind of almost like looking project by project, taking almost like a ZBB approach for CapEx as well. So we are increasing our efficiency. We are still very committed to invest in our business. I can give you a few examples. We invested in additional brewing, packaging and distribution capacity in multiple countries such as Brazil, Colombia, where we have -- we are in the middle of the process of finishing a $400 million greenfield brewery in Honduras, in Mexico, South Africa and the U.S. But this optimization is not something new. This has been ongoing for the last 2, 3 years. We optimized our CapEx in 2023, again in 2024, and we do all of that while maintaining a quite healthy growth for our business. And if you look at for the long term, we believe our CapEx outlook is appropriate to drive long-term growth. Michel Doukeris: Yes, Sanjeet, it's Michel here. I think that for China, I get the question of what people keep saying new normal. And I think that we are for like 2 or 3 years trying to find what the new normal means for China. And my experience in China is that you go through cycles. When you think that you are landing somewhere, things can move very quickly. And what you see in the market today there is everything that I said before, like more West, less East, you see last year is very tough. The beginning of this year looks a little bit better, but things are settling. And I don't think that we can discount or call this a new normal to China because we need to give more time, see how the year will unfold. And our strategy, I think that is pretty much the same because it's focus on premiumization, making sure that we increase availability and leverage our route to market in China, but our execution can be better. And we are putting more resources on less brands. We are making the execution behind this brand more comprehensive and at the level that each brand deserves. And we want to accelerate the way that we leverage this brand, our route-to-market when we go to the key selling moments, sell more beer, execute better, get closer to consumer. It's just the beginning of the year, but was a very good Chinese New Year. And we saw that sales to retailers, they moved somehow in line with the last year. But the sales to consumers so far, it looks like better than was last year. I cannot precisely say yet by how much, but was -- we are just like 2 weeks into looking at the numbers, but we need now to see spring, beginning of summer to see how things will develop in the year. And then maybe we can talk later second quarter, third quarter on what the normal for the year of 2025 look like. Thanks for the question. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Robert Ottenstein: Great. Michel, It's a little bit of a complicated nuanced question, so let me go slowly. You've been leading a cultural change at the company and I'd like to understand where you are with that? And I think part of the cultural change, and correct me if I'm wrong, is maybe getting a better balance on the marketing side between local and central decision-making. You operate in enormous markets. right? I mean China, Brazil, the U.S., incredible diversity of consumer. The consumer in Mississippi is very different than the consumer in San Francisco or New York. And I'm sure you have similar sorts of differences in China and Brazil. And so it's always kind of tricky, right? You want to have the scale of central decision-making and the big brands. But if you're consumer-centric, you've got to be sensitive to what's going on in the local markets and what the local consumers want. So in that context, I'm just very interested to know if you've changed that balance at all between centralized marketing decisions and local decisions, what role maybe data and AI is playing in that and perhaps whether that is -- that change in balance is helping you drive the very strong share gains that you've had this year? Michel Doukeris: Robert, thanks for the question. I'll try to answer here the best I can, and I'm happy to follow up this question as we meet either Friday or on the weeks to come, okay? But I think that, yes, when you think about cultural change, I will just try to qualify what we mean by cultural in this case. I think that is the strategy and the discussion that we had in moving the company from an inorganic growth-led company to an organic growth-led company. And in a nutshell, means less growth by acquisitions, and more growth, granular bottoms-up, focus on growing the brands that we have in the operations that we have with the consumers that, as you said, are local. And we operate, as you qualified very well in very diverse markets, but we operate with this idea of best of local and global, the combination of efforts focused on doing what is best for our consumers and our markets. And the way that we got organized on that, which I think that is getting this complexity and trying to distill into simple concepts is the mega brands. So the mega brands are up to 5 brands in each market that will lead our growth. So they are not global brands. They can be global brands, but they are the 5 relevant brands for each market. We have in these markets the rest of the portfolio that we are either expanding or sustaining investments, but the leading brands are the mega brands. And these brands, they grew from $25 billion roughly in 2021 to be today more than $33 billion. So today, they are more than 57% of our portfolio and means that this optimization is working because bigger brands with more investments growing more. The second part of that is leveraging our scale with what we call these mega platforms. And these mega platforms can be sports events like Olympics or FIFA or they can be platforms that support our brands like music or like food or like one type of sport, which is tennis that we are trying to elevate globally with Stella. And we are getting the mega brands, mega platforms and all the data that we are generating with our digital products to create a process, a one ABI way of marketing that can be used and deployed across all markets. So we have the portfolio segmentation. We have the investments in the mega brands. We have the data that now is common and granular across all countries. All wrapped up in a process that everybody can use. But then this process, the brands, the consumers are our local consumers. So it's a very interesting combination of having a more simple approach for a global company like ours that can be used in all markets while continuing to be laser-focused on the consumers and in each market. So one of the slides that we shared here today in the presentation, which I think is a very interesting one, is how we are getting this one global insight, which is healthier choices and healthier lifestyle and deploying with our balanced choices with different propositions across all markets. So for the U.S., it's less carbs and is Michelob Ultra. For South Korea, is Cass zero sugar. For Brazil is Stella gluten-free and globally is Corona Cero alcohol. So same insight, same way of addressing the site with different propositions and innovation, but then catering for each and every local consumer need. So I'm happy to take on this question more when we next meet. And I hope that the answer could address your question, okay? Thank you very much. Operator: The next question is coming from Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Trevor Stirling: Michel, and Fernando, my 2 questions. The first one, Michel, you've got a range for organic EBITDA growth of 4% to 8%. Can you just talk about what do you think the key factors are that might lead you to the bottom end or the high end of that range? And second one, probably for Fernando. Fernando, a big step-up in cash flow this year. As I look forward -- sorry, in 2024, as I look forward to 2025, would be right to think, well, hopefully, there'll be a bit of organic -- sorry, dollar EBITDA growth. Hopefully, again, dollar interest will fall a little bit. CapEx, you've already guided to, and working capital probably to be more or less neutral across the year. Is that the right way to think about the 2025 cash flow? Michel Doukeris: Trevor, Michel here. I'll take on the first one and leave Fernando for the cash flow question. I think that just -- maybe stepping back on the idea of the guidance, you remember this, I repeat this, and I hope that this point is very boring repetition to you all that we provided the guidance because we were in the transition from inorganic to organic. And the idea was grow organically, maintaining the financial discipline and this range of 4% to 8% being like a ballpark to make everybody's life a little bit easier in terms of the projections. And we've been delivering, as we stated before, 13 quarters in a row within or above this range. And there is many things out there happening. Each and every quarter might be different. In reality, if you look at the 3 years, they were all very different in itself. But we've been managing with the levers that we have to maintain the focus on the long term and grow while delivering on this compounding growth on the EBITDA line. And if we do this and we optimize the business in the way that we've been optimizing, then the consequence is a growing flow in our free cash flow. And I think that this is what Fernando will be talking about now. And I think that at this point, it's too early for us to give any specifics on what could impact the high range or the low range. I think that we need a little bit more time to see how the year will develop, and we'll probably go back to your question during quarter 1 or quarter 2 results. And we have to take this more in details there. But today, we are encouraged by the momentum that we have, and we see that the 4% to 8% is solid as an outlook for the year of 2025. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Trevor, Fernando here. So on your cash flow question, you are right. When you look at our improvement 2023 versus 2024, we had -- we start with an EBIT increased. The EBIT increased around $1 billion. So that helped cash. We continue to delever. So we saved in net interest. This was like $300 million. We had a good improvement on working capital. We mentioned in 2023 about the impact from extended credit terms to our wholesalers and lower payables because you're optimizing inventory purchase and CapEx, and now we are getting to a more normal level and the efficient CapEx spend. So between 2023 and 2024, we had a $700 million improvement there. When you look forward, on the EBITDA side, we just talked about it. We have our outlook. So outlook should deliver another organic growth on top of what we had. Then the net working capital, it's kind of -- we had in the past some more large swings year-over-year driven by COVID and some supply chain disruptions. 2024 is what we can call more normalized change in working capital. And since we have a negative working capital cycle as we grow, this should also help drive cash flow. And the ETR outlook, we remain slightly better than the outlook from last year, but consistent with where we are. So all in all, I think we are in a good position to continue to generate strong cash flows going forward. Operator: Our final question is coming from the line of Gen Cross with BNP Paribas. Gen Cross: First question is just on the U.S. where STR is positive in Q4, and you commented on gaining share, clearly, momentum in both the businesses. And it sounds like the beer industry overall improved through the course of 2024. And Michel, you talked about the portfolio reaching an inflection point. I wonder if you could comment on whether you think modestly positive STR growth is now sustainable in the U.S. business? And the second question is just on Mexico. Again, there's comment on improved consumer momentum in Q4. Could you just share some color on what you think drove that and whether that's sustained into the start of 2025? Michel Doukeris: Gen, so on the U.S., you are right, we saw during last year, a sequential improvement in the industry. So slow start, summer was somehow bad weather. And then on the second half of the year, we saw improvements in quarter 3, and quarter 4 was a more normal. And we've been seeing this this year as well. So a very big correlation with weather events. And a normal week is a more normal industry. Weeks where we have disruptions being cold or rain, we've been seeing that the industry is reacting a lot to that. I don't think that the industry is at a positive volume point yet, but we've been seeing dollar-wise, the industry stable growing. And when we have good weekends, good months, you see some dollar growth. Our portfolio had somehow a very similar path last year. So we improved quarter-after-quarter being the quarter 4, one that was positive for our share with both Michelob Ultra and Busch Light gaining a lot of momentum and being the #1 and #2 brands in share growth in the industry. I think that we -- on our side, we can, let's say, control better the performance of the brands and the relative market share. And it's complicated to have a very strong forecast on the industry, again, because there are many things in play at this moment. So there is some economic pressures in some segments of the population. You have this migration issue and some ZIP codes where you have more Hispanic consumers, you see that the performance is slightly negative to the average. But we, in our favor, I think this year, we should have a better summer. So let's see how quarter 1 will unfold. Let's see what are the tailwinds during the summer. So we will be able to talk a little bit more about what the outlook for the volume is as we look at the numbers down the road. I think that's too early to make any call at this moment. Fernando also said before that there is some technicals on the quarter 1. So there is one last trading day, that is Easter. There is some inventory that we built up last year ahead of the labor negotiations. This will phase out through quarter 1 into quarter 2. And I think that by the time that we get to the summer, we will have a very good view of what the year will be. And Mexico, similarly, Mexico had like phasing last year, but a different one was like government spending on the quarter 1 and then elections on quarter 2 that hold on this spending, quarter 3 start to normalize. And of course, there is a lagging effect, right? So you stop spending in quarter 2, consumer purchase power goes down quarter 3, you normalize in quarter 3. Quarter 4, we saw more normal Mexico. And I think that this is so far what we've been seeing this year as well with this cold weather that hit the U.S., and we saw snow in Florida, snow in New Orleans, also taking a little bit of the northern part of Mexico, which was colder than average. But on average, Mexico is okay as it was last year. And again, I think that as we go from quarter 1 to quarter 2, we will see a much better picture down there as well. So thanks for your question. Operator: This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jesse. So thank you, everyone, for the time today, for the ongoing partnership and support to our business. Stay safe and well, and we will see you guys on our next calls and one-to-one interactions. Thanks so much. Have a good day. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to AB InBev's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. And the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions]. Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see risk factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 11, 2024. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to our third quarter 2024 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our third quarter operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we have made in executing our strategic priorities. After that, we will be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with our operating performance and the key highlights for the quarter. The global momentum of our business continued this quarter with the consistent execution of our strategy delivering revenue growth in more than 60% of our markets and overall EBITDA growth of 7.1% with margin expansion of 169 basis points. Organic growth and the ongoing optimization of our business delivered another quarter of double-digit underlying dollar EPS growth. As a result of our performance in the first nine months of the year and our continued momentum, we are raising our full-year EBITDA outlook to 6% to 8%. In addition, we have announced that we will be proceeding with a $2 billion share buyback program to be executed within the next 12 months. While the operating environment remains dynamic in some of our markets, the strength of our global footprint, brand portfolio and our focus on disciplined resource allocation are enabling us to invest for the long-term, while delivering efficient and profitable growth. Turning to our operating performance. Total revenue grew by 2.1% this quarter with our revenue management choices and ongoing premiumization, driving revenue per hectoliter growth of 4.6%. Volumes increased in 50% of our markets. However, growth was offset by a soft consumer environment in China and Argentina resulting in an overall volume decline of 2.4%. As we noted at our full-year '23 results, for 2024, the definition of organic growth in Argentina has been amended to cap the price growth to a maximum of 26.8% year-over-year. We delivered broad-based growth this quarter with revenue increases in more than 60% of our markets and EBITDA growth and margin expansion in four of our five operating regions. Our diversified geographic footprint enables us to deliver consistent results and has us well placed to drive superior long-term value creation. Now I'll take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the quarter from our key regions, starting with North America. In the U.S., the beer industry remains resilient improving in both volume and revenue trends quarter-over-quarter. Our beer portfolio gained volume share of the industry, driven by Michelob ULTRA and Busch Light, which were two of the top three volume share gainers in the industry. Our improved market share trend and productivity initiatives drove EBITDA growth of 13.7% with a margin improvement of approximately 375 basis points. Our business in the U.S. is regaining momentum, and we are continuing to invest to fuel the growth. Now moving to Middle Americas. In Mexico, our volumes declined by low-single digits, outperforming the industry, which was negatively impacted by adverse weather in a slower economic environment. Revenue was flattish, and EBITDA grew by mid-single digits with margin expansion. In Colombia, our business delivered high-single digit top line and double-digit bottom line growth with margin expansion. Beer volumes were flattish, while total volumes declined by low-single digits as the industry was impacted by a week-long national trucking strike in September. Our premium and super premium brands led our performance, delivering high teens volume growth. In South America, our business in Brazil delivered mid-single digit top line and double-digit bottom line growth with margin expansion of 174 basis points. Volume increased by 1.3%, led by our premium and super premium brands, which delivered volume growth in the low 20s. Now let's talk about EMEA. In Europe, we grew bottom line by low-single digits with further margin recovery. Volumes declined by low-single digits, estimated to have outperformance of soft industry in the majority of our markets. Our portfolio continues to premiumize with our premium and super premium portfolio, making up approximately 57% of our revenue. Performance was led by Corona, which delivered another quarter of double-digit volume growth. In South Africa, the momentum of our business continued, delivering double-digit top and bottom line growth with margin expansion. Volumes increased by low-single digits, with our performance driven by our above core brands, which grew volumes by high teens, led by Corona and Stella Artois. In APAC, in China, a soft consumer environment continued to impact the overall beer industry and our performance, particularly from continued weakness in the on-premise channel. As a result, our revenue declined by 16.1% this quarter. While the industry has had a challenging nine months, we continue to focus on controlling what we can control. The consistent execution of our strategy, investing in our brands and digital capabilities to drive value for our customers and consumers remaining disciplined with our cost and revenue management initiatives and agile with our commercial investments. We remain confident that we are well positioned to capture the future growth opportunities giving the consumer demand for our premium and super premium brands and our unwavering commitment to invest for the long-term. Now let's discuss our strategic pillars. Let's start with pillar one of our strategy, lead and grow the category. While our overall growth was constrained by performance in China, our mega brands continue to lead our growth. Increasing net revenue by 3.1%, led by Corona, which grew revenue by 10.2% outside of Mexico. With a more focused portfolio we are disproportionately investing in our mega brands to increase our brand power and drive efficient growth. Through the consistent execution of our replicable growth drivers, in our five category expansion levers, we are leading and growing the category by offering superior corporate positions, developing new consumption occasions and expanding our premium and the old beer portfolios. As part of our strategy to lead and grow the category, we view the non-alcohol beer segment as a key opportunity to develop new beer consumption occasions. The Olympics mega platform provided us with an unique opportunity to activate Corona Cero at scale across more than 40 markets. We gained market share of non-alcohol beer in over 60% of our key markets in the third quarter with Corona Cero more than doubling both volumes and revenues. While non-alcohol beer is currently a small portion of our global volume, we believe there is a significant opportunity for incremental growth, and we are committed to providing consumers with best-in-class liquids and brands to lead the development of the segment. Now let's turn to our second strategic pillar digitized and monetized our ecosystem. This continue to expand usage and reach, capturing approximately $12.1 billion in gross merchandising value, a 14% increase year-over-year and reaching 3.9 million monthly active users. Customer subsection improved with our Net Promoter Score improving to plus 66. This marketplace continued to grow, generating 9.5 million orders of non-ABI products and delivering $630 million in GMV this quarter, an increase of 51% versus last year. This is the equivalent of approximately $2.5 billion on an annualized basis. Now let's talk about our direct relationship with our consumers. Through our digital direct-to-consumer platforms, we generated approximately 19 million unique orders and 11% revenue growth this quarter. That's 19 million data points to generate deep consumer insights develop new consumption occasions and drive incremental revenue for our business. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimize our business. Fernando, over to you. A - Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. First, let me share how we have progressed on some of our 2025 sustainability growth in the first nine months of 2024. In climate action, we continue to focus on reducing emissions across our operations globally. Our scopes 1 and 2 emissions per hectoliter of production have improved by 46% versus our 2017 baseline. In water stewardship, our water use efficiency ratio improved to 2.47 hectoliters per hectoliter year-to-date versus 2.53% in the same period last year as we continue working towards our ambition to reach 2.50 hectoliters per hectoliter on an annual basis by 2025. Moving to our financial performance. Our EBITDA margin improved by 169 basis points this quarter with margin expansions in four of our five operating regions. Our leadership advantages, disciplined revenue management, continued premiumization, an efficient operating model create an opportunity for further margin expansion over time. Turning to our debt profile. You can see that our debt maturities remain well distributed with no relevant medium-term refinancing needs. We have approximately $3 billion worth of bonds maturing through 2026, a weighted average maturity of 14 years and no financial covenants. We delivered underlying EPS of $0.98 per share, a 14% increase versus last year. Organic EBITDA growth accounted for a $0.19 per share increase, which was mostly offset by translational FX headwinds. As we continue to optimize our business, improvements in below EBITDA items drove the balance of our EPS growth, such as lower net interest expense from active net debt management and continued deleveraging as well as lower cost of hedging and reduced FX losses. Given our continued progress on deleveraging, we have additional flexibility in our capital allocation choices. We remain disciplined with our capital allocation decisions, which we are dynamically balancing to maximize long-term value creation. We remain confident in the long-term growth of our business and have announced today that we'll be proceeding with a $2 billion share buyback program to be executed within the next 12 months. With that, I would like to hand back to Michel for some final comments before we start our Q&A session. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap on the quarter. We have a resilient strategy that like beer works for all occasions. And we continue to make progress executing across each of our three strategic pillars. Driven by the continued momentum of our mega brands, we gained or maintained market share and delivered revenue growth in 60% of our markets. This marketplace continue to expand, increasing GMV of third-party products by 51% versus last year. EBITDA grew by 7.1% and giving our performance year-to-date we are raising our full-year outlook to 6% to 8%. As we continue to optimize our business, underlying EPS increased by double-digits and we are announcing the launch of a $2 billion share buyback program. Wrapping up, we continue to be encouraged by our operating results. and we are well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities ahead of us to generate superior value for our stakeholders. With that, I will hand it back to the operator for the Q&A. Operator: The floor is now open for questions. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question come from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your questions. Robert Ottenstein: Great, thanks you very much. So Michel, it looks like your market share in the U.S. is stabilizing, maybe even improving and the overall business is gaining momentum. So I was just wondering, it's been a long and tougher deal, could you assess and your thinking about the progress of the U.S. business? Any kind of tweaks or changes strategy kind of looking forward, levers to pull as well as key initiatives for 2025 to build on the momentum, maybe touching on Michelob ULTRA Zero. Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Robert, good morning. Thanks for the question. Maybe step back for a second and talking about the U.S. We see that the industry remains resilient and actually improved in the quarter three versus quarter two. The latest data now that we see this month, we see further improvement. So I think that this is a good signal for the U.S. market. In terms of our strategy, we continue to make progress, and we discussed this before. In the U.S., it's all about rebalancing our portfolio towards growing segments while stabilizing our mainstream brands. And the consistent execution behind our brands are driving some very good outcomes. We saw this quarter Michelob ULTRA and Busch Light, for example, among the top 3 brands in volume growth, Michelob ULTRA actually led in the quarter that's #1. When you think about Busch Light in the Mainstream segment leading growth as well. And for a while, we didn't see a brand in the midstream gain share in such a consistent way. So very strong momentum for Busch Light. The bet that we have in terms of new brands, Corona doing very well, [indiscernible] doing well and especially when you look at the old beer, both cut water and neutral driving very, very good growth. So we have now this 1.8% share in this Spirit segment. But just to make the point, these two brands in the quarter represented more than one-third of the entire growth of the spirits industry in revenues in the U.S. So as we look forward, we will continue to invest to accelerate this momentum. Next year, you mentioned we have some new tools to play with. One that everybody is very excited with is Michelob ULTRA Zero, very good liquid. The brand itself represents this trend in the segment. And if we can add Michelob ULTRA growth with the Zero proposition, then you can see how much contribution this can bring to the entire system. So I think that is increasing investments, keeping the focus on what's working and further accelerate this momentum that we are building now throughout the year. Thanks for the question, Robert. Robert Ottenstein: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Please proceed with your questions. Edward Mundy: Good morning, Michel. Good morning, Fernando. So first question is around China. Michel, market, you're very familiar with. Perhaps you can unpack a little bit what's happened in this quarter. Is your view this as cyclical or structural? And when you think about potential recovery, what things will you be tracking for any signs of green shoots. And then, Fernando one on margins, pretty good margin recovery this year despite the challenges in Asia-Pac based on what you're seeing on key line items going into 2025 are there any flags that would suggest that profits won't be able to grow ahead of sales into next year. Michel Doukeris: Hi, good afternoon. Let me take the first one here, and then I'll hand it over to Fernando. So in China, what we observe is a soft consumer environment that continues to impact the overall consumer goods, the beer market and also our own performance. So we just spent a full week in China. And at the end of the day, when you look at the overall conditions in the market, they are not deteriorating and too bad, but they are not good because consumers are holding on occasions and consuming less out of home. So you know that our footprint skews towards the East Coast, but a lot towards out-of-home and both the East Coast had some very bad weather conditions, but also people are going less to restaurants, bars, and out-of-home occasions. Our STWs lagged our STR sales because we keep an eye, especially after the summer on the inventories, and we want to have very fresh beer, very controlled inventories and making sure that our road to market is very healthy. So you know that we play the long-term gain in China always. So controlling prices, controlling the rough market, controlling inventories. So when conditions get better, our route to market and our brands can recover faster than competition. We didn't see an improvement in the short term, to be honest, other than the weather that looks more normal now as we phase from summer to autumn. And we think that not in the short term, things will improve too fast. But power of our brands, consumer demand remains healthy when the conditions are appropriated. We have some innovation working well under Harbing, which is gaining momentum and growing. So we are optimistic about that. And I think that we will take some time before we see the overall conditions in China improving but brands are health, grow-to-market health, inventories and health, and we have some good innovation play in our favor there. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Ed, Fernando here. So on your second question on costs, we don't give any specific guidance or outlook for costs into next year. And we are -- this year hasn't finished. So there are some prices that are still open. But if you look at the prices to date, 2025 seems like more of an ordinary year. So you should have some cost pressures, like some things like aluminum, a little bit of a cost pressure, some grains kind of in your favor, different effects by market, but overall, some cost -- but a normal year. I wouldn't, if you look like 2021, 2023, where we have this massive cost swings, this mono phenomenal year, more or less, I don't know how to say it, but more or less in line of inflation, if you look at current prices. But the one important thing, and we said that over and over again without being too specific about 2025, we said that when you look at our margins, I see no reasons why our margins would not improve. They kind of -- if you look at where they come from in three years, pretty much 2021 and 2023 have very high commodity increases way above the inflation. Now that things are getting more normal, we definitely see a path for margins to continue to improve going forward. Michel Doukeris: And Ed, just implementing my answer because I think you put two questions the short term and the long-term in China, and I didn't mention the long-term. When you look at the fundamentals for the long time, the size of the industry, the premiumization and the power of our brands commanding both share gains and premium price, we don't see changes on that. So when you talk to consumers, when you see how retailers are developing, under the right conditions, how consumption is developing in China and we are gaining share of throat, which is a very interesting thing that's happening in China over and over again. So long-term fundamentals for us, they remain in place and the size of the price remains big in China long-term, okay? Edward Mundy: Thanks. Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with UBS. Please proceed with your questions. Sanjeet Aujla: Good morning, Michel and Fernando. A couple for me, please. Firstly, Michel, can you just dig into the Middle Americas region and give us a view of the consumer kind of broader macro landscape and how you're thinking about that into 2025? And my second question for Fernando, just coming on to capital allocation with the share buyback announcement today. I just wanted to get your view on how you're thinking about dividends versus buybacks. And I don't think in the past, you had rebalanced your dividends with the interim dividend as well, is that something you could potentially look to in the focus of time. Thanks. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Sanjeet, good afternoon. So I'll take the first one and then Fernando the second. So Middle Americas, if you look at the year so far, we are seeing strength in the industry, very good performance and demand for our brands and very good performance across all markets. If you look at the short term, the short term was a little bit abnormal, and you had a little bit of everything, okay? So if you think about the weather, all these colder weather over the summer was real across Middle Americas, especially Mexico. If you think about the elections impact, you also saw an imbalance of money and government expenditure in Mexico on the first half of the year. So quarter three, quarter four will suffer a little bit more on this last government investments in Mexico. But then you can make cuts like in markets such as Colombia, where we have like record high volumes in sales to retailers again on the quarter three, you see market share healthy across majority of markets. And even if you look at Mexico now, we will see the phasing of this different government investments in the quarter four, quarter one next year, but the normalization moving forward, remittances in dollars remain strong. The fundamentals of the markets are very good because participation is going up. The brands are very healthy. Inflation is moving down across majority of the markets, salaries and purchase power is normalizing. So short term, a little bit of turbulence. When you look at the full-year impact is diluted, because the year looks very good. And moving forward, most of the fundamentals in place look very good for us. So we just think that there is some normalization happening now, and these markets remain very strong. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Sanjeet, Fernando here on your second question. I would like to give a step back before discussing any specific trade-off. What do we aim to do with our capital allocation choices. And the key thing here is that the objective of our capital allocation choices is to maximize value creation. And that's kind of the most important kind of background without it, it's harder to understand. And when we talk about it, we have different options, we can deleverage, we can buy back, you can make different M&As, you can make the choice between dividends and share buyback. But we -- you can be sure that we remain very disciplined in our capital allocation decisions. And even though -- given where we are, we are having added flexibility. I think the share buyback speaks to that. If you look last year, we had a $1 billion share buyback. This year, we have a $2 billion share buyback. It's twice as much. So that speaks for the added flexibility that the leveraging is giving to us. And we'll continue to make this decision on a dynamic basis, because at a different moment in time, it's going to have a different optimal combination. Deleveraging remains a priority for us. And even if this added share buyback, we remain confident in our ability to continue to deleveraging. And I think overall, that it's kind of -- I think it's -- the business continues to perform well, very good cash flow and allow us the confidence to do this $2 billion share buyback. On your second part of the question, which is interim dividend. Interim dividend is much more of a cash management discussion than a payout discussion. We tend to look at the dividend on the full amount for the overall year. And in the past, when we were having a higher payout in order to balance the cash flows we had interim dividend. I think at some point in time, with a different dividend, we might introduce the interim dividend, but of course, nothing to share as of now. Sanjeet Aujla: Thank you very much. Operator: Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Laurence Whyatt with Barclays. Please proceed with your questions. Laurence Whyatt: Hi, thanks very much. A couple of questions for me as well. I just following on from that one about the share buyback. You mentioned that the buyback is going to be $2 billion now from $1 billion last year. I was wondering could you be precise as to why you chose that number specifically. You could have gone with $1.5 billion, you could have gone with $2.5 billion. Why specifically was that $2 billion this year. And then secondly, we've seen a bit of weakness across the European markets at ABI and across a number of other consumer staples companies. Do you think there's anything structurally going wrong within European countries with regards to why the consumers are behaving more weekly recently? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Laurence, on your -- Fernando here. On your first question, on the share buyback. I think the key thing here is our capital allocation is dynamic. So we balance the different priorities at a given moment in time, seeing -- aiming to create value for shareholders. And as we continue to deleverage, we had other flexibility. So I think $2 billion speaks to that added flexibility and kind of -- it's twice as much as we had last year, and we have more flexibility this year. So I wouldn't try to elaborate a lot. It can have a lot of different numbers. You can have $1 billion, $1.5 billion, $2 billion. But I think $2 billion is twice as much, I think it speaks to the added flexibility and it speaks to the confidence in our ability to concentrate strong cash flows in our business. Michel Doukeris: Michel here, Laurence. On Europe, I think that if you look at the quarter three, similarly to the comment I made on Mexico, you see everybody talking for whoever was in Europe over this summer. Summer was a little bit strange. So it was a weaker summer in terms of weather than what everybody expected. Nevertheless, we delivered flattish top line and we gained share in majority of our markets. If you look to the full combination year-to-date, Europe looks good in terms of share, good in terms of financials. And across some of the markets, we see consumers trading up in terms of beer, which is very good for our portfolio, because more than half of our brands are in the premium and super premium segments. You've seen some of the markets competitors chasing volume, so increasing promotional activities, downgrade their brands and competing in core minus value. We are more in the long-term game for premium, super premium. And therefore, our net revenue per hectoliter is above competition, and we are benefiting from channel shift, getting share on the premium super-premium segment. So we are not really competing on this core minus value changing volumes at this moment in Europe. And I think that as weather normalizes, then fundamentally purchase power continues to recover in Europe is gaining share of throat and gaining share of throat in some very relevant markets and our brands continue to have power above share, and therefore, the consumer demand is there as we continue to activate these brands. We expect to have positive results in Europe moving forward. Laurence Whyatt: Understood. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is come from the line of Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your questions. Mitch Collett: Thank you. Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. Two questions on the U.S. please. You talked earlier about the success you're having with Busch Light. So can you provide a bit more color on what's driving the strength of that brand and how should we think about its growth and share gain opportunity going forward? And then my follow-up, again, you mentioned the success of spirit-based RTD, which grew, I think mid-teens, how big do you think that the spirits based RTD segment can become for you? And are there any particular production constraints that we should be mindful of? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Mitch, thank you for the question. So our U.S. business is regaining momentum, and we're investing to fuel growth where we have the biggest opportunities to grow our business and our brands in the U.S. So talking specifically about Busch Light. Busch Light is growing for many quarters in a row. It was the third fastest-growing brand in the industry this quarter. And again, looking at the mainstream segment also leading growth within mainstream. When you think about Busch Light, you can think like on this middle states in the U.S., the brand is like a 10 share brand. So think about the great lakes, Midwest, a corn belt in the U.S. If you look the rest of the country, the brand has 2% to 3% share. So in half of the country, 10% share in the other half of the country, 2% to 3% share. And this in itself presented some massive opportunity. The second point, this brand over-indexes a lot amongst legal drinking age to 24, 25 consumers. So it's an up-and-coming brand amongst the young consumers, legal drinking age consumers. And this is also very important, because it shows that the brand has a headroom that is very big outside of the core states, but also has a profile of consumers that can carry the brand for the very long term. And it's very well distributed when you go down older than that because the platforms that the brand activates are very interesting platforms, outdoor, lifestyle and continues to strength with this consumer cohort, on these consumer occasions and around these platforms. And we continue to see very strong growth in both off-trade, but also in the old trade. So consistent growth, consistent shelf gains, consistent debt gains and the brand is just like building from strength-to-strength. And as I said before, we continue to invest on this very, very good brand. And then changing from beer to the spirits-based ready-to-drink propositions. As I said, we have just 1.8% share in the spirits industry, but these two brands combined and represented more than one-third of the growth. So they are punching well above their weight so far. Production, of course, there is some small differences between the beer production that we do for ready-to-drink to then ready-to-drink spirits, but we have like a very good installed capacity to do that. Formulations are superior on our products, and this is what consumers are saying, and that's why the pool is very strong for those brands. They are growing more rate of sales today than distribution, but the distribution opportunity is massive, because we are still in very small distribution selected states. And when you look, for example, just to give one point, you go to California and Cutwater has a massive 40-plus percent market share there, but we are expanding California, West to East. And when you think about neutral, neutral in some states in the Southeast has like 20-plus share of ready-to-drink seltzers, but then we are expanding from the Southeast to the center to the west. So there is huge headroom for growth for both brands. They are very healthy with consumers, distribution gaps today are massive and production is not an issue. So we're going to continue to deliver, while the brands grow in a health path, which is rate of sales growing ahead of distribution. Thank you. Mitch Collett: Great color. Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Chris Pitcher with Redburn Atlantic. Please proceed with your questions. Chris Pitcher: Hi, thanks very much for the questions. Apologies, I missed a bit of the call, but I have two questions for me. I mean, firstly, on China, again, looking at the impact that the volumes has had on EBITDA. How flexible are you in terms of your media investment there? Are you able to course correct quite quickly and redeploy investment from China elsewhere in the region, which helped soften some of that negative operating leverage that would have been expected? And then secondly, could you give us a bit more detail on the Bs rollout in some of those markets where you don't have the big market shares that you do in Latin America, how well it's being received by retailers in Europe or the U.S.? Thanks very much. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Chris. So two interesting questions, and I'll take the China one first in twofold. So I think that the main message in China, as I said before is that long-term, we see fundamental things for the industry continues to be very good. So premiumization is in place. Our brands have very strong power and consumer demands and our route to market remains very healthy, which is very important for us. That's why I mentioned that our STRs are moving ahead of the STW because we want to keep fresh beer. We want to be as we always are with very healthy inventories in China. So if you look at the second message might be we are controlling what we can control, right? Which means investing on our brands for the long-term, having financial discipline costs, reallocating investments to the right brands, right regions, and that includes outside of China, which is a very interesting part of your question. And when you look at South Korea, for example, we are gaining share, having strong top-line, very strong bottom line is a more developed market where we are innovating a lot, leading the industry there and having very good results, and that is also true in India, where the industry is growing health, it has a lot of headroom to grow, we have an incredible performance in the premium segment, very strong brands with Budweiser and Corona and they continue to support and invest in these brands. Of course, the size of India versus China today when China industry doesn't come that is impossible to compensate within APAC. But again, long-term, it remains very solid. So making the comment on BEES there. So BEES today has a massive reach in China. It makes our roll to market even stronger. It give us visibility that most of companies do not have in China today, because of the multiple years. And just to give you a reference, we have over 300 cities that operate with this in China today. And over 70% of our total revenues, they come through this. So very massive implementation there, a very good view of that. And the second point, we always talk about beers being important for us, because it makes our business better. And this is true across any markets where we have direct distribution or even where we have indirect distribution such as U.S., Europe, China. And of course, when you have indirect distribution, the pace of implementation is lower than when you have direct distribution. But when you think about the second leg of this, which is very exciting, I mentioned during the call that our marketplace in this has a run rate today that's already above $2.5 billion in non-ABI products, and this is growing at a rate of over 50%. And this in itself is an incredible opportunity as we continue to gain share of wallet on what is sold for the point of sales, and there is a lot of headroom there. So big acceleration on the 3P model, meaning other companies selling two beers to the retailers, and this is a very profitable model for us that's growing and is accelerating our total GMV that goes through this. So continues to expand. It works in both areas where we have direct distribution, but also in indirect distribution in China has already a massive coverage, and we are very excited about the acceleration in marketplace that is already meaningful above $2.5 billion in GMV and growing 50%. Thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Simon Hales with Citi. Please proceed with your questions. Simon Hales: Hey, thanks. Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. So just a couple for me then. Firstly, sorry to come back again to the comments around the share buyback program. But I just want to understand Fernando, does the planned $2 billion buyback as it stands, include any capacity to potentially buy back stock from Altria if they were to choose to place again? Or would any participation in a further placing come on top of that £2 billion buyback. And then the second question, I wonder, maybe Michel, could you talk a little bit more about what you're seeing from a pricing and a competitive environment standpoint in Brazil at the moment? What you've seen in Q3 and perhaps more importantly, are we seeing any signs at all of easing price pressures, particularly from Metropolis as we head into the back end of the year? Fernando Tennenbaum: Simon, Fernando here. So on your first question, I cannot speak to Altria's intention. So -- and we don't know what their intentions are, what they plan to do. We will continue to be execute our capital allocation and the whole framework, as I said is to maximize value for our shareholders and we remain very disciplined with our capital allocation priorities. But having said all that, and I repeated more than once that we have other flexibility given where we are in leverage. But of course, nothing else to share yet. Michel Doukeris: And talking about Brazil. Let me start by coming back to the quarter. So solid quarter. EBITDA grew double-digit, margin expansion and, of course, the margin expansions of product of a top line health net revenues per to liter coming from both price and premiumization and discipline on cost management. If you step back then and you look at the industry, the industry is health is growing and continues to premiumize. So the structure of the industry looks very good. If you look at the share of throat in Brazil, is at historic levels. Brazil gained in share of throat over the last few years, and it's very, very healthy because it's not only gaining share of throat, but is also premiumizing. Talking about the competitive environment, I always repeat that Brazil is a very competitive market and is being competitive forever. Competition though today is in two very specific areas. And I think that you are referring more to the low end of the market where we under index and our competitors as a consequence over index. So we see a lot of faces there and share exchange among the competitors on the low end of the value segment. And the second part where there is a lot of competition today in the market is on the premium and our brands are competing very well there. We are gaining share in the premium side of the segment, very healthy growth with Budweiser, more in the Core plus side, very healthy growth for Spartan and original on the premium and Corona in the Super Premium is having like an incredible year in Brazil. The brand is performing very well, has a lot of headroom for growth and is gaining across all cohorts of consumers, and we know how strong the brand is. So once you put production in place, once we normalize the supply, so the brand has a lot of headroom to continue to gain share on the Super Premium while our brands on the premium are doing very well. And when you get this very strong portfolio of physical brands as I call, plus the superior digital products that we have in Brazil with that and this, then our revenue management capabilities come to play in a very strong fashion. So our prices in Brazil are healthy, and this is not being a constraint for us to grow volumes and continue to have healthy market shares in Brazil. So competition on the bottom, where competitors are trading share, competition on the top, we are gaining share, and we have a lot of momentum with our portfolio, especially with Corona, Spartan and Budweiser. Thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Andrea Pistacchi with Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions. Andrea Pistacchi: Yes, so thank you. I also have two, please. The first one is a general one on SG&A. So probably for Fernando. So besides in the U.S. where your SG&A is down this year. Also in other regions, your SG&A has grown at a pretty modest level this year completely below the levels of recent years. Are there any specific factors behind this, like a more conscious cost control effort across the group this year or efficiencies in any specific functional areas or I don't know, distribution costs are increasing less because most of the upfront investments for these and B2C is in the base now. Then the second question is on the U.S. Just going back to the recent share gains this year on the portfolio rebalancing Michel, do you feel there was a portfolio rebalancing that you had much discussed. Do you think the portfolio is now at a point or close to the point where you can continue to hold or even grow slightly going forward, even once you've lapped the easy comps next year. Fernando Tennenbaum: Andrea, Fernando here. So before going to the specifics on SG&A, I'd probably would step back and look at our strategy. So Pillar 3 of our strategy is to optimize our business. And we've been doing a very strong effort to make sure that whatever money we're spending in the business is the desired return. So it's not about saving money, but it is about driving efficiency to get better returns. And this cuts across SG&A. And then you can see across all regions, but this also cut across CapEx, for example, you can look at our outlook for this year, the $4 million to $4.5 million is lower than the outlook we had the year before. And it's lower than the CapEx we spent two years before. So I think we are doing a lot of efforts on that. Then, of course, with new technologies on the digital, this -- you can always drive more efficiency on the business. I think this definitely helps on that. But of course, there are other things on the back office artificial intelligence and all the other things that we can do. So for me, more than any specific initiative, it's a mindset and I wouldn't point any specific silver bullet. Of course, you can point in the U.S. In the U.S., you have some kind of comps from previous years like wholesale incentives that we don't have anymore. That can explain a little bit of that. But the vast majority is really the mindset and look from incremental opportunities rather than kind of any silver bullet or any major initiative. Michel Doukeris: Okay. So on the second part of your question, Andrea, as I said before, we continue to make progress on this strategy in the U.S. We have a massive business in the Mainstream segment and having these brands to stabilize and even grow like Busch Light is an important part of the job. And then we need to continue to develop our brands in the segments of the industry where there is more growth. As of today, we have close to 45% of our portfolio above Core segment. And this above part is growing, which is important, and we will continue to invest to drive growth there. The brands that we have in these segments that are contributing a lot are gaining scale. So think about Michelob ULTRA that continues to grow and as the brand gets bigger, we continue to have growth that sits from a bigger base. So that's a very important component. We see -- what's very interesting as well, very good momentum in the on-premise. As I said before, Busch Light is gaining a lot of momentum in on-premise. We have Michelob ULTRA accelerating its momentum in the on-premise. Today, it's growing faster in the on-premise than it is in the off-premise brands such as NUTRL, they have like a massive way for us in the on-premise, which is very interesting as well. As I said, the brand is under distributed nationally. It's under distributed in the off-premise but is growing faster than average on their on premise. And the up and coming brands such as Corona, they also disproportionately over index in their on-premise which is a very good indication of the potential of the brand for the off-premise. So we remain laser-focused on executing our strategy. One very important components of our strategy in the U.S. is rebalance the portfolio. Today, 45% of our portfolio is above core and growing, and we have the mainstream business that we need to get brands to stabilize and grow. We have today Busch Light, top 3 growth in the U.S., and we continue to invest on the other brands to get down to the right place. So thanks for the question. Andrea Pistacchi: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our final questions will come from the line of Celine Pannuti with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your questions. Celine Pannuti: Good morning, good afternoon. My question, in fact, is one question and maybe Fernando to come back on your point about the opportunity for margin upside in the short and midterm. And clearly, you did well year-to-date. I wanted to -- if you could give me two specific points. First of all, in terms of the operational deleverage that you've seen from volume impact this year. Could you try -- could you help us quantify what has been the headwind in the nine months? And as we look into next year, thinking about what you said in a normalized environment, in terms of cost inflation. Can you specifically help us understand your ability to price, we discuss China mix, and we discuss as well Brazil. Is there other any regions where you feel that things may be tough as you look into next year? And if you could as well remind me how big premiumization is in your portfolio and what has been the performance? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Celine. So a lot of questions into one. So let me start kind of -- on your first piece, like volume deleverage margins, what is normalized means, I think there are a bunch of things. Of course, more volume helps, but we have a meaningful scale and even for scale some small swings on volumes, you can optimize your network, optimize our distribution kind of you can do with that. If there is a massive volume one way or another, that's a different question, but we think the range that we are talking about. Definitely, we can optimize within that. What I mean by normalizing costs, if you remember, 2001, 2002 -- 2021, 2022 and 2023, the costs, they grew way ahead of inflation. They go -- it's something that we've never seen before. when I need a more normal year, you mean that you should have some cost pressures, but not anything that we cannot deal with. Not anything that is massively different than inflation, so similar to inflation. And then again, using current numbers, we don't have the full cost for next year locket. But with that and if your normal pricing dynamics, you definitely can continue to grow your business. You continue to find the opportunities to be more efficient in that. So that's what I mean by normalizing. Okay? And on your second part of the question, it's more on the pricing side, I'm going to move to Michel. Michel Doukeris: Hi, good morning. Let me start answering the question in a way that I think is helpful to get the full picture. We are always playing the long-term gain. And what do I mean by that? So we continue to invest on our brands. And make these investments in a very efficient way. I think that this complements the SG&A question that we had before because as we leverage all these mega brands portfolio, and we combine this with the mega platforms and big activation programs that we have, we can build a lot of efficiencies into the system while continue to reach more in a more meaningful way our consumers. And because of that, the brand power of our brands globally continues to grow. So the preference for our brands globally is growing and achieve very high levels during the quarter three, and as we continue to play this long-term game, we believe that we should continue to commence prices on our products in line with inflation and in line with our ability to price for the long-term. And because of that, there were some normal shifts in some markets has implemented our price actions during this quarter, while our market share continues to be healthy on an annualized basis. So prices, long-term inflation, net revenue will be a combination of this price with the premiumization and we still have less than 40% of our volumes today in the above Core segments. So there is a lot of headroom to continue to premiumize. And of course, as the mega brands grow ahead of the entire portfolio, this also drives a lot of efficiencies, Efficiencies in the sales and marketing, efficiencies on the production costs that will yield better margins for us. So play the long-term game. Brands are very health and health brands should command premium price as we have premium price and efficiencies on our marketing activations behind the mega brands portfolio, which should drive margins up. So it's a long-term game. We are executing our strategy, and we are encouraged by the outcomes because we see all components coming together very well. So thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you. So thank you for all your time today. Thank you for the ongoing partnership and support for our business. Stay safe and well and talk soon. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to AB InBev's Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Centers page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see Risk Factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 11th of March 2024. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris : Thank you and welcome everyone to our second quarter 2024 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our second quarter operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we have made in executing our strategic priorities. After that, we'll be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with our operating performance and the key highlights for the quarter. We are encouraged by the continued global momentum of our business and our performance in the first half of the year. Our megabrands continue to lead our growth this quarter and drove market share gains in the majority of our markets in the first half of the year. This marketplace continues to expand, delivering $530 million in gross merchandising value of non-ABI products, a 55% increase versus last year. By increasing our total addressable market, this marketplace is driving incremental profitable revenue streams for our business and we are just getting started on the potential opportunities for growth. EBITDA increased by 10.2% with margin expansion in all five operating regions. As we continue to optimize our business, underlying dollar EPS grew by 25%. We remain focused on the execution of our strategy, leveraging our unique opportunities this summer to activate the category. Turning to Slide six, you can see that total revenue grew by 2.7% this quarter, with revenue per hectoliter increasing by 3.6%. Volume growth in our Middle Americas, South America, Europe and Africa regions was primarily offset by performance in Argentina and China, resulting in an overall volume decline of 0.8%. Underlying EPS was $0.09, a 25% increase versus last year. Net leveraged improved year-over-year to 3.42 times. As we noted at our full year '23 results for 2024, the definition of organic growth in Argentina has been amended to cap the price growth to a maximum of 26.8% year-over-year. Our global momentum continued this quarter with revenue growth in more than 65% of our markets. Bottom line increases in four of our five operating regions and margin expansion in all five regions. Our scale and diverse geographic footprint has been driving consistent results and has us well placed to deliver superior long-term value creation. Now, I'll take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the quarter from our key regions, starting with North America. In the U.S., the beer industry remained resilient, gaining share of total alcohol by value in the off-premise. Our beer market share was flattish as we cycled a challenge comparable in April, while we gained volume share of the industry in May and June. Our improved market share trend, ongoing premiumization and productivity initiatives drove EBITDA growth of 17.5% with a margin improvement of approximately 500 bps. The rebalancing of our portfolio for growth continued with 45% of our revenues now coming from our above core beer and beyond beer portfolio. Now, moving to Middle Americas. In Mexico, we outperformed the industry with our volumes growing by mid-single digits driven by the continued strong performance of our core portfolio. We grew revenue by mid-single digits and EBITDA by double digits with margin expansion. In Colombia, our business delivered double digit top and bottom line growth with margin expansion. Volumes grew by low single digits to reach a new record high for the quarter with our portfolio continuing to gain share of total alcohol. Our premium and super premium brands led our performance delivering high 20s volume growth. In South America, our business in Brazil delivered high single digit top line and double digit bottom line growth with margin expansion of 469 basis points. Volumes increased by 4.1% to reach a new record high for the second quarter. Our performance was led by our premium and super premium brands which delivered volume growth in the low teens. Now, let's talk about EMEA. In Europe, we grew bottom line by high single digits with further margin recovery. Volumes grew by low single digits outperforming the industry according to our estimates. Our portfolio continues to premiumize with our premium and super premium portfolio now making up approximately 57% of our revenue. In South Africa, we again delivered record high second quarter volumes, double digit top and bottom line growth with margin expansion. Volumes increased by mid-single digits continue to outperform the industry in both beer and total alcohol. Our performance was driven by our above core beer brands which grew volumes by double digits led by Corona and Stellar Artois. In APAC, in China, our performance was impacted by a soft industry which cycled channel reopening in the second quarter of last year and adverse weather in key regions of our footprint. As a result, revenue declined by 15.2% this quarter. While the industry has had a challenging start to the year, we continue to invest behind our strategy, focused on premiumization, geographic expansion and digital transformation. We remain confident that we are well positioned to capture the future growth opportunities, given the consumer demand for our premium and super premium brands and our unwavering commitment to invest for the long term. Now let's discuss our strategic pillars. Let's start with pillar one of our strategy, lead and grow the category. We continue to invest in our megabrands, mega platforms and brand building capabilities. In the first half of the year, we invested approximately $3.5 billion in sales and marketing and have averaged more than $7 billion on an annualized basis over the last five years. Our marketing effectiveness and creativity were recognized by being named the most effective marketer in the world and being the most awarded beverage company at Cannes. These consistent investments in our brands are reinforcing the strength of our portfolio. According to Kantar BrandZ, we own eight of the top 10 most valuable beer brands in the world, with Corona the number one and Budweiser the number two. I would like to express my appreciation to our consumers, thank our partners and congratulate our teams for these remarkable achievements. This focused portfolio of megabrands, which are the top three to five brands in each market, make up the majority of our volume to-date and are expected to drive our growth going forward. While the overall performance of our above core portfolio was constrained by performance in China, our megabrands continue to lead our growth this quarter, increasing net revenue by 3.3% led by Corona, which grew revenue by 5.6% outside of Mexico. Through the consistent execution of our replicable growth drivers and our five category expansion levers, we are leading and growing the category by offering superior corporate positions, developing new consumption occasions and expanding our premium and beyond beer portfolios. Now let's turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. These continue to expand usage and reach, capturing approximately $11.7 billion in gross merchandising value, a 20% increase year-over-year and reaching 3.8 million monthly active users. Customer satisfaction improved with our net promoter score improving to plus 64. This marketplace continues to accelerate, generating 8.3 million orders of non-ABI products and delivering $530 million in GMV this quarter, an increase of 55% versus last year. Now let's talk about our direct relationship with our consumers. Through our digital direct-to-consumer platforms, we generated approximately 19 million unique orders and 10% revenue growth this quarter. That's 19 million data points to generate deep consumer insights, develop new consumption occasions and drive incremental revenue for our business. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando, to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimize our business. Fernando, over to you. Fernando Tennenbaum : Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon everyone. First, let me share how we have progressed on some of our 2025 sustainability goals in the first half of 2024. In climate action, we reduced Scopes 1 and 2 emissions per hectoliter of production by 4% year-over-year. In water stewardship, our water use efficiency ratio improved to 2.5 hectoliters per hectoliter versus 2.54 in the first half of 2023, progressing towards our ambition to reach 2.5 on an annualized basis by 2025. Moving to our financial performance, our EBITDA margin improved by 236 basis points this quarter, with margin expansion in all five of our operating regions. Our leadership advantages, discipline revenue management, continued premiumization and efficient operating model create an opportunity for further margin expansion over time. As we continue to focus on optimizing our business, in the first six months of this year, we improved our free cash flow versus the first half of last year by $1.4 billion through driving revenue growth and margin expansion, reducing our net finance costs to the leveraging, optimizing our net working capital through more efficient inventory management, and improving the efficiency of our CapEx through discipline resource allocation. With improved free cash flow generation, we made progress on our deleveraging journey through both net debt reduction and dollar EBITDA growth. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio reached 3.42 times, an improvement from 3.7 times year-over-year, even with an increased dividend and completion of our $1 billion share buyback program. As you can see on the next page, in the first half of the year, we continue to actively manage our bond portfolio. Our debt maturity remained well distributed, with no relevant medium-term refinancing needs. To-date, we have approximately $3 billion worth of bonds maturing through 2026, a weighted average maturity of 14 years and no financial covenants. 99% of our bonds have a fixed rate, insulated from interest rate volatility and inflation. And now, let me take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS this quarter. We delivered EPS of $0.90 per share, a 25% increase versus last year. Nominal EBITDA growth accounted for a $0.21 per share increase. Gross debt reduction, combined with proactive cash flow management, resulted in lower net interest expenses, which contributed a $0.03 per share increase. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments before we start our Q&A session. Michel? Michel Doukeris : Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap on the quarter and look ahead at the unique opportunities that our megabrands have to activate the category in the second half. We continue to make progress in executing across each of our three strategic pillars. Driven by the continued momentum of our megabrands, we delivered revenue growth in 65% of our markets. We progressed our digital transformation, generating approximately $11.7 billion of GMV through BEES, with $530 million in GMV of third-party products through BEES marketplace. EBITDA grew by 10.2%, with 236 basis points of margin expansion. As we continue to optimize our business, underlying EPS increased by 25% in the second quarter, and free cash flow improved by $1.4 billion versus the first half of 2023. Looking ahead to the rest of the year, we are uniquely positioned to activate the category. The combination of our megabrands with key global platforms that consumers love and that bring people together is a powerful opportunity to lead and grow the category. From the Olympics to NFL and UFC, we will be focused on doing what we do best, connecting with our consumers, and bringing to life our purpose of creating a future with more cheers. We have a resiliency strategy, which like beer, works for all occasions. The beer category is large and growing, and our unique global leadership advantage, implementation of our replicable growth toolkits, and our superior profitability position us well to take advantage of the opportunities ahead of us and to generate value for our stakeholders. With that, I'll hand it back to the operator for the Q&A. Operator: Our first question is coming from Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question. Edward Mundy : Afternoon, Michel. Afternoon, Fernando. I've got one question, one follow-up. The first is for Fernando, it's very encouraging to see the sequential margin improvement coming through this quarter. Does this give you confidence that margin recovery is not just a 2024 one-off phenomenon but something that can sustainably come over the next coming years? And if this is the case, do you think the drivers are more at the gross margin level or at the SG&A level? That's the first question. The follow-up, perhaps for Michel, you showed us in Mexico the importance of BEES in improving execution and consistency of delivery. I'd love to understand if you didn't have BEES, what are the two or three things from an execution standpoint on the core beer business that you wouldn't be able to do? What would you really miss if you didn't have BEES? Fernando Tennenbaum: Hello, Ed. Fernando here. Thanks for your question. So you pointed very well that in Q2, our margin improved by 236 basis points and improved in five out of our five operating regions. And if you remember, already in Q1, we have a margin expanding. Our margin expanded by like 90 basis points, but it was in four of our five operating regions. So definitely in Q2, an improvement on that. We don't provide any specific outlook or guidance on margins, but we've been saying over and over again that the EBITDA margin contraction that we've seen over the last several years was driven by variable cost escalations, and it's mostly explained by transactional effects and commodity prices, the very high commodity prices that went way above CPI in most of our markets. And we said also several times that none of these headwinds are structural, and the fundamental drivers of our industry leading margins, they remain intact. We have our iconic megabrands, we have a unique global footprint, we have meaningful leadership positions, we have a very efficient operating model, and we have a financial discipline and ownership culture. We continue to control what we can control, but maybe to add something to your question, if you look historically, you see that our SG&A, if anything, is being flattish improving as a percentage of net revenues, and all the margin contraction we've been seeing over the last few years was at the gross profit level. We continue to work, we continue to work in SG&A as well, but probably if you look going forward, you should be looking at more changes in the gross profit level than kind of from the SG&A, which is similar to historical behavior. Michel? Michel Doukeris : Hi Ed, good afternoon. Maybe just taking the first question opportunity instead of good morning, good afternoon to everybody, say cheers to everybody, because today is International Beer Day, so depending on your time zone, please remember to drink one at the end of the day, so cheers. And addressing your question on this, of course I prefer to talk much more about what we are doing, since we have this, but it's an intriguing question on things that perhaps would not happen if we would not have this operating system today. So this is a product that our customers use, but for us it's a kind of operating system. And maybe very quickly, I think that one, we are today much better at communicating with our points of sales and measuring and EPS, like the satisfaction with our service, because we can do this online every week and the customer directly inputs their satisfaction on the system, we consolidate this at global level. Today 3.8 million customers are connected on this and we know very well how satisfied they are with our service. So direct communication and a very good feedback loop, so they can give feedback for us all the time. I also think that the second important development is our ability to personalize sales proposals that are both, like they are individual sales propositions for our customers one-to-one, but they also benefit from the massive amount of data that we have, so we can group customers by geography, by size, by their profile, their proximity to sports events, the regions where they are and personalize the sales proposal for us. You know that today 75% of the orders are orders generated by machine learning, so neither us nor the customer is creating the order, the customer is just accepting the sales proposal that he receives in a very efficient way, very productive way. And maybe the last, just to give three, I think that we've been optimizing our promotional activities at a very large scale with the ability to be all-to-all-to-see, so we go online, offline to consumer when we gather the data of our direct-to-consumer platforms, these, our brands, and we activate the campaigns in an integrated way to the box, to the consumers, and using approachment [ph] or ring fencing areas in which we can get a much more efficient way to spend our dollars and either create more sales or having a better revenue management, like three shots very quickly, communication with the box, personalization of the sales proposal, and optimization of our campaigns. Thank you for the question. Edward Mundy: Very good, thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question. Rob Ottenstein : Great. So, Michel, Fernando, cheers. Nice quarter. Wondering if you could go into a bit more detail on the U.S. business, maybe starting with how the U.S. beer market developed throughout the year, through Q2 into July maybe, then as that's all happening, what progress you've made in rebalancing your portfolio, any goals along those lines for the second half of the year, and then, lastly, as you're doing all this, how have you adjusted your cost base and your investment priorities? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Robert. Michelle here. Thanks for the question. Good morning. Thank you for waking up very early there to be with us. So, I think that the industry, to start with the first part of your question in the U.S., remains very resilient. In the quarter two, we saw, despite of the overall weather impact in alcoholic beverages and beverages in total, beer performed well ahead of the competitors in terms of wine and spirits, so gaining share of growth in the off-trade, in the data that we saw on Cercana, but as you see the other companies releasing results as well, it's clear that beer is a little bit ahead of the other propositions. When we think about rebalancing our portfolio is where we continue to invest to the long term, so very clear direction, and we saw that our portfolio above core continues to grow, so it takes like close to 2% more revenues, around 45.5% this quarter, and we continue to grow brands such as Michelob ULTRA, Kona, Stella, but also our beyond beer propositions, such as Nutrl and Cutwater. When you combine the two, we are now 1.5% of the spirits industry, but we delivered close to 20% of all the growth that happened in the spirits in the half one of the year, according to the data in Cercana. And I think that we are, we've shared in the quarter's table, and you have the public data, so April was still below last year, but growing positive in May and June. We got Michelob ULTRA, we got Busch Light, both close to all-time high share on the three months and closing the quarter amongst the top three brands in growth and both reaching all-time high share in market share. And we continue to invest on these mega platforms in which we can get very large execution together with our wholesalers. That was true when we think about Copa America that happened more at the beginning of the quarter and now with the Team USA and Michelob ULTRA in the U.S., very strong execution which we expect to see results continue to build for the brand. As you then go from the end of the quarter that was tough June in terms of weather to July, you start seeing some improvements. The first weeks of July were much better and I think that you have of course the impact of the fourth of July but also you see that the weather changed very quickly in July in the U.S. and we've been seeing good sales, good STRs coming out of that and good turnover in the box so sales to consumer also doing well. In terms of productivity, this is a never-ending game, so we are happy so far with what we've been doing but much more to be done there. Thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with UBS. Please proceed with your question. Sanjeet Aujla : Hi Michel, Fernando, a couple from me please. Firstly, on China, can you just give us a sense of how you're thinking about the outlook there particularly going into Q3? I think you start to lap some of the industry weakness so I'd love to gauge your confidence levels on getting back to volume growth in China in the back half of the year and then just picking up again on the U.S. productivity measures you referenced there, there's still much more to be done Michel. Is a sort of 9% SG&A decline we saw in Q2 a good way to think about the back half of the year there? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi Sanjeet, thanks for the question. I think that on China first, we have discussed this when we were together last time and if you look at last year was really like a tale of two stories in China. The first half of the year a lot of excitement about the reopening, one would say almost like the euphoria that we saw in many countries after COVID and the first half of the year was strong and the second half of the year was less exciting, let's say in a word, more concerning in terms of the overall economy and consumer sentiment. So you're right when you say that it looks like easier comps in the half two. I think that what we saw this year, first half was a kind of a continuation of the second half of last year with a more normal CNY [ph] at the beginning of February but then some drop and many categories not only beer feeling this economic pressure after CNY. I think that the second half of this year will follow a little bit this logic which is easier comps. I don't think that much better outcomes but easier comps definitely and I think that we will need to have more data and see more on the second half of the year to know when volumes in the industry will start to turn in China and then have a more normal comp, let's say for next year. While on our side, focusing on what we control, we continue to invest to the long term. Our brands are very healthy, consumer demand for premium, super premium brands remain a strong driver for the long term and we are committed to continue to operate and invest with the eyes on the long term in China. Talking about the U.S. productivity, when I talk about productivity, I talk in general. Of course there is always more to do and we have this DNA of optimization, continuous improvement in our operations and in the U.S. because of the disruption last year. Of course we are doing many things at the same time, this year more normal, so we are focused on continuing to get the productivity in place and optimize our business without many more guidance for the long term because we don't give any specific guidance by market in terms of overheads or SG&A. Sanjeet Aujla: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Olivier Nicolai with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question. Olivier Nicolai : Good afternoon Michel, Fernando. Two questions please. I mean actually one question first on marketing. You showed in the slide that marketing spend is roughly $7.2 billion. It's been constant for the last five years but obviously down as a percentage of sales. Now you did flag the effectiveness of your marketing and we can see that in terms of your market share gain in many regions but as you push premium more going forward, should we expect marketing spend as a percentage of sales to essentially to grow ahead of net sales? So to go back up to the previous years which was more around 14%. And then just a follow-up on the previous questions about margins. How concerned should we be about the weakening of the Brazilian real and the Mexican peso and the potential negative transactional effects which could impact your payment next year? And is there a way for you to mitigate that? Thank you. Cheers. Michel Doukeris: Cheers. Thank you Olivier. I'll take the first one maybe Fernando take the second. I think that in terms of marketing we discussed this a couple of times before and we've been consistently investing around $7 billion in sales and marketing activities and we of course don't lack resources and its high priority on our capital allocation invest for the long term and invest for organic growth. I always say that many metrics that we use to check the business for example sales and marketing as percentage of net revenue they are good metrics. They cannot dictate what we do and how we allocate resources. So we are happy one with the amount of resources we have, two we don't lack resources, three we've been using this in a very effective way as you described growing revenues in 65% of our markets, market share gains in the majority of the markets and creativity boosting the quality of the investments but also as I many times talked about before the usage of digital both BEES for TaDa and Ze Delivery they are helping us to increase the effectiveness of our marketing. When we combine this with the ability to have our megabrands so a portfolio that we've been very selective in invest behind because of their scale and how effective this portfolio is with the mega platforms that we have globally. Just think about Copa America that was activated throughout Americas in most of our key markets and now Olympics globally activated in 42 countries. This gives us leverage and scale that makes our investment more effective. So happy with the amount of investment, no lack of resources and always working to be more effective and more productive by using our megabrands, using our technology platforms and using our mega platforms as a way to get more scale on our activations. I'll hand it over to Fernando to talk more about the margins now. Thank you for the question. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hello Olivier, thanks for your question. We don't tend to provide any specific outlook on costs. What we can say is that over the last few years it's been quite volatile. We had several years which cost was effect and commodities was a big headwind. Probably for 2024 it's more of a tailwind and we talked about it. When you look at 2025 we are still in the process of putting the hedges in places. But you know that kind of the recent devaluation took place in June. So it's going to have different impacts. We are still building the positions. It's too early to say. But if you look at markets today, I think it looks more like an ordinary year rather than a kind of massive swings like we had in the past. But again, too early to say. I think we need to wait a little bit more and see how things evolve. Olivier Nicolai: Thank you very much. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Andrea Pistacchi with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question. Andrea Pistacchi: Yes. Hi, Michel. Fernando, thanks for the question. Two, please, including the follow up. So the first one is about how you're thinking about the outlook. You're confirming your 4% to 8% EBITDA guidance. You've delivered very close to 8% in the first half. The comparison base will be easier in the second half. And there's clearly good momentum in large parts of the business. So what do you see as the main areas of uncertainty or risks in the business that would hold you back from a continued good performance in the second half? And then the follow up is on, we haven't talked about Brazil yet, the environment there. There's been a lot of discussion about Petropolis coming back, the pricing environment. Yet you've had another very solid quarter on volume. Your pricing improved too. So can you maybe give some perspective on what you're seeing in Brazil via the health of the consumer, whether you're actually seeing a more competitive pricing environment or not, and how you're responding, adapting to that Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Andrea. Fernando here. Let me take the first question on outlook. It's always helpful to remember the context to which we provided our outlook. When we had our Investor Day in 2021, it was important for us as we're moving from an inorganic strategy to an organic strategy, it was important to provide some kind of certainty that we'll be able to grow organically on a consistent basis at 4% to 8%. And this would create value despite the kind of investments that you have to do to lead and grow the beer category, to advance our digital transformation. So it was an important kind of direction so we can provide investors and analysts. We don't like to be updating and adjusting this number on a quarter by quarter. I think this is more of a medium term outlook. Every quarter is going to be different. Some quarters are going to be easier. Some quarters are going to be more challenging. We can say that we are confident in the ability of the business to deliver this 4% to 8% long term, but don't expect us to be kind of adjusting the outlook every quarter or to be commenting on what we need to take on the top of the quarter, on the bottom of the quarter. I don't think this is productive. Michel Doukeris: Andrea, Michel here. I'll take the second question on Brazil. Every time that I talk about Brazil, I always try to bring a little bit of the perspective. So if you allow me to step back for a second, Brazil is forever a very competitive market. And this market competition has been going on for many, many years. And when you think with this perspective of time, I see today the industry in Brazil is structurally better. So there is more competition on the premium core plus side of the industry with players going on the right place in terms of investment on their brands. I think that, of course, when you are after consumers, it's all about your value proposition to consumers and your ability to sustain this value proposition over time. The structure of the market being better, you look at our portfolio today in Brazil, it's very strong, is as good as never before, where we have this powerful combination of physical brands. So very good brands from Brahma, Spaten, Stellar Artois, Budweiser, Corona in the super premium, but also the digital brands with BEES and Ze Delivery, which has a massive coverage and penetration in Brazil and allows us to have very good consumer insights and being very quickly in adjusting the way we go with our go to market and route to consumer in Brazil. And at the end of the day, when you look at this portfolio we have today in Brazil, we are less exposed to the value segment, where I think that your question is about, and you see more activity, even though if you look at the relative price by segment and across the segments, there is no meaningful change in the last months and quarters in Brazil. So the relative price by segment and within the segments remains somehow the same, more competition on the bottom end, where we have less exposure. And while we have a very strong momentum gaining share on the premium, super premium and growing our business with the strong value proposition we have for consumers in the overall market. Andrea Pistacchi: Thank you. Very clear on both. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Chris Pitcher with Redburn. Please proceed with your question. Chris Pitcher: Thank you very much, everyone. A question on South Africa, where in the beer market you appear to have had a very strong quarter. Can you talk about how much you've invested in your commercial execution there in terms of salespeople and marketing, particularly at the premium end, where the portfolio really seems to be working? Thanks so much. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Chris. Thanks for the question. And maybe if we just take this a little bit up on the answer first. We have a great portfolio in South Africa, and we continue to see a very strong consumer demand for our brand being on the mainstream, on the premium segment and on the beyond beer segment. So we are growing across all segments. And we've been investing, of course, across the whole portfolio to make sure that, again, this value proposition for the consumers is being delivered across the different brands that we have from Carling, Black Label, to Stella Artois, to Corona, to Brutal Fruit, to Flying Fish. And consumers are responding because those are great brands, great liquids, and the execution that our team is putting in place on the trade is being also justifying the momentum that we have behind the business there. And we will continue to invest for the long term. It's a great market, a lot of opportunities to premiumize and gain share in the premium, to elevate and gain share in the beyond beer space, which is happening in the last few quarters. So we continue to invest for the long term there. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Lawrence Wyatt with Barclays. Please proceed with your question. Laurence Whyatt : Cheers to Michel and Fernando. Thanks very much for the question. I guess a long-term one in two parts for me. The U.S. consumer has seen quite a lot of per capita consumption, the growth of alcohol over the past few decades. But that's sort of come unstuck over the past few years, sort of since the middle of the pandemic. We've seen a decline in total beverage alcohol consumption per capita in the U.S. I'm just wondering if you think there's any structural reasons behind why that might peak or is there any reason why we shouldn't go back to that sort of gradual growth of TBA consumption per capita in the U.S. And I guess kind of linked to that, do you have any strong reasons as to why American consumers drink less alcohol per capita than some of their Western European counterparts, given the cultural similarities between the various countries in Western Europe and the U.S.? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Lawrence. Michel here. Cheers. I think that in the U.S. we saw during the pandemic a growth in the alcohol per capita and a lot through the pandemic because of different occasions at home. I think that the industry in the U.S. is growing value over the years. And if you go much longer in terms of the analysis than just like one year or two years, you see that there is different developments over time. There was a time in which beer was growing more, then growing less, then coming back to growth, then growing a little bit less, then accelerating again with the seltzers. So I think that the industry is moving in a good direction. And even if you look inside the U.S., as in many other countries or regions, you see that there are differences that are regional differences. So the U.S. is just too big for us to compare the average of the U.S. with some countries in Europe. We have some of these benchmarks, and you see some countries that are at the top of the benchmark, some countries that are more in the mid-range. I don't have a very good answer, to be honest, on why some of these countries have much higher or less consumption. But the U.S. is quite developed. We see some good premiumization in the industry. We see beer in terms of dollars consistently growing. And now in the last quarters, we see beer gaining share of value. And we see that when you combine with the RTDs, there is a very good momentum there for the brewers in terms of capturing volume and dollars in the industry. But we might come back to you, one of these days, to have a deeper conversation around European countries, Asian countries, and the differences in terms of occasion and consumption. That is a good question. Thank you. Laurence Whyatt: Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question. Mitch Collett : Thank you. Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. Hi, Sean. I know you've already talked about some of these markets, but three of your bigger markets, Brazil, Colombia, and also South Africa, achieved record volumes for a Q2 this quarter. So I just wondered, is there a common reason why those three markets are achieving new highs? And then my unrelated follow-up is you had negative revenue per hectoliter in Europe, which I think you say in the release is due to a combination of negative geographic mix and the phasing of promotional activities. Can you talk about those two components and whether you expect that pressure on revenue per hectoliter to persist? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Mitch. Good afternoon. Thank you for the question. So starting first with Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, common knowledge or common places in terms of growth and record high volumes. So we discussed this before and we shared with you. I think we have a resilient strategy, which like beer is working well in many occasions. And as we continue to execute this strategy and having our replicable toolkits being executed and perfected in the market, we aim to lead but also grow the industry. And I think that these three markets that you just mentioned are a good representation of these toolkits working and working at scale. So when you think about the megabrands, the mega platforms, the digital products, they are all present in these markets and they've been executed very well by our teams. And in the right conditions, I mean consumer confidence, consumer purchase power, economic environment, the execution of this strategy is leading to volume growth, very good revenue growth and profitability. So I think that the common line that connects all these markets, there are many other markets, because as I said, we grew revenues in 65% of our markets, is our strategy, which is solid and being executed with our toolkits across the globe by our teams. If I change gears now to Europe, I think that in Europe, we had a summer, beginning of summer, let's say quarter two, that was different this year in many senses. But one, we had weather that was colder and wetter than normal. So on top of us having the summer of sports and concentrated like phasing promotional activities during the summer, we saw also that there was 2% more volume being sold in promotions, because the overall volume of the industry was weaker in the quarter. So this impacted the net revenue. We've been growing a lot in some geographies where we have partnerships, think about Spain, Greece, we are going to market with partners, and they are growing faster than the overall European volume. And this brings a little bit of geographical mix to our net revenue. I think that as we go through the second quarter to the third quarter, we will continue to see this fast growth in these geographies, concentration of activities because we phased promotional activities to the summer of sports, and most likely a normalization towards the end of the year, because in terms of price and rate, we continue to move with inflation, was really geographical mix, weather impact on the sales volume outside of the promotional activities and phasing of promotional activities. Thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Sarah Simon with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question. Sarah Simon : Yes, morning. I have two. One is RTDs, the spirits companies say it's taking from beer. Do you think it's taking from beer? Or is it taking from spirits? And then just on U.S. gross margin, it obviously expanded a lot in the first half, even though you still had on the second quarter, sorry, even though you still had the volume pressure. Can you just give us a couple of concrete examples of what you did that drove that? Thanks. Michel Doukeris: Hi, good morning, Sarah. So on the first question, I prefer to avoid the they said we said, and I would stick with data. So when you look at data from Home Panel, from any of the sources, being Cercana, Kantar, any many different places globally, what the data says is 80%, eight zero, 80% of the volume of ready to drink sources from hard liquor and wine, and 20% from beer. So the ratio is four to one. And it's not what I say is what data says. To give you maybe one example, that's public data. If you look at the U.S., as I was saying before, we have two brands, Nutrl and Cutwater. These two brands today are 1.5% give or take share of value, share of dollars in the U.S. And these two brands combined represented 25% of the total growth for the spirits in the off trade in Cercana data. These two brands now they are ranking amongst the top 25 top 30 brands in terms of total dollars sales. And the data in the U.S. 75% of the volume sold with Nutrl and Cutwater is sourced from spirits and wine. So I'll leave it there. And again, I don't want to be into they said, we said, I prefer to stick with data. And when you think about productivity, as I said before, we first said that on the EBITDA -- and EBITDA margin last year, 30% was productivity, 70% was volume related. And of course, as we continue to work to stabilize the volume, the share is already stable. We continue to work as well as doing productivity. And this productivity comes in many different areas. But we have programs and benchmarks that we apply globally, in which we adjust our breweries, we adjust our back office, we make sure that everything is tight in terms of logistics and production. So we can be as productive as we can. And with our scale in the U.S., we continue to optimize this productivity that reflects, of course, in margin and EBITDA growth. Thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. Our final question will come from the line of Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question. Trevor Stirling : Hi, Michel and Fernando. So two questions for me, please. First for, Michel, looking at the U.S., you referenced the recovery of Bud Light, -- sorry, Busch Light and Michelob ULTRA. But when I look at the data, it looks like Bud Light is not really responding yet to the increased investment. So maybe if you can give us any color on what you think is going on with Bud Light? And the second one, probably for Fernando, as you look forward to the second half, Fernando, what are the factors you think could mean you either move lower to the lower end of guidance in terms of EBITDA growth or the high end of guidance on EBITDA growth? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Trevor. Good afternoon, Michel, taking the first part here. I think in terms of the U.S., we continue to make progress on our commercial strategy and focus on rebalancing our portfolio. And we saw this, this 45% revenue now in the quarter two above core. As you said, Michelob ULTRA, all time high market share. Very good growth, growth accelerated now during the quarter with the Copa America execution. Busch Light, very interesting proposition that is growing top three brand in terms of growth in the U.S. A lot of talk in the U.S. about your value proposition to consumers at this moment. And this is a good reminder to the strength of our portfolio. So we have brands and propositions across all segments to consumers. If you think about value, we have 65% sharing value. Busch is the largest brand, multiple times bigger than the largest competitor in the segment and is growing and performing very well. In terms of Bud Light, what we see is stabilization, all brand indicators getting better. The brand is regaining consideration. Brand continues to have very high penetration. Brand has the largest distribution and we continue to invest in the properties and activations that all consumers love. So we're going to see that most of the investment in the activities around Bud Light will be concentrated in the back end of the year with NFL. And when you think about the overall portfolio, we are gaining share in the months of May and June, which is a good signal of stabilization. We are activating very strong now in the summer with the Team USA and we have a very good amount of activations towards the end of the year, which can lead us to a strong finish on the year. Thank you. I'll hand over to Fernando so he can talk about your second question. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hello Trevor. We normally don't provide a quarter-by-quarter outlook, but as any quarters, we always have puts and takes. If you look at industry data or what is going on around the world, you can see that there is continued momentum across Africa and Latin America. We talked about it. There is some softness in some currencies that could be a translational headwind, but the markets continue to be in a good place. Consumers continue to be in a good place. So we see continued momentum, which is kind of the majority of our markets. Europe that we talked about, July, industry trends, they improved versus June, which was weather-impacted, but still weather is a key component when you compare versus 2023, so it's still a little bit short of 2023, the industry overall. In the U.S., Michel mentioned that the industry could improve dollar sales, but then again, we don't have the full data for the month. It's public data. You have available, everyone has available, we don't have for the full month. And China, we mentioned that contours are easier, but macro remains challenging. So I think we need to see how it plays. Then again, long-term, stock is intact, short-term macro is somewhat challenging. And in Argentina, which is another market that is important, inflation is improving, but consumer is still challenging. Maybe the only thing worthwhile mentioning is that from a sales and marketing perspective, given the summer of sports, probably we are investing a little bit more phasing on Q3. Shouldn't change the picture for the full year, but probably a little bit more heavier the weighting on Q3, given Olympics, Copa America and everything that is going on. So I think that the only two things to highlight, kind of a more difference would be the summer of sports, and maybe on the translational side, a little bit of a headwind on some effects. But the trends that we've been seeing since the beginning of the year, they continue, like momentum in most of our markets, I could quote Africa and Latin America, and the similar dynamics everywhere else around the world. Trevor Stirling: Super. Thank you Fernando, and thank you Michel. Operator: Thank you. This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I'll now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris, for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you all for your time today and for your ongoing partnership and support of our business. Stay safe and well. Remember to drink your beer today and celebrate the Beer Day. Cheers everyone. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ possibly materially from the anticipated results in the financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see risk factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 11th of March 2024. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to our first quarter 2024 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our first quarter operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we've made in executing our strategic priorities. After that, we'll be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with our operating performance and the key highlights for the quarter. We are encouraged by our continued momentum and results to start the year. We delivered broad-based top line and bottom line growth with market share gains and volume increases in the majority of our markets. Our mega brands led our growth. with 6.7% net revenue increase. EBITDA increased by 5.4%, in line with our medium-term growth ambition and 2024 outlook, with operational efficiencies driving margin expansion of 90 basis points this quarter. As we continue to optimize our business, underlying U.S. dollar EPS grew by 16%, driven by nominal EBITDA growth and improved net finance costs. The digital transformation of our business provides opportunities to generate additional profitability and revenue streams. This quarter, this marketplace continued to expand, delivering $465 million in gross merchandising value of non-API products, a 47% increase versus last year. While it is only the first quarter of the year, we are pleased with our start and are uniquely positioned to activate the category in 2024 through our mega brands and mega platforms. Turning to Slide 6. You can see that total revenue grew by 2.6% with revenue per hectoliter increasing by 3.3% as a result of revenue management initiatives and ongoing premiumization. Total volumes declined by 0.6% as growth in the majority of our markets was offset by our volume performance in the U.S., Argentina and China. Underlying EPS was $0.75, a 16% increase versus last year. As we noted at our full year '23 results for 2024, the definition of organic growth in Argentina has been amended to cap the price growth to a maximum of 26.8% year-over-year. Our global momentum continued this quarter. With revenue growth in more than 75% of our markets and with bottom line increases and margin expansion in 4 of our 5 operating regions. Our scale and diverse geographic footprint has us well placed to deliver superior long-term value creation. Now I'll take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the quarter from our key regions, starting with North America. In the U.S., the beer industry remains resilient with beer volumes improving sequentially through the quarter and dollar sales continue to grow versus last year. Our revenues declined by high single digits with STW volumes down by 10.1%. While our mainstream beer volumes declined, our above core beer mega brands and spirit-based ready-to-drink portfolio continued to grow. Our market share trend has continued to improve gradually from May 2023 with total market share now flat versus last year. Our portfolio is regaining momentum with growth in key brands, such as Michelob ULTRA, Busch Light, Kona, Nutrl and Cutwater. Together with our wholesaler partners, we remain laser-focused on executing our long-term strategy. Now moving to mid-Americas. In Mexico, we delivered mid-single-digit top and bottom line growth with margin expansion. Volumes grew by mid-single digits, driven by the continued strong performance of our core portfolio. In Columbia, our business delivered double-digit top line and high single-digit bottom line growth. Volumes grew by mid-single digits to reach a new record high for the first quarter with our portfolio continued to gain share of total alcohol. Our premium and super-premium brands grew volumes by more than 20%, led by Corona. In South America, our business in Brazil delivered mid-single-digit top line and double-digit bottom line growth with margin expansion of 311 basis points. Volumes increased by 4.4% to reach a new record high for the first quarter. Our performance was led by our premium and super premium brands, which delivered volume growth in the low teens. Now let's talk about EMEA. In Europe, we grew top line by high single digits and bottom line by strong double digits with margin recovery. Volumes grew by mid-single digits, outperforming the industry according to our estimates. Our portfolio continues to premiumize, led by our mega brands, which delivered double-digit revenue growth. In South Africa, we again delivered record high first quarter volumes with double-digit top and bottom line growth and margin expansion. Volumes increased by mid-single digits, continuing to outperform the industry in both beer and total alcohol. Our performance was driven by our super-premium portfolio, which grew volumes by double digits, led by Corona and Stella plant. And finally, Asia Pacific. In China, our portfolio continued to premiumize and grow bottom line despite a soft industry. While our total volumes declined by mid-single digits in line with the industry, according to our estimates, our premium portfolio remained resilient with continued volume growth led by Budweiser. Now let's discuss our strategic pillars. Let's start with Pillar 1 of our strategy, lead and grow the category. We aim to lead and grow the category with an efficient and focused portfolio of mega brands. Our mega brands are the top brands in each market that make up the majority of our volume today and are expected to drive the majority of our growth going forward. We are disproportionately allocating sales and marketing investments behind these brands to accelerate brand power, build deep consumer connections and drive efficient profitable growth. and we are seeing the results. Our mega brands are driving our growth, increasing net revenue by 6.7% in the quarter. led by Corona, which grew revenue by 15.5% outside of Mexico. Through the consistent execution of our replicable growth drivers, and our 5 category expansion levers, we are leading and growing the category by offering superior corporate propositions, developing new consumption occasions and expanding our premium and beyond beer portfolios. Now let's turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. This continued to expand usage and reach, capturing approximately USD 11 billion in gross merchandising value, a 23% increase year-over-year and reaching 3.6 million monthly active users. Customer satisfaction improved with our Net Promoter Score improving to plus 61. BEES marketplace continued to accelerate, generating 7.3 million orders of non-ABI products and delivering USD 465 million in GMV this quarter, an increase of 47% versus last year. Now let's talk about how we are strengthening our direct relationship with our consumers. Through our digital direct-to-consumer platforms, we generated approximately 18 million unique orders this quarter. That's 18 million data points to generate deep consumer insights, develop new consumption occasions and drive incremental revenue for our business. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimize our business. Fernando, over to you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. First, let me share how we have progressed on some of our 2025 sustainability goals in the first quarter. In Climate Action, we reduced Scopes 1 and 2 emissions per hectoliter of production by 6% year-over-year. We are also recognized by CDP as the 2023 supplier engagement leader for our work to drive decarbonization across our supply chain. In Water Stewardship, we continue to progress towards our 2025 goal to reach a water use efficiency ratio of 2.5 hectoliters per hectoliter achieving 2.55 this quarter. Our EBITDA margin improved by 90 basis points this quarter with margin expansion in 4 of our 5 regions. Our fundamental strengths, disciplined pricing, continued premiumization and efficient operating model creates an opportunity for further margin expansion over time. As you can see on the next page, in the first quarter, we continued to actively manage our bond portfolio. In March, we issued longer-term bonds and used part of the proceeds to reduce near- and medium-term maturity towers towards tender offer. These transactions improved our debt maturity profile while maintaining our weighted average gross debt coupon at approximately 4%. Our debt maturities remain well distributed with no relevant medium-term refinancing needs. We have approximately USD 4 billion worth of bonds maturing through 2026 and a weighted average maturity of 14 years. In addition, our debt portfolio does not have any financial covenants and it is comprised of a variety of currencies, diversifying our FX risk. 99% of our bonds have a fixed rates, insulated from interest rate volatility and inflation. And now let me take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS this quarter. We delivered EPS of USD 0.75 per share, a $0.10 per share increase versus last year. Nominal EBITDA growth accounted for a $0.12 per share increase. Gross debt reduction combined with proactive cash flow management resulted in lower net interest expenses, which contributed a $0.05 per share increase. With respect to capital allocation, we are focused on maximizing long-term value creation by dynamically balancing our priorities. We continue to invest in organic growth to support our strategy. The excess cash generated by our business is then dynamically allocated across deleveraging, selective M&A and return of capital to shareholders. While deleveraging remains a priority with additional flexibility in our capital allocation choices. This quarter, we completed our USD 1 billion share buyback program that was announced in October last year and executed an additional USD 200 million direct share buy back from Altria. We remain disciplined in our capital allocation decisions to maximize value creation. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments before we start our Q&A session. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap on the quarter and look ahead and the unique opportunities that our mega brands have to activate the category in 2024. We continue to make progress in executing across each of our 3 strategic pillars. Driven by the continued momentum of our mega brands, we delivered top line growth in 75% of our markets. We progress our digital transformation generating approximately USD 11 billion of GMV through BEES with $465 million in GMV of third-party products through BEES marketplace. EBITDA grew by 5.4%, in line with our medium-term growth ambition and outlook for 2024, with 90 basis points of margin expansion. As we continue to optimize our business, underlying EPS increased by 16% versus last year. Looking ahead to the summer and the rest of the year, we are uniquely positioned to activate the category. The combination of our mega brands with key platforms that consumers love and that bring people together is a powerful opportunity to lead and grow the category from the NBA, to Copa America, to Olympics, NFL, the UFC and music platforms like Tomorrowland and Lollapalooza. We will be focused on doing what we do best. Our brands will show up in a big way, connecting with consumers and bringing to life for purpose of creating a future with more cheers. We remain focused on the opportunities ahead of us. The beer category is large and growing, and our unique global leadership advantage, implementation of our replicable growth tool kits and our superior profitability position us well to generate value for our stakeholders. With that, I will hand it back to the operator for the Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first questions come from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Robert Ottenstein: Great start to the year. So I want to focus on the U.S. and kind of 2-part question. First is the data that we're getting shows very significant share gains on-premise for Michelob ULTRA and that when you kind of look at the way the year goes kind of by March, and you combine Michelob ULTRA, your other brands, you've recovered most of the share loss. Maybe it's about a 200 basis point gap as opposed to -- and the data that you showed us overall are off-premise kind of 460 basis points through March. So the first question is, is the data that we have roughly accurate and consistent with what you're seeing in terms of the on-premise? And then second and tied to that, what we're also seeing and particularly really accelerating in April, is incredibly strong results for Michelob ULTRA and for Busch Light, continued strong results for Nutrl and Cutwater, which then kind of when I kind of step back and think about it, kind of, obviously, a lot of pain from Bud Light, a horrible situation. But kind of going forward, it would appear to us that in a way, you have a stronger and more balanced portfolio with prospects for going forward, better growth and share gains, would you agree with that? Michel Doukeris: Michel here. Thank you for the question. Let's start with the 2 parts of the question number 1 in terms of the brands and the current data that's available data from either Circana or some other sources in their own trade. So overall, we see a strong momentum on Michelob ULTRA as you were describing. And we all know how relevant the brand is and how much the brand has been growing over the years. But moreover, we are all aware of the headroom for growth that the brand has in terms of geographies and channels and how aligned the brand is with current trends in terms of liquid profile, calories and carbs. Through the year, on our own data, we see a lot of expansion in number of POCs, TAPs and also rate of sales for Michelob ULTRA in down trade. So our own numbers, they talk to the sources that are external data that you are mentioning. And when you combine this with the off-trade data, which is also available, you can see that Ultra in the last few weeks reached an all-time high share for the brand and has momentum that you see on Circana. building over the last few weeks. So a lot to come in the year because actually, to be quite honest, this summer is going to be the strongest activation of Michelob ULTRA as we get through Olympics and then all the holidays that we're going to have during the summer, the Team USA and the partnership with the Olympics Committee in the U.S. So excited about what we have ahead of first with ULTRA. And then Busch Light, as you mentioned, similarly, when you look at the last few weeks, all-time high share for the brand as well, very good momentum, plenty of opportunities to continue to expand nationally because the volume today is very concentrated in a few regions. And the brand is also very well positioned with a lot of momentum with consumers and consumer needs as of now. You go from there. We're now not talking Kona, [ Estrella ] , brands that are firing and growing very well as well. So our entire strategy in the U.S. is about portfolio rebalance, and those are the brands that are making a huge contribution for us regaining momentum. And of course, for our portfolio to be more aligned with all trends that we have all there. When you go to ready-to-drinks, I think, we saw this before, Cutwater, Nutrl. They continue to grow strongly. We are today just 1% on this spirits industry, but we account for roughly 15% of the dollar growth. Both brands are in the top 10 growing spirits brands in the U.S. And both brands are already part of the top ranked brands in dollar sales in the U.S. Cutwater still ahead in terms of position bigger than Nutrl, but Nutrl growing triple digits and quickly moving up. And if you look as a company, as a matter of fact, quarter 1 dollar growth in spirits AB was top 3 in terms of dollar growth, as I said, 2 brands, 15% of the total dollar growth in the U.S., and this contributes, of course, to this portfolio rebalancing. So all in all, excited with the momentum behind our brands. As you mentioned, they are Michelob ULTRA, Busch Light, Nutrl, Cutwater. All very strong growth with Michelob ULTRA and Busch just hitting all-time high market share for both brands in the last 2 weeks. Thanks for the question. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Trevor Stirling: Two questions from my end. First one, I noticed that you referred to mega brands rather than global brands, Michel in the presentation. Does that reflect a change in thinking in terms of how you classify and how you apply that thinking per market? And second question on Mexico. I think you mentioned mid-single-digit volume growth slightly benefiting from the timing of Easter. Does that imply a market that's really doing very nicely low single-digit volume growth, stable share and solid price mix? Michel Doukeris: Trevor, thanks for the question, Michel here. First point, mega brands, we were together in Mexico, and we talked about our portfolio strategy and the relevance of our brands, both at the global level but also at the local markets. And as we are now reporting quarter 1. We are incorporating the discussions we had with investors and analysts in Mexico. And we thought that would be good to give you some visibility around this portfolio play and the weight of these brands globally. Those brands are like 3 to 5 brands in each market. Part of these are our global brands as well because you have very strong champions, billion-dollar brands. When you combine these mega brands, majority of our volume above 50%, but they are the spearhead of this efficient organic growth that we are pursuing. And as we invest in these brands, as we sharpen that positioning and we align these brands with the key consumer trends, they respond very well. So they are leading the growth with this 6 plus revenue growth in the quarter 1, and we will continue to update you quarter-on-quarter on the development of these brands. Similarly, we will continue to highlight the results of our global brands because they are very important brands in this context. And they are the brands that when you look in a consolidated way, they continue to lead our growth most importantly, one in this quarter in terms of performance. Corona, double-digit growth, very strong momentum across many main markets and now combined with the launching and expansion of Corona Cero, we are seeing a lot of good momentum building towards the summer. When you think about Mexico, Mexico continues to be very healthy market. We see volumes in the quarter 1 developed very well. You had this shift in terms of calendar with Easter more into the quarter 1. Nevertheless, even without considering this week of Easter, the overall market was very healthy, and the underlying demand for our brands remain very positive. So we continue to be very positive about Mexico is #2 market for us within the #1 zone in terms of growth and continues to perform very well. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Priya Ohri-Gupta with Barclays. Priya Ohri-Gupta: Congratulations on the quarter. I think first off, Fernando, I just wanted to go back to your dynamic capital allocation model. First, with regards to some of issuance and tender activity that you undertook already in this year. Is our working assumption supposed to be that sort of that action should be essentially gross debt neutral? And then following that, as we think about sort of deleveraging as remaining the priority, which you underscored in your prepared remarks, should we be expecting gross debt reduction to continue over the back half of the year given the seasonal cadence of your free cash flow and what we've seen in the last couple of years? Fernando Tennenbaum: Thanks for your question. Actually, the issuance is probably less to do with the dynamic capital allocation and more to do with managing our debt portfolio. Because as you said, it's gross debt neutral between the debt that we have maturing this year already and the $2.5 billion that we redeemed, it's kind of neutral. And then kind of as the year goes by and we continue to generate cash then the capital allocation is going to come into play. And then want to decide what is the best approach if we continue to further reduce debt, dividends or any other form. But the ongoing assumption and that assumption that we've been working from the last few years is that we should have some debt pay down every given year. So we should be continuing to work along these lines. So no change in here. Priya Ohri-Gupta: Okay. And just one follow-up on how we should think about share repurchase activity going forward now that you're prior program has been completed, and you did the incremental $200 million directly with the -- with Altria. Fernando Tennenbaum: Deleveraging still remains a priority, given how the business performs, we remain confident in our ability to develverage. When you think about capital allocations, the objective is always to maximize value creation to shareholders, and we'll be very disciplined about capital allocation this year. We don't have anything to share different than that right now. But of course, every quarter, every moment, we are looking from these dynamic lenses and we make the decisions accordingly. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Edward Mundy: I have 2, please. So on Slide 17, you have a bullet around category participation, which I think was stable last year, but it's up 40% in your markets this year and some of the increases were led by female consumers across Lat Am and Europe, which I think is a heavy grail of beer. So what are you doing differently? What are the early learnings? And do you think this could be sticky? And then second of all, on Slide 24, you grew EBITDA margin 90 bps in the first quarter, but it's still quite a bit below your peak. Could you remind us about how you get to the high watermark? Or how do you think about getting back to the high watermark for margins, in particular, as your mega brand strategy argues for the more efficient growth? Michel Doukeris: Ed, Michel here. Thanks for the question. I'll take the first part and Fernando can comment a little bit more on the margins. But all 5 levers on how we look at the category and how we think the category can be further developed are very important for us. And of course, participation is positioned as we shared with you always as the first lever because it is very important to keep an eye on participation and making sure that as we work with our brands, as we work with innovation that can be either liquids or packaged. We are always moving towards getting consumers to be in constant touch with our brands and enjoy the category across occasions that are relevant to them. And as we do that more specifically on your question, and beyond beer, smaller beer package and premium propositions such as Corona, they tend to be more co-ad and therefore, they participate in more occasions that are relevant for female consumers. And this is one of the reasons why beer continues to gain share of growth in many, many markets. So we know that as we offer more premium propositions and this can go from Corona in many markets to Leffe in Europe, and then we go to propositions such as Brutal Fruit in Africa or Cutwater in North America, we see that we gain participation with different cohorts of consumers. And this is all incremental. There is a lot of incrementality when you tap into this pool for our portfolio and for the beer category. We are tracking this now globally for a while, and we'll be able to update you as we are doing now. So 40% of our markets, which is a big amount of markets for the quarter 1 showed positive results in participation. And I think that will continue to drive this and to compete in different occasions and with different consumers, while we will continue to offer strong propositions for our current consumers with our mega brands. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Ed, Fernando here, on your second question, yes, our margins expanded 90 basis points and they grew in 4 out of our 5 operating regions. But indeed kind of if you look over the last several years, EBITDA margin has contracted and it was mostly driven by variable cost escalations, mostly linked to transactional effects and the record high commodity prices, which we've been seeing and it being meaningfully ahead of the local CPI on the markets where we operate. We said before that none of these headwinds are structural and the fundamental drivers of our industry leading margins, they remain intact. We have, I think, quite a few, we have iconic mega brands. We have our unique global footprint. We have the meaningful leadership positions. We have an efficient operating model, and we have the financial discipline and ownership culture. Even though commodity and effects are improving, on historical levels they are still at a quite high level. So that creates further opportunities. But regardless of that, we are controlling what we can control. And a good example of that is if you look, we were quite efficient on our SG&A line, which allow us to look at costs, all the expenses and making sure that we save on the things that don't create value, and we are able to invest and keep investing to sales and market in the [ monies ] that are consumer facing and that can help drive volume. We don't have any outlook for that. We have an outlook for CapEx. So you see that this year outlook for CapEx is smaller. It's a lower CapEx expansion comparing to the outlook for last year. But we are applying the same mindset for all the lines in our P&L to continue to drive efficiency. So definitely room to improve, but we're not giving any outlook on how and when. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Simon Hales with Citi. Simon Hales: Can I just come back to the U.S., please, Michel and ask you a little bit more about the shelf reset situation, so you're one of your big competitors has talked about this a lot over the last sort of few quarters. Back at the full year, Michel, I think you were indicating around 55% of retailers had announced their resets at that point. Where are we now? What proportion have been executed? And are you still losing, I think you talked about 7% to 8% of facings when those resets are going through now in the spring? Michel Doukeris: Thanks for the question. Situation, I think that just like to piece together the 2 or 3 [ last times ] that we talk about that. So at the end of the year, 15% of the retailers did their usual fall reset. As we talked about the full year results and connecting it now, we were at 50% announced. Now we pretty much everybody already completed the work. And as we track that, we see that majority of the retailers have already implemented. So it's north of 50%, not everybody yet, but north of 50%. The situation as everybody completed the work changed very little, so actually improved a little bit in our direction. So a smaller share of faces now that we are losing, but it's still in the range to simplify the life to you, 1 out of 20, let's say, 1.5 out of 20. So between 1 and 1.5 out of 20. And as I said before, we have very strong business plans. These business plans are all negotiated and downloaded to both our wholesaler teams and our retailer partners, huge buying in terms of the activations that we have for the year. Think about how we started with Super Bowl and now as we phase towards the summer, we will have a very strong set of assets that go through NBA, then we have Copa America, then we have Olympics with the Team USA plus the whole NFL season. So we are very confident on the execution. We are very confident on the ability of our teams to bring beer to the floor and to work hard to continue to build this momentum. As I just said before, key brands such as Michelob ULTRA at all-time high now, accelerating momentum, Busch Light, all-time high share, also gaining momentum. And we will continue to work together with the partners to take the best out of the great summer of activations that we have in the remaining part of the year. But all in all, no big change from last time that we talked, just that now we have north of 92% of the retailers already with the work finalizing. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with UBS. Sanjeet Aujla: Two from me as well, please. Firstly, Fernando, I just love to follow up on the SG&A point that came in just 1.4% well below inflation. So can you just talk a bit about what's happening in the U.S., firstly, where there was a decent decline? I think in the past, you'd alluded to around 1/3 of the EBITDA decline in the U.S. being something you could potentially control. So you're now kind of rightsizing your cost base for the new level of volume in the U.S. And should those benefits continue to accrue through the course of the year. But then also in some of the other emerging markets, particularly EMEA and Middle Americas was well below inflation. So I just love to get a sense of how much of that we can extrapolate going forward? Fernando Tennenbaum: Okay, Sanjeet. So on your first question, probably you answered the question on your own question, is the 1/3, 2/3 kind of, we have the 2/3 that is volume linked, and volume was slightly better. So you get a little bit of operational leverage there. And the 1/3 are the things that we can work. It's part of the pillar #3 of our strategy to optimize our business, and we are doing that. We are kind of looking at the things that we can control. They don't happen overnight. But as we said, this 1/3 is something that within our control. And over time, we can get some of that back. When you look at the global mindset and it's no different than what we're applying to the U.S. is we look for that every day. There is -- there won't be any silver bullet, but we have this ongoing efficiency mindset where we keep looking at all the opportunities, always looking to optimize our business to save what we call nonworking dollars to make sure that we can invest more into sales and marketing and continue to support our brands. But there is no specific outlook or anything like that rather than our ongoing optimization. Sanjeet Aujla: Great. And just a follow-up for Michel on China. Volumes there, particularly weak. I think you called out weather, but can you just talk a little bit about how the category is developing in light of the macro dynamics there? And give us a perspective of what you're seeing across channels as well, please? Michel Doukeris: So in terms of China, I think that what we see is maybe stepping back for a second. The long-term fundamental strengths of the category remain in place. We continue to see premiumization as a very long-term trend for China. And as you look at the brands that are growing and where these brands are growing in terms of channels and regions, we don't see a big change. We see that this premiumization should continue to drive an expansion on the EBITDA pool and margins, and this continues to reflect on the numbers as we go through the quarters. And we see, as I think, I mentioned during the quarter 1, the full year results when we talked, that we saw a little bit of impact from different forces on the mainstream volumes. So there's a little bit of weather. The macro is a little bit soft and consumers [ cycling ] the last year reopening with a more normal Chinese New Year traveling things this year. So I think that long-term fundamentals still in place, industry is premiumizing, premium beers are growing, profit pool should be expanding. And then because China is very big as a country like continental, you always have different impacts in regions due to weather, due to the economic moves. And what we saw during the beginning of this year, trimester 1 was that weather was impacting a lot. Let's say, east, southeast of the country, while other regions more towards the West, Southwest, had an easier ride in terms of weather as well as different comps from last year. The reopening that we all know was more concentrated and more impactful on the Eastern provinces of China. But long term, we believe that the fundamentals remain in place. Premiumization remains a very strong force and whatever weather related is more transitory that is something that we should be watching for the remaining of the year. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Laurence Whyatt with Barclays. Laurence Whyatt: A couple for me. Just following up on the China question. Just wondering if you had seen any impact from the flooding that we saw in Guangdong recently, whether that's -- how important that region is to you in China and what the impact on consumers was there. And secondly, Fernando, on the -- your balance sheet is we think is likely to get -- to populate the sort of important 3x net to EBITDA number at the end of this year. But of course, Altria has started selling some of its stock. They've got a lockup towards end of the year, but just sort of the potential of Altria selling some more stock, does that impact your desire to embark on any additional buybacks that change your thinking around how you might return cash to shareholders later in the year. Fernando Tennenbaum: Fernando here. Let me take your question first, and then I'll hand over to Michel. So Altria, I don't know what will be the intentions or not. There's some question for you to ask them, but I don't have any views on that. But on our side, we remain disciplined in our capital allocation decisions. And the objectives that we have are always to maximize value creating to shareholders. So we always analyze kind of different opportunities when and if they arise. But bear in mind that we remain disciplined and value creation is the driver that we'll be looking at more than anything else. Michel? Michel Doukeris: I think you're just complementing what we were talking about on the previous question. South China, part of this Eastern, Southeast regions in China are very important for all categories and consumer goods. Guangdong is a very large province, very important for China, very important for all consumer goods as well as for our own volumes and premium volume. And this is part of this trimester 1 slightly different weather patterns that we are seeing in China, and we are watching and following this very close. And again, while the weather, we cannot control. We continue to be focused on the things that we can control which are the investments and execution behind our mega brands in China. We have a very strong calendar as we move towards the summer with our brands that includes Budweiser, activating around the Olympics, Blue Girl, activating, the key events and social occasions in China. And we need now to continue to focus on what we can control, while, of course, watching, monitoring the weather-related events plus the macro economy. And of course, summer is very big and is a defining moment for the industry overall in China. We know from last year as a matter of fact if you look to the numbers, we had strong industry performance in quarter 1, quarter 2, and we had an industry that was not that strong in the second half of the year. So I would say maybe complementing the information that we shared before that we probably will be looking at 2 different half of the years in China this year, half 1 facing stronger comps and half 2 easier comps versus last year. Operator: Our next questions come from the line of Sarah Simon with Morgan Stanley. Sarah Simon: Yes. I have 2 questions, please. First one was some of your U.S. peers have been a bit more cautious about trading in April. And I wondered if you could give us any comments on how you see April compared to Q1? And then the second one was you referred to investing more in sales and marketing. But can you give us any kind of quantification in terms of whether sales and marketing grew organically ahead of revenues or in line? Or any kind of color on how that reinvestment is going through Q1? Michel Doukeris: Michel here. Thank you for the questions. So first one, if I understood well was North America, U.S. trade comps in April. I think that we -- first of all, we are talking with the numbers of quarter 1 in mind here. And of course, that is, at this point, a lot of public available data of sales to consumer in the U.S. for April. And in a big picture, I think that what we need to see is the incoming trends of last year that was dollar growth with volumes slightly down between 1 and 2. It remains true for the quarter 1 as it remains true for the trimester 1 when we include the April into these numbers. I think that a little bit of the conversation was because Easter shift even in the U.S., not as much as in Mexico, but this is also a relevant occasion in the U.S. the more you go to the southern part of the U.S., the more relevant it is. And we saw that the industry was recovering through the quarter with the end of March being stronger and part of that was because of the Easter shift. And then the beginning of April had the tougher comps because Easter was in the first weeks of April last year. We saw that the weather as we go from winter to spring to summer has a bigger impact, of course, when you change from winter to spring. And it's a little bit of a late spring this year. So the weather was colder in April. So April in terms of volume was slightly worse than the quarter 1. But I think it's too early for us to call any deterioration at this moment because dollar-wise was pretty similar. And even with April all data sales to consumers, still was on this range of minus 1.5 to 2, right? So I think that's too early to call quarter 2 based on April, while the biggest impact on the pro was really the Easter shift. Thinking for sales and marketing, we don't give any disclosure specifically on that or any guidance for the year. Everything that we do is comprised by this [indiscernible] outlook. As Fernando was discussing before, so we've been extremely disciplined on all fixed cost, and we continue to apply this everyday efficiencies mindset, which is very important for us when you think about overhead and overall SG&A. That's why we are growing less than inflation. While in the sales and marketing, we want to continue to drive growth by investing in our mega brands and in our mega platforms. So we have very strong activation opportunities throughout the year that will really, really make a difference for the category, and our brands will have the right investments so they can capitalize on all these investments that we have. This investment, of course, is becoming ever more efficient because as we have the right portfolio, the right brands invest behind. These brands have scale, and we can seize better performance from these investments. And because we are now very digital, both in the sales to retailers, but in sales to consumers as well, we know that data is the place to mine for efficiencies. So we've been investing more, but in a more efficient way for growth while we continue to be extremely disciplined for all the fixed costs and the financial discipline is part of our company that we've been driving stronger, stronger every day. So thanks for the question. Operator: Our final questions will come from the line of Brett Cooper with Consumer Edge. Brett Cooper: A question and a follow-up on your DTC platforms, and I think it dovetails with what you were just talking about. But in the press release, you quoted 18 million e-commerce orders globally, 16 million of those are in Brazil. So in the other 20 markets, you have 2 million orders. So can you just talk about the opportunity and headwinds to develop DTC in the non-Brazil markets? And then the follow-up is, is there some way to frame what the minimal level of development that you need in direct-to-consumer in the market to extract the data necessary to generate the majority of the benefits on optimizing your decisions in developing the category in your business or maybe how many of those 20 markets you've gotten to that level of scale? Michel Doukeris: Michel here. Thanks for the question. I will address both of the questions. I think that they are very interesting questions, and they give a good opportunity for us to talk about this direct-to-consumer and the link to insights. So as many of our initiatives, given the global footprint that we have, we tend to get our ideas around what we want to develop, choose, select one market, implement the programs, in this case, product, which is our direct-to-consumer product that's called Ze Delivery in Brazil. And of course, for a period of time, we need to perfect the model and build the scale. So today, Ze Delivery has a meaningful scale in Brazil, both in number of orders as you were talking. But in terms of number of consumers reach and [indiscernible] percentage of our volume that goes through direct to consumers in Brazil. When you think about that, to give an example that links to your second question, if you think about the way that we do consumer insights and consumer groups to validate an idea, you, of course, can fit 20, 30 people on the consumer group. And if you do 10 of these groups, we're going to cover 250 to 300 people. Today, with Ze Delivery, we validate ideas with 10,000 surveys with our consumers in a matter of minutes or we can digitally test ideas on a database of millions of consumers and understand real behavior like purchase behavior rather than just declared behavior. So when you get the scale that we have with Ze Delivery in Brazil today, the insights that we have, the ability to test ideas, the ability to survey behavior response to what we are doing, the innovation, promotions, is disproportion -- it is disproportionately bigger. And then now we are scaling the product. So the tech product that we developed we are scaling in 20 new countries under the brand TaDa. And the reason why we are doing TaDa we discussed before is because TaDa brings for the Hispanic language countries and the English speaking countries an easier concept and a very broad concept that brings some magic to the category and to these important meaningful moments that you are at home because the value proposition of Ze, TaDa is beer called at home in 30 minutes. So the magic of doing this. And we are scaling the platform, of course, as any other product that is adoption. Some countries are moving very quick in terms of adoption. An example we saw in the market in Mexico but many other countries are following a similar adoption curve as we had for Ze in Brazil. The difference is that Ze is in the market in Brazil for over 2 years now. While TaDa is completing first anniversary in most of the markets that we have. In terms of the scale, let's say that once you get above 1% of your sales, you already have meaningful data that you can use as long as you have all the intelligence behind and the product is well delivered for that, which, in our case, the products [indiscernible] . And in Brazil, we are a multiple of this scale. So the data is already very good, and we are using to develop brands and to develop special occasions in Brazil, so we can already activate big amount of consumers to develop occasions. And in the other countries, we are expanding reach, building scale, but the data is already confirming to be very good data for us to work in all markets. So thank you for the question, and thank you for the opportunity. Operator: These were the final questions. If your questions have not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: So thank you, everyone. Thanks for your time today for the ongoing partnership and support for our business. Stay safe and well, and we talk soon. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev's Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB Inbev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. [Operator Instructions]. Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see risk factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 17th of March 2023. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jessie, and welcome, everyone, to our full year 2023 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our full year and fourth quarter operating highlights, and provide you with an update on the progress we have made in executing our strategic priorities. After that, we'll be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with our operating performance. Our global momentum continued in 2023. Revenue reached approximately USD 59.4 billion, an all-time high for our company. Although our full growth potential was constrained by the performance of our U.S. business, our revenue grew by 7.8%. Net revenue per hectoliter increased by 9.9% as a result of pricing actions, ongoing premiumization and other revenue management initiatives. Total volumes declined by 1.7% as growth in Middle Americas, Africa and Asia Pacific was primarily offset by performance in the U.S. in a soft industry in Europe. EBITDA increased by 7%, in line with our medium-term growth ambition and 2023 outlook, reaching nearly USD 20 billion. Underlying EPS was $3.05, a $0.02 per share increase versus last year. As a result of our strong cash flow generation, we reached a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 3.38x. Following our deleveraging progress, we have additional flexibility in our capital allocation choices. The Board has proposed a full year dividend of EUR 0.82 per share, a 9% increase versus 2022. In addition, we have now completed almost 90% of our USD 1 billion share buyback program. In the fourth quarter, we delivered top line growth of 6.2% with our net revenue per hectoliter increasing by 9.3%. Total volume declined by 2.6% and EBITDA increased by 6.2%. We delivered broad-based growth this year with both top and bottom line increases in 4 of our 5 operating regions and with net revenue growth in more than 85% of our markets. Our scale and diverse footprint with leading positions in the largest profit and growth pools has us well placed to deliver superior long-term value creation. Now I will take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the quarter from our key regions, starting with North America. In the U.S., the beer industry remained resilient with volumes improving sequentially throughout the year and with beer gaining share of total alcohol by value in the off-premise. Our revenues declined by 9.5% this year with STW volumes down by 12.7%, primarily due to the volume decline of Bud Light. Our market share continued to improve gradually from May through the most recent weeks in February. In 2023, our market share was 38.3%. 2023 was a challenging year for our business in the U.S. I would like to take a moment to reflect on how we adapted, the choices we made and how we are taking the learnings and moving forward. Our teams showed remarkable resilience and agility, and I'm proud of the many actions we took to support our people, our wholesaler partners and our brands. We stepped that up to support our frontline employees and provided financial assistance to our wholesaler partners. We increased the media investment behind our brands. We expanded our long-stand partnership with Folds of Honor, including bringing the NFL and Bud Light together to also support first responders. We continue to invest in our mega brands and mega platforms, such as sports and music that all consumers love including the NFL, NBA, Lollapalooza as well as new investments with the VMAs, UFC, Copa America and Team USA for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. We continue to support the communities in which we operate. We purchase annually more than $700 million in quality ingredients from U.S. farmers. We produced packets and delivered clean drinking water when disasters struck, more than 93 million cans to date. We create jobs. Together with our wholesaler partners, we employ 65,000 hard-working people across the U.S. 99% of what we sell in the U.S., we make in the U.S. And we built on our more than $1 billion total investment in responsible drinking programs in partnership with our wholesalers. And we do this because that's who we are. As we move forward, we continue to focus on what we do best, brewing great beer for everyone, actively engaging with our consumers, supporting our partners and impacting the communities we serve. Now moving to our largest region, Middle Americas. In Mexico, we delivered high single-digit top and bottom line growth with margin expansion. Our above core portfolio continued to outperform, led by the strong performance of Modelo Especial. In Colombia, our business delivered record high volumes with double-digit top line and high single-digit bottom line growth. Driven by the consistent execution of our strategy. The beer category continues to grow, gaining 70 basis points share of total alcohol this year. Our core portfolio led our performance with a particularly strong performance from Poker, which grew volumes by high-single digits. In South America, our business in Brazil delivered high single-digit top line and double-digit bottom line growth with margin expansion of 462 basis points. Our performance this year was led by our premium and super premium brands, which delivered volume growth in the mid-20s and gained share of premium segment. Now let's talk about EMEA. In Europe, we grew top line by high-single digits and bottom line by low-single digits. Our portfolio continues to premiumize with our premium and super premium brands delivering high single-digit revenue growth, led by Corona, Leffe and Stella Artois. In South Africa, we delivered record high volumes with double-digit top line and high single-digit bottom line growth. Our portfolio continued to gain share of both beer and total alcohol, led by our global brands, which grew volumes by more than 30%. And finally, APAC, in China, our business delivered double-digit top and bottom line growth, with margin expansion of 125 basis points. Our premium and super premium brands continued to outperform, growing revenue by double digits and driving overall market share gains. Now let's move on to our strategic pillars. Let's start with pillar 1 of our strategy, lead and grow the category. The beer category is big, profitable and growing. In 2023, according to our monitor, the beer and beyond beer category continued to gain share of total alcohol by volume globally, gaining 260 basis points over the last 5 years. And looking ahead, beer is projected to continue this strength. Led by the strong performance of our global mega brands, our revenues continue to grow this year, reaching a new all-time high for a company of $59.4 billion. We continue to invest in our category expansion levers and mega brands, building meaningful connections with our consumers. In 2023, we invested $7.2 billion in sales and marketing and have averaged more than $7 billion over the last 5 years. These consistent investments, combined with increased effectiveness and creativity is driving the brand power of our portfolio. Our total volumes remained resilient delivering near all-time highs. And with our revenue management choices driving continued strong net revenue per hectoliter growth. Through the consistent execution of our replicable growth drivers and our 5 category expansion levers, we are leading and growing the category by offering superior core propositions, developing new consumption occasions and expanding our premium and beyond beer portfolio. Our global brands continue to scale and are driving premiumization across our markets. In 2023, the combined revenues of Corona, Budweiser, Stella Artois and Michelob Ultra grew by 18.2% outside of the brand's home markets. Scalable innovations continue to support category expansion across each of the 5 levers, contributing approximately $6 billion in net revenue in 2023. From expanding our non-alcohol beer portfolio, to innovating with pure and double malt offerings, to growing our Beyond Beer portfolio by scaling Brutal Fruit and Flying Fish across Africa; innovation is a key focus of leading and growing the category. Now let's turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. BEES continues to accelerate usage and reach, capturing approximately USD 40 billion in gross merchandising value this year, a 27% increase year-over-year and reaching 3.7 million monthly active users. Customer satisfaction continued to improve with our weighted average Net Promoter Score improving to plus 60, up 10 points since last year. In 15 of 26 markets where business live, our customers are also able to purchase third-party products through this marketplace. Customer adoption is increasing. And today, 67% of BEES customers are also BEES Marketplace buyers. In 2023, BEES Marketplace generated approximately USD 1.5 billion in GMV. Now let's talk about how we are strengthening our direct relationship with our consumers. Our DTC mega brand, Ze Delivery, TaDa and PerfectDraft are now available in 21 markets, generating approximately 69 million orders and over USD 550 million in revenue this year. We are developing deep consumer insights and new consumption occasions, such as Corona Sunset Hours, Brahma Soccer Wednesdays, and increasing in-home consumption of returnable glass bottle packs by expanding availability and simplifying logistics. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimize our business. Fernando, over to you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. We aim to maximize value by focusing on 3 areas: optimize resource allocation, robust risk management and efficient capital structure. First, let me share how we have progressed on our 2025 sustainability goals. All data points are with reference to our 2017 baseline. In Climate Action, we reduced Scopes 1 and 2, absolute emissions, by 44%. In Water Stewardship, we improved our water efficiency by 18%. In Smart Agriculture, we are working with nearly 24,000 farmers in our direct sourcing programs to research, technology and hands-on support to help upskill, connect and financially empower them. And we made progress in our Circular Packaging goal with 77.5% of our products now in packaging that is returnable or made from majority recycled content. In recognition of our leadership in corporate transparency and performance on climate change and water security, we were awarded a AA score by CDP. As we continue to optimize our business, investing in organic growth is our #1 priority, and we have no shortage of investment opportunities. In addition to investing $7.2 billion in sales and marketing, we invested $4.5 billion in net CapEx in our facilities and capabilities. Over the last 5 years, we have invested almost $59 billion to execute our strategy and drive organic growth. While input costs remain elevated, our everyday financial discipline and revenue management choices enabled us to manage margin pressure this year. Although our margins are still below 2019 levels, the decline has been driven by unprecedented commodity and transactional FX headwinds, and it is not structural. These headwinds impacted different regions at different times, and Middle America and South America are already good examples of EBITDA margin improvement in 2023. Our fundamental strength, disciplined pricing, continued premiumization and efficient operating model creates an opportunity for margin expansion over time. In 2023, we continued to deliver strong free cash flow generating approximately $8.8 billion, a $300 million increase from 2022. With respect to capital allocation, we are focused on maximizing long-term value creation by dynamically balancing our priorities. We continue to invest in organic growth to support our strategy. The excess cash generated by our business is then dynamically allocated across deleveraging, selective M&A and return of capital to shareholders. As you can see on the next slide, 2x net debt to EBITDA remains the point at which we maximize value, though approximately 90% of the benefits from deleveraging can be captured as we approach 3x. In 2023, gross debt reduced to $78.1 billion, resulting further progress on our deleveraging with our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio reaching 3.38x. Our debt maturity profile remains well distributed with approximately $2.5 billion in bond maturities in 2024 and no relevant medium-term refinancing needs. We have $6.5 billion worth of bonds maturing through 2026. Our bond portfolio has an average pretax coupon of around 4% and a weighted average maturity of 14 years. In addition, our debt portfolio does not have any financial covenants, and it is comprised of a variety of currencies, diversifying our FX risk. 98% of our bonds have a fixed rate, insulated from interest rate volatility and inflation. We continue to dynamically balance our capital allocation priorities to maximize value creation. In 2023, we invested $11.6 billion in sales and marketing and CapEx to execute our strategy and drive organic growth. We purchased $3 billion of bonds and reached a net leverage of 3.38x. Before the leveraging progress, we have additional flexibility in our capital allocation choices. The Board has proposed a dividend of EUR 0.82 per share, a 9% increase versus 2022. And we have now completed almost 90% of our $1 billion share buyback program. And now let me take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS this year. We delivered EPS of $3.05 per share, a $0.02 per share increase versus last year. Nominal EBITDA growth accounted for a $0.05 per share increase. We continue to optimize our business, reducing net interest and income tax expenses, which mostly offset headwinds in other line items. As we look ahead to 2024, we expect EBITDA to grow between 4% and 8% on an organic basis, in line with our medium-term outlook. Given the continued hyperinflationary environment in Argentina, for 2024, we are amending the definition of organic growth to cap the price growth in Argentina to a maximum of 2% per month. As we continue to invest to execute our strategy, and optimize resource allocation, we expect net CapEx to be between $4 billion and $4.5 billion in 2024. And we expect our normalized effective tax rate to be between 27% and 29%. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments before we start our Q&A session. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap on 2023 and look ahead at the exciting opportunities that our brands have to activate the category in 2024. While our full growth potential was constrained in this year, we continue to make progress in executing across each of our 3 strategic pillars. We invested behind our 5 category expansion levers, and the beer and beyond beer category continued to gain share of total alcohol globally. Driven by the strength of our mega brands, we delivered all-time high revenue with growth in approximately 85% of our markets. We progressed our digital transformation, generating approximately USD 40 billion of GMV through BEES, with 67% of BEES customers now also BEES Marketplace buyers. EBITDA grew by 7%, in line with our medium-term growth ambition and outlook for 2023. We delivered continued strong free cash flow generation of USD 8.8 billion. We progressed on our deleveraging path and have increased flexibility in our capital allocation choices. As we look ahead to 2024, we are uniquely positioned to activate the category. The combination of our mega brands with the key global platforms that consumers love and that brings people together is a powerful opportunity to lead and grow the category. From the NBA, to Copa America, to the Olympics, NFL, the UFC and the VMAs; we will be focused on doing what we do best. Our brands will show up in a big way, connect with consumers and bringing to life our purpose of creating a future with more cheers. We remain focused on the opportunities ahead of us. The beer category is large and growing, and our unique global leadership advantage, implementation of our replicable growth toolkits and our superior profitability, position us well to generate value for our stakeholders. With that, I'll hand it back to Jessie for the Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our first question is coming from Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Mitchell Collett: Michel, Fernando, Shaun. I've got one question and one follow-up, please. You've maintained your organic EBITDA growth guidance, 4% to 8% -- but because you're stripping out Argentina, that implies a 200 to 300-basis-point increase to the growth rate for the rest of the group. Can you give some color on what's driving that increased confidence, both in the near term and the medium term? And then my unrelated follow-up is -- can you give some color on why you expect CapEx to be lower in fiscal '24 than it was in both '23 and '22? And is that level broadly sustainable long-term? How should we think about the split between production, logistics, commercial and other CapEx going forward? Fernando Tennenbaum: Mitch, Fernando here. So let me start answering and then I'll ask Michel to give you some color. So once we think about the outlook, as always, on a high level, it's good to bring some context to it. So in our CMD, we provide the medium-term growth outlook, the moment that we are evolving our strategy and transitioning from inorganic to organic growth. And with this transition, would be required to invest to even grow the beer category, invest for the events of digital transformation and all of that, while dynamic allocating resources to grow and optimize our business while we're still deleveraging. So with this dynamic operating environment and the evolution of our strategy, we thought it would be important to provide clarity on our medium-term ambition while allowing us the flexibility to invest to drive long-term value creation. With all this background, our 4% to 8% growth outlook for 2024, it is both consistent with our medium-term outlook and more ambitious given that we are capping Argentina growth. We aim to continue to deliver this more ambitious 4% to 8%, but in an optimized way, with $500 million, give or take, less CapEx. That's the difference of the outlook from last year to this year. And this lower CapEx is the pillar 3 of our strategy in action when we look to optimize our business and sustain the same growth ratios, but in a more efficient way. I'm going to turn to Michel, so he can give some color on why we think this is the appropriate outlook. Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando, and thank you, Mitch. I think that Fernando gave you the answer on the key items on the outlook. But you had like two follow-ups. I think that one is the confidence and the other one, what's being optimized and then, how we are optimizing CapEx? I think that in terms of confidence, this comes from the execution of our strategy and the momentum that we've been seeing globally and is accelerating across many, many markets. As we described during the presentation, we grew revenues in 85% of our markets. We've been seeing this acceleration across the board. We had the chance to share with you many, many replicable toolkits when we were together in Mexico. And as we set the bar high with this Argentina cap, we want to continue to deliver on the outlook because that was a midterm outlook. Every year will be different. As a matter of fact, even within this year, we will see quarters that will be different. Because on the quarter 1, we'll be still lapping a little bit of the U.S. Bud Light situation. And therefore, we should expect growth building up as we go from quarter 1 to quarter 2 to quarter 3. So there will be progress there. And in terms of CapEx, which is more on the expense and cost areas, we've been also building very interesting replicable toolkits and global toolkits. So think, for example, the breweries that we built and we build breweries across the globe. So we were able to do some work with our teams in the specification with the suppliers and with being able to grow our capacity at much lower cost now given the standardization of the way that we are buying components, building the brewers, expanding the capacity in a modular way. Think, for example, about the benefits that we always talk about that with BEES, which is 1 platform, 1 product that we use globally. So every time that we do an update, let's say, for Mexico, this gets rolled out now for all markets where we operate with BEES. And when you combine this standardization, 1 product with just 1 thing, for example, AI, we are able now to code and develop tools within this with efficiencies, for example, close to 20% in cost per hour coded because of the usage of AI. So a practical usage of AI is enabling us to do more, which is what we need to do with our investments, but spending a lower CapEx cost. And I believe that it is sustainable. If you look at this CapEx as a percentage of net revenue in the last 3 years, we've been improving the efficiency each and every year, not invest less but doing more with our investments. Thanks for the question. Operator: Our next question is coming from Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Trevor Stirling: Michel, Fernando. So my two questions. The first one, Michel, the 4% to 8% guidance, what do you think are the key variables that will determine whether you end up at the high end or the low end of that guidance? And then on a little bit more detail that in the quarter in the U.S., you had negative price mix. I presume that will continue into 1Q because of the continued weakness, the Bud Light weakness. Do you expect that, that will start to improve as we go through the year in the U.S.? Fernando Tennenbaum: Trevor, Fernando here. Let me take the first one. Of course, there are a lot of different puts and takes on the outlook. We are a global company. And one of the decisions that we made in the past, instead of giving specific items of the outlook, we gave kind of the outcome, which is the 4% to 8% to simplify the understanding. So I wouldn't go into the detail what it takes to be on the 4% to 8%, I would just say that our outlook is 4% to 8%. Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. And of course, there are some universal things there, right, Trevor, like the industry performance, the consumer sentiment. But I think that the 4% to 8% has all in, and we are always aiming to deliver the best results that we can. On the quarter for the U.S., I think that you remember -- you all remember that we have always these 2 different dates in the U.S., in which historically prices have been planned and executed. The most common one is during the quarter 1, and during this higher inflation period, sometimes there is an extra supplemental price that moves in October. In 2022, our price move was in October, which covered 2023. And now, the idea was not to put a second price last year in October. So we are lapping the price increase of the year before. I think you [indiscernible] and we talked a little bit about that, there was a mismatch in terms of STRs, STCs and STWs in the quarter 4 and was better STCs, followed by a little bit better-than-expected STRs and the shipments lagged a little bit as we were both adjusting a little bit in inventories, but also unable to follow the improvement on the STRs, especially in the second half of December. And prices this year start to move late last year, but really moving during the quarter 1. So I think that the combination of STR, STW, the mix, that's still a little bit in disadvantage on the shipments, and the price that moved to the quarter 1 this year is why the prices were off in the quarter 4 last year, and we expect a much more normal price mix, promotional activities for 2024 as we've been having over the years. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Olivier Nicolai with Goldman Sachs. Olivier Nicolai: Michel, Fernando and Shaun. Two questions, please. Going back to the guidance of 4% to 8%, organic EBITDA growth in 2024, what is your base case assumption for Bud Light's share recovery? Obviously, Q1 is still going to face some tough comps. But would you also expect to keep the same level of shelf space with U.S. retailers by essentially being able to replace Bud Light with other of your beer brands or RTDs. And second question for Fernando. With regards to the free cash flow and the deleveraging, which was a bit less than some people anticipated. Net working capital was weaker, partly due to the support that you gave to the U.S. Beer wholesalers. Should we expect this to reverse in 2024? Is that a new base? And equally, should we assume a lower pace of share buyback for the rest of the year once you have completed your initial $1 billion share buyback program in March? Michel Doukeris: Olivier, thanks for the question. Michel here. I'll take the first one on the guidance. I think that Fernando always goes back to this point of the 4% to 8% that encompasses everything that we are doing globally. And we -- throughout this whole situation, we have never like gave any forecast or guidance on the pace of Bud Light. I think that what we can talk about. We can talk about what we are seeing and happening as we go week by week, month by month. And if you look at May last year versus February this year, we recovered basically 120 bps of the market share that we lost. And as discussed in the last call, we've been seeing this 10 to 20 bps recovery every 3 to 4 weeks. So I think that we are making progress. It's not at the fast pace that we were expecting or that we've been working for. But nevertheless, progress is in place. And when you think about the shelf spaces, we discussed this on the fall. There was very little adjustment in the fall, close to 5%, 10% of the retailers, and I gave a simple reference for everybody to understand the number. We had an adjustment of 1 shelf space for average 20 that we have in the stores. When we see now this spring, there are a lot of activities on the spring today, more than 55% of the retailers already put the announcements in place. And the result is very similar, it's 1.5 fronts to every 20 that we have in the stores. What we lost is on Bud Light, and we've recovered across the portfolio with Michelob Ultra, Busch Light, Cutwater, Nutrl, Corona, Stella, all gaining share of shelf. And when we think, which is -- I think is another very important point to share with you, this big calendar of activations for mega platforms that we have throughout the year, that goes from NBA, NFL, Olympics and Copa America, so very heavy investments. This also comes into consideration for planning and joint business plan with our retailers. So we expect to have a massive execution with extra displays and programming with the retailers that should more than compensate the 1.5 for every 20 front shelves that we are missing or losing during this adjustment now, during spring. So plans are good. The team is focused on the execution. Our mega brands are very well positioned for the year because they have some of the most relevant mega platforms for interacting with consumers and activating the category together with our wholesalers and retailer partners. I will now hand over to Fernando to cover the second point. Fernando Tennenbaum: Olivier. So on your question on core working capital, I think we have some unique factors this year, we have the U.S. Since we have a negative working capital and we had -- the volume reduction has a negative impact on our core working capital, and that was further amplified by the wholesaler support, the extra days of credit. And of course, this will phase out throughout the summer this year. So this is something -- some of that should be reversed. Then we had also a reduction in payables, which was driven by 2 things: We made an effort to optimize our service levels, and that led to reduced level of inventories. We also optimize the resource allocation that led to lower CapEx, but most of the reduction for both the CapEx and inventories was in the second half, and that led to a drop in payables. So the benefit in terms of cash flow, most of it will only be seen in 2024. So as you said, kind of most of the things, some of that we should -- most of the things we should revert through 2024. On the deleveraging piece, we had another year of consistent profitable growth and very strong free cash flow generation, so $8.8 billion of free cash flow. We continue to make progress on deleveraging, and our gross debt was reduced by $1.8 billion, and the net debt to EBITDA reached 3.38x. There were some headwinds in the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio in 2023 comparing to 2022. Even though we purchased $3 billion back of debt, there was some negative effects that offset some of that. That's why we only see $1.8 billion of net debt reduction. And this was due to a strong euro. Sometimes it will go in our favor, sometimes it will go against us, but this is like 0.04x, 0.05x. We have the impact of the accounting treatment of Argentina. IFRS is very unique how the accounting should work. For example, U.S. GAAP is very different. But this accounting impact is another around 0.05x. And of course, we have this, in 2023, the performance of the U.S. business, we also had some impact. But we continue to be confident on the progress. The business generates a large amount of cash, and we continue to deploy some of that to deleveraging and some of that to other capital allocation priorities, which leads to your follow-up question about buyback dividends. I think -- we'll continue to explore different capital allocation priorities. This full year, we announced the dividend. So we announced a 9% increase in the dividend to $0.82. And any other capital allocation we will be discussing throughout the year, I feel that we have increased flexibility compared to 2 years in the past, and we're going to decide whether we do share buybacks, dividends or whatever other capital allocation priorities throughout the year when the moment is appropriate. Operator: Our next question is coming from Sarah Simon with Morgan Stanley. Sarah Simon: It was just a question about marketing spend. You obviously kind of changed the phasing of marketing spend last year and pulled it out of the winter -- more around the summer periods. Can you talk about how marketing is going to phase this year given some of the big sports sponsorships and things that you're doing? Michel Doukeris: Sarah, Michel here. I think that every year is slightly different. But for sure, if you look back to last year compared to the year before, there was a big shift due to FIFA, which moves usually during the summer, but that one was very special because it was more close to the end of the year, let's say, winter for the northern hemisphere, was summer for the Southern hemisphere. And I think that the key point here on sales and marketing for us is this unique opportunity that we have to activate with our mega brands, these mega platforms that bring people together. This is an outstanding opportunity to lead and grow the category. We have this year, fortunately, an incredible amount of activities throughout the year. Let's just talk about January and February. So we had Super Bowl. We had Carnival in Brazil. We had Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year in Asia, and we were very heavy in activating all these opportunities. Now we face from quarter 1 to quarter 2, and there is an expression already being used by lots of people with this summer of sports because we have Copa America in the U.S. that's very important for the whole North and South America. We have the Euros in Europe, then we'll follow this with the big tennis slams in Europe, Wimbledon and Roland-Garros that now is Stella Artois is the official sponsor, and you wrap the summer with the Olympics, which is going to make this an incredible summer for beer. And then we march towards the end of the year coming back again with an incredible season for the NFL, following what was this year. We have throughout the whole year, the activation of UFC. So I think it's going to be very balanced throughout the year, and we should not expect big differences as we saw in 2023, because FIFA was off season and was there in 2022. So the impact of last year was more because of FIFA. This year, we have an incredible amount of opportunities for activation. Operator: Our next question is coming from Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Robert Ottenstein: A couple of follow-ups, please. First, on the U.S., my understanding is that you put in about a 2% price increase right around the Super Bowl. I'd like to understand how that's being received so far? Any thoughts on that? And then further on the U.S., is there a work that you're doing on the supply chain, on general logistics to adjust for the changes that happened last year in terms of demand so that even if we don't get a significant improvement in Bud Light, that the EBITDA can be significantly better? Michel Doukeris: Robert, thanks for the questions. So as I said before, prices in the U.S. went back to this normal schedule, which is quarter 1, and they vary state by state, brand by brand. So I won't give you any details here on what's happening. But so far, as I said, 2 windows October, quarter 1, March, February, usually, most of the movements over the years, they happen on this quarter 1, and we are just moving and executing on our plans. In terms of supply chain and cost in the U.S., we've been saying that 2/3 are volume related, 1/3 is choices we made that span across many different items. As Fernando said, support to our wholesalers, higher investments on our brands and job security. Out of the 2/3, that's volume. As I said before, we claw back 120 bps of this share, and we continue to see this movement every 3 to 4 weeks between 0.10, 0.20 recovery. And we will continue to optimize, as we always do, our activities to extract the best possible productivity. So this is part of the company culture, is part of who we are, being always with an eye on the market consumers and one in how we do better the activities that we have within our own walls. So we continue to work in everything that we can, always to be more productive and to have better productivity. Operator: We'll move on to our next question, which is coming from the line of Chris Pitcher with Redburn Partners. Chris Pitcher: A couple of questions, please. One is a follow-up on the U.S. shipment movements. I'm just trying to understand what were the fourth quarter [indiscernible] in terms of stock in trade, particularly in the context of the discussions ongoing with the union. So I wonder if you can give us some idea of how much contingency stock is there. And then [indiscernible] I was wondering if you could give us a bit of -- a bit more detail behind the tax guidance, given all the moving parts this year. Just to understand that this is now a structurally -- the structural range for your tax and there isn't sort of one-offs that's helping keeping it low this year, with it potentially going up next year? Michel Doukeris: Chris, Michel here. Thanks for the question. I'll take the first one and then leave Fernando to cover the second. I think that what I was describing on the quarter four in the U.S. was a good acceleration on the STRs and sales-to-consumers in December, especially in the second half. And because of that, the shipments did not catch up with the STRs. And the simple consequence of that is wholesalers turned the year with a little bit less inventory than they would otherwise be if we were able to do shipments and STRs at the same pace. So there was no loading from December to January, quite the opposite. And I think that on the preparation contingent, of course, our main objective was to reach an agreement with Teamsters. We do and we operate in many different countries, we have collaborating with unions, and we are always thinking about what is the best to our employees. There were contingencies in place, but there is now also a tentative agreement. So the agreement is going to be for vote next week, and therefore, we don't expect any contingents to be activated in March, so it should be like normal life. In the long term, STRs and STWs will always converge. Fernando Tennenbaum: Chris, on your question on ETR. Our outlook for 2024 is expected normalized ETR to be in the range of 27% to 29%. This includes everything that we know today, including the impact of the recent legislation changes in Brazil. And going specifically on the IOC, it's good to provide some more context. The reduction of IOC deductibility does have an impact on the ETR of AB InBev. However, when you go to the ABI level, the impact is partially mitigated. ABI, as any other shareholder of AB InBev needs to pay a 15% withholding tax on the IOC distribution. So the next impact on ABI ETR is smaller than what you can see in AB InBev. And if you go one line further, if you go all the way down to EPS, then the impact is further diluted given the minority interest component. So all in all, it's something that we can manage to deliver the 27% to 29% on our outlook. And when you go one line further on the EPS, it's even a smaller impact. Chris Pitcher: And just to confirm because tax is obviously a complex matter, 27% to 29% is a good medium-term range. There aren't, as I say, in the background, tax losses that will run out to help mitigate it. We can be comfortable in 27% to 29%? Fernando Tennenbaum: I think this is our outlook for 2024. We are not giving any medium-term outlook. But with what you know today, with the legislation that we have today, with our business today, this is our assessment for 2024. Operator: The next question is coming from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with UBS. Sanjeet Aujla: Michel, Fernando. Two from me as well, please. Firstly, Michel, can you just talk a little bit about the health of Michelob Ultra in the U.S.? Clearly, we were used to this brand gaining 60, 70 basis points of share per annum, growing volumes mid-high single digit, it's been caught up with the Bud Light issue as well. But is there anything underlying above and beyond that on Michelob Ultra? Please, a few words on that. And secondly, can you just talk a little bit about the state of the consumer in the beer category in China. Clearly, things have deteriorated there in the second half of the year in '23. How are you thinking about the start to '24 and the outlook there, please? Michel Doukeris: Sanjeet, thanks for the question. So Michelob Ultra first. This is a brand that has been growing over the years, very healthy, expanding. And as we shared in different occasions, the brand has a lot of headroom in the U.S., basically for two reasons. One, because it's perfectly aligned with the health and wellness trend; and two, because it has a lot of distribution opportunity and asymmetric relevance in some states, but not in all states in the U.S. The brand has performed well and was performing very well throughout the year. Of course, this whole event from April to the end of the year, calls it trouble not only for Bud Light, but for on house of Busch as a whole. But we see very healthy signs. The brand is already on the positive territory again, Michelob Ultra, gaining share of shelf and we'll have unbelievable opportunities to activate throughout this year. Just think about the NBA now phasing to the Olympics and Copa America. So both properties allocated for Michelob Ultra through the year, and the plans and everything that we saw with wholesalers and retailers during summer comp very strong is the year 2024, where we've been seeing the highest investment behind Michelob Ultra for our wholesalers because they commit early on in the year and how much they believe on the plans and invest behind the brands. So, so far, everything moving as it should on Ultra and Ultra continues to expand outside of the U.S. So Canada, Mexico, many other markets where the brand is also gaining a lot of momentum because the trend is universal. So we see health and wellness across the globe. And Michelob Ultra has a simple proposition that is scalable and is working across different geographies. Talking about China, I think that last year had a little bit of everything in China, from the beginning to end of the year. And if I would answer your question like in a very simple way, we continue to see premiumization as a very strong trend. And our brands, both in premium and super premium, they grew double digits, performing very well in China. And we see a little bit of this bifurcation when you take the core with a performance that was a little bit below what we were expecting, let's say, for the recovery of China. But combined, China had a very decent industry, last year, in revenue and good volumes, not great, but good volumes, led by premium and super premium. Think about this year, I was in China, I think, last week, spent a week in China. And what we saw was normal, let's say, Chinese New Year, where a lot of puts and takes there in different categories. But basically, again, premium and super premium performance was very good. Our execution was very strong. I visited 2 different cities, and I saw turnover good, good sales. And we saw again a little bit of constraint in core value brands while premium, super premium doing very well and performing well. This period of the year is important for premium, but it is small overall for the category. I would say that we need to see more of spring, maybe beginning of summer to have a very clear indication on what's going to be the direction overall for the industry, but it's clear to this point, I would say that premium, super premium will continue to perform well, while core value we need to keep an eye on and understand the overall sentiment for consumers and how this is going to come. And that was somehow a behavior that we saw across many categories and different players. Operator: Our final question will come from the line of Brett Cooper with Consumer Edge. Brett Cooper: A question and a follow-up on premiumization. And appreciating that may be difficult to generalize across markets, but can you speak to where you're sourcing consumers or occasions for the premium to your portfolio? Is it beer drinkers that you're keeping in the category, increasing relevance for new occasions, keeping them in where they may have gone outside? And then the follow-up on a similar topic is, can you talk about the loyalty you're seeing as you bring consumers in. I would assume it's coming through a particular occasion. And then are you growing that in new occasions and repertoires of those drinkers? Michel Doukeris: Thank you for the question. And I find this as a very interesting topic for us to talk about. And I'll try to take this high level because, as you said, every market is slightly different, right? But the way that we approach this is participation, occasions and servings. And very interesting, premium has the potential and has been working for us as beyond beer does as well across all 3 levers. So we've been seeing higher participation and new consumers getting to the category through premium. And very interesting, we shared today this data on the overall share of throat, right? And this is overall. But when you look about premium brands versus premium presentations on the other categories, premium beer is also growing faster than the premium offers in hard liquor and wine. And premium, as you penetrate new consumers or the current consumers, you see some overlap of occasions, but you also see some very unique occasions for premium beers. I think that 1 great example that we have is France where Leffe created a total different occasion for beer, [indiscernible] occasion and today is a massive brand, very focused on 1 occasion. And as this occasion developed and the brand grew, the brand now is penetrating even more occasions such as [indiscernible] and [indiscernible] in France. So premium attracts more consumers, interesting enough to attract more women and more young consumers. So that's why the role of our global brands is very important from Corona to Budweiser with the position that we have and each brand is positioned in a different need state. Occasions are more spread throughout the week, which is very interesting as well. So you have more at-home occasions with premium. And when you think, for example, the role that Corona Cero or Stella Cero are playing now, they are expanding beer to even more occasions. So we see in many places, now Corona Cero being consumed during the day, lunch time, during the weekend, after sports and more consumers, more occasions. In some very specific markets, then you also tap into servings because you can go for multi-packs and convenience packs in different markets that also help us to tap into larger occasions. I think Brazil is a great example of that. China is a great example of that. So I think that is across all 3 levers, bringing more consumers, retaining more consumers, in more occasions and also improving how many times people get in touch with our products. In terms of loyalty, this is also an interesting question because consumers always have like a repertoire of brands. And that's again why we have 4 global brands to tap into this premiumization trend. Each of these brands appeals for a different need state meaning different occasions when people go for the energy or for relaxation or to just enjoy a meal with friends. And once they connect well with 1 of these brands for 1 of these different need states, the loyalty is high. Even though consumers, they consume across different occasions and they have different need states. That's why our portfolio is a big advantage, 1 of the global advantage that we have to play this game, and that's why we continue to invest behind our mega brands, and they grew 22% last year, which was a very strong driver of our overall growth. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jessie, and thank you, everyone, for their time today, the ongoing partnership and support for our business. Stay safe and well, and I hope we're going to see you soon. Bye-bye. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see Risk Factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 17th of March 2023. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jessie, and welcome, everyone, to our third quarter 2023 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Just a heads up, I'm slightly under the weather and then taking the call remotely. Apologies in advance if my voice is a little raspy. Today, Fernando and I, we will take you through our third quarter operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we've made in executing our strategic priorities. After that, we will be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with our operating performance. Our global momentum continued this quarter although was partially offset by the performance of our U.S. business. We delivered revenue growth of 5%, with our net revenue per hectoliter increasing by 9% as a result of pricing actions, ongoing premiumization and other revenue management initiatives. Total volumes declined by 3.4% as growth in our Middle America, Africa and APAC regions was primarily offset by performance in the U.S. and a soft industry in Europe. EBITDA increased by 4.1% and reached USD 5.4 billion. Underlying EPS was US$ 0.86, a $0.02 per share increase versus last year. In line with our capital allocation priorities, we have announced a US$3 billion bond tender, and we have also announced today that we will be proceeding with a US$1 billion share buyback program to be executed within the next 12 months. Fernando will provide some additional details on the capital allocation choices later in the presentation. While the operating environment remains dynamic in some of our markets, the strength of our global footprint, brand portfolio and our continued focus on disciplined resource allocation are enabling us to invest for the long term, while delivering efficient, profitable growth. We delivered broad-based growth this quarter with both top and bottom line increases in four of our five operating regions and with revenue growth of more than 80% of our markets. Our scale and diverse geographic footprint with leading positions in the largest profit and growth pools has us well placed to deliver superior long-term value creation. Now, I will take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the quarter from our key regions, starting with North America. In the U.S., the beer industry remained resilient, delivering revenue growth of 3.3% this quarter and with beer gaining share of value of total alcohol in the off-premise. Our revenues declined by 13.5% and STR volumes by 16.6%, primarily due to volume decline of Bud Light and impacted by shipment phasing ahead of our October price increase last year. With respect to Bud Light brand performance, we have actively engaged with over 260,000 consumers since April, and the common points of feedback remain consistent. One, consumers continue to want the Bud Light brand to concentrate on the platforms that all consumers love, and we are doing just that through investing in partnerships with the NFL, Folds of Honor, news platforms, college football and our recently announced return to partnering with the UFC. Two, they want Bud Light to focus on beer. The Bud Light is to summer is to Sunday campaigns are all about bringing people together over a beer for the moments that matter. Notably, a recent survey found that over 40% of lapsed Bud Light drinkers said that they are now more open to come back to drinking Bud Light. Third, they want that beer without a debate. We are taking the feedback and working hard towards our consumers' business every day across the world. While our total beer industry share declined by 550 bps this quarter to 36.6%, it has been stable since the last week of April through mid-October. U.S. EBITDA declined by 9.3% this quarter. Similar to last quarter, approximately two-thirds of the decline was driven by market share performance and one-third driven by productivity loss and the strategic choices we made to increase sales and market investments in our brands and provide support to our wholesaler partners. As we move forward in the U.S., we are focused on what we do best, brewing great polished beer, actively engaging for consumers, supporting our partners and positively impacting the communities that we serve. Now moving on to our largest region, Middle Americas, which delivered margin expansion and another quarter of growth. In Mexico, we delivered mid-single-digit top and bottom line growth. Our above core portfolio continued to outperform, led by the strong performance of Modelo Especial and Pacifico. We continue to progress on our digital initiatives with our vendor platform in beer, now enabling digital utility payments and mobile data purchases in more than 9,000 points of sale and generating over 170,000 transactions in the third quarter. As we highlighted at our recent Capital Markets Day, Mexico is an example of the performance that can be delivered with effective execution across all three pillars of our strategy and implementation of our replicable tool kits. In Colombia, our business delivered double-digit top and bottom line growth. Our core portfolio led our performance this quarter with a particularly strong performance from Poker, which grew volumes by high-single-digits. In South America, our business in Brazil delivered mid-single-digit top line and double-digit bottom line growth with margin expansion of 628 basis points. Our beer volumes declined by 1.1% as a cycle all-time high quarterly volumes in third quarter 2022. Our premium and super-premium brands led our performance, delivering a volume increase in the low-teens. Now let's talk about EMEA. In Europe, we grew top and bottom line by low-single-digits. Volumes declined by high-single-digits, outperforming a soft industry in more than 80% of our key markets according to our estimates. We continue to drive premiumization across Europe. Our premium and super-premium brands delivered mid-single-digit revenue growth this quarter, led by Leffe and Stella plant. In South Africa, we delivered double-digit top line growth with our portfolio continue to gain both share of beer and total alcohol. EBITDA grew by mid-single-digits as top line growth was partially offset by anticipated transactional effects and commodity headwinds. Our core portfolio continued to outperform, delivering high-single-digit volume growth. And our global brands led by Corona grew volumes by more than 35%. And finally, APAC. In China, our business delivered high-single-digit top and bottom line growth, driven by continued premiumization and on-premise recovery across our key regions. Our premium and super premium brands continued to outperform, growing volumes by more than 10%. The rollout and adoption of this platform continues with BEES now present in over 200 cities and over 65% of our revenue generated through digital channels in September. Now let's move on to our strategic pillars. Let's start with Pillar 1 of our strategy, lead and grow the category. We continue to execute on our five levers to drive category expansion and deliver another quarter of profitable top-line growth. We are leading and growing the category by offering superior core propositions, developing new consumption occasions and expanding our premium and beyond beer portfolios. As we shared at our recent Capital Markets Day, premiumization is one of our biggest growth opportunities. Corona, Budweiser and Stella Artois have all been intentionally built to address one of the key consumption occasions for premium beer. And with the elevation of Michelob ULTRA as our fourth global brand, our focused portfolio is well-positioned across all demand landscapes to lead the premiumization of the beer category. And our global brands are continuing to lead our growth. The combined revenues of Corona, Budweiser, Stella Artois and Michelob ULTRA grew by 15.1% this quarter, outside of the brand's home markets. Now let's turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. This continue to accelerate usage and reach, capturing US$10.4 billion in gross merchandising value this quarter, a 27% increase year-over-year and reaching 3.4 million monthly active users. Customer satisfaction continued to improve with our weighted average Net Promoter Score improving to plus 60, up 7 points since last year. In 15 of the 25 markets where BEES is live, our customers are also able to purchase third-party products through BEES marketplace. Customer adoption is increasing with 65% of BEES customers now also BEES marketplace buyers. In the third quarter, BEES marketplace generated approximately US$420 million in GMV representing approximately US$1.7 billion on an annualized basis. Now let's talk about how we are strengthening our direct relationship with our consumers. Our D2C mega brand, Zé Delivery, TaDa and PerfectDraft are now available in 21 markets, generating over 16.9 million orders and US$125 million in revenue this quarter. We continue to leverage our digital DTC products to generate meaningful consumer insights and drive category growth by developing occasions. For example, across Latin America, Zé Delivery and TaDa are enabling increasing in-home consumption of returnable glass bottle, tests that increase availability and shows consumer pain point of carrying this bulk products to and from their homes. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimize our business. Fernando, over to you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. We aim to maximize value by focusing on three areas, optimized resource allocation, robust risk management and efficient capital structure. First, let me share with you a few sustainability highlights, as sustainability is key to both risk management and optimizing resource allocation. It allows us to ensure supply security, manage our costs and protect our license to operate and grow for the next 100-plus years. Here are a few examples of local initiatives with the potential to scale globally that are driving progress on our 2025 sustainability priorities. In climate action, to support our Scope 3 efforts, we organized supplier collaboration and training events across our key markets, including Mexico, Colombia and China. In smart agriculture, we hosted more than 200 farmers at our annual U.S. grower day to share results from Barley, variety and crop management research trials. In water stewardship, we launched a partnership with Water Aid in Ghana for a solar-powered water system to deliver clean, safe water to communities in it. For circular packaging, we scaled our program in Mexico to recover bottles, destinated for landfill, recovering more than 145 million bottles during the third quarter. All of these initiatives serve to optimize our business over the long term. With respect to capital allocation, we are focused on maximizing long-term value creation by dynamically balancing our priorities. We continue to invest in organic growth to support our strategy to lead and grow the category and digitize and monetize our ecosystem. The excess cash generated by our business is that dynamically allocated to our three capital allocation priorities, deleveraging, selective M&A and return of capital to shareholders. As you can see on the next slide, two times net debt to EBITDA remains the point at which we maximize value, though approximately 90% of the benefits from deleveraging can be captured as we approach three times. Our debt maturity profile remains well distributed with no bond maturities in 2023 and no relevant medium-term refinancing needs. If you look at our debt maturity profile, we have US$3 billion worth of bonds maturing through 2025. Our bond portfolio has an average pretax coupon of around 4% and a weighted average maturity of 14 years. In addition, our debt portfolio does not have any financial covenants and is comprised of a variety of currencies diversifying our FX risk. 97% of our bonds have a fixed rate insulated from interest rate volatility and inflation. As part of our value-creating agenda, we have announced two capital allocation initiatives. First, to further reduce our debt quantum and progress on our deleveraging path, we have announced a US$3 billion cash tender offer for certain outstanding bonds. Second, we announced today that we will be proceeding with a US$1 billion share buyback program to be executed within the next 12 months. We will continue to dynamically balance our capital allocation priorities to maximize value creation. And as we move towards three times net debt to EBITDA, we believe there will be continued flexibility. And now, let me take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS this quarter. We delivered EPS of $0.86 per share versus $0.84 per share last year. Organic EBITDA growth, accounting for $0.11 per share, was partially offset by translational effects and higher non-controlling interest. Optimizing our net finance costs accounted for a $0.05 per share increase. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments before we start our Q&A session. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap my key takeaways for the quarter. While the operating environment remains dynamic in some of our key markets, we continue to make progress in executing across each of our three strategic pillars. Our business momentum continued this quarter with both top and bottom line growth in four of our five operating regions. Driven by the strength of our mega brands, we grew revenue in approximately 80% of our markets. We made important strategic choices in pricing and other revenue management initiatives, which drove continued strong net revenue per hectoliter growth of 9%. We progressed our digital transformation, generating US$10.4 billion of GMV through BEES, with 65% of BEES customers now also BEES marketplace buyers, delivering an annualized GMV of approximately US$1.7 billion. EBITDA grew organically by 4.1% as disciplined overhead management mostly offset the elevated cost environment. With respect to capital allocation, we have announced two important decisions with the launch of a US$3 billion bond tender and US$1 billion share buyback. We know each quarter will be different and have tailwinds and headwinds. But as we highlight in our Capital Markets Day last month, when we take a long-term perspective, we are excited by the opportunities ahead of us. The beer category is large and growing, and our unique global leadership advantage, implementation of our replicable growth to keeps and our superior profitability position us well to generate value for our stakeholders. With that, I'll hand it back to Jesse for the Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from the line of Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question. Trevor Stirling: Hi, Michel and Fernando. Two questions from my side, please. The first one, probably for Michel, concerning the U.S., it's a bit over six months now since the Bud Light crisis started. We're now starting to get actually some view, some clarity on what the new normal might look like. At what stage do you think you want to reshape the U.S. to match what that new reality might be? And second question, Fernando, the $1 billion of buybacks, I think the first one in 2015. This is, I guess, somewhat hypothetical question. But as you move forward into 2024, presumably your buyback capacity will be even greater, if and when Altria decided that they might want to exit some of their stake presuming that would leave you in a good position to participate in that, if you so choose Michel Doukeris: Hi, Trevor. Good morning. Michel here. I'll take the first question. And I'll leave Fernando with the second. So I think that, first and foremost, we continue to invest in the U.S. for the long term. driving both our brands, but also category management and focused on what we do best, which is brewing great quality beer for everyone, connecting and engaging actively and listening to our consumers, supporting our partners and impacting the commitments that we serve. We are committed to continue to invest in Bud Light and all the platforms that consumers love, including the marketing campaigns. As we rolled out during the summer, we see easy to summer. And now during the NFL season, we see easy to Sunday. Activations across this platform is NFL college football, and including new platforms like we just announced the return, the come back to partner with the UFC. We remain confident in executing behind this strategy in our mega brands. And this continued investment with new actions, they led us to stable market share trends through quarter three with signs of improvement that we saw since April. And most recently, if you look at the last week, there was another big step improvement to 4.67 circa from the beginning of this crisis at 5.6. So I think that considering the steady improvement. And what we found on our latest research that over 40% of the lapsed buyers, Bud Light lapsed buyers, declared that they are now ready to come back, open to drink Bud Light again. This gives us some certainty that we are moving in the right direction. On top of that, we continue to fully support our wholesalers. The network is very important for us. We took new steps moving in the right direction. And we also highlighted this before that two-thirds of what we see in the results are market share-related. And then as we recover market share, this should reduce. And one-third is about operating leverage and strategic choices that we made to invest more and support the network. So those are more under our control. So I don't think that we are at a new normal yet, but we have a good grip on what we need to do and how we are proceeding from here. Thank you for the question. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Trevor, Fernando here. Good morning. On your question, I can't comment on specific shareholders. On our capital allocation, which includes buybacks, it's always good to remind a little how our framework works. So in summary, we have a great business and the number one capital allocation priority is to invest into the organic growth opportunities, and we have no short of organic growth opportunities. And as we said during the Capital Markets Day, over the last four years, between 2019 and 2022, we invested more than $47 billion to drive organic growth. Then with the cash that we have, we continue to dynamically balance our capital allocation priorities to create value. The right way to think about it is that if the excess cash that we generate, we aim to maximize the value creation. And we do that by dynamically balance the three different capital allocation priorities, which is deleveraging, return of capital to shareholders and selective M&A. Once again, referring to our Capital Markets Day, as we move towards three times, we believe there will be continued flexibility. The 2022 dividend, which was paid in May, was increased. So we increased 50%. Then as we continue our deleveraging, this quarter, we launched a $3 billion cash tender offer for certain outstanding bonds. I believe this reinforces our commitment to continue to deleverage. And then in addition to that, we also announced a $1 billion share buyback to be executed within the next 12 months. All in all, we believe that these decisions are maximizing value creation to our shareholders. Thank you. Trevor Stirling: Thank you very much. Thank you, Michel and Fernando. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question. Rob Ottenstein: Great. Kind of two follow-ups to Trevor's question. So one, on the U.S., Michel, can you talk about any kind of green shoots? It looks to us like Bush Light and Michelob Ultra are showing some signs of improvement in the recent scanner that came out today. So can you confirm that? And then as we talk to a number people, distributors and some other folks at NACS and NBWA, we got the sense that in the fall shelf sets, you lost a little bit, but not that much, maybe one facing. So can you confirm that, put that in some perspective and what it looks like for the spring? So that's for you, Michel. And then Fernando, to circle back on the buybacks and the capital allocation, can you talk a little bit about -- are you trying to kind of give a message and a signal with the share buybacks? And what gives you the confidence to make these moves in such an uncertain macro environment? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi Rob. Good morning. Thank you for the question. Let me take these in two pieces. The first one as we shared on that graphic and you are right about the last week, sircana. We've been seeing that despite of calling stable market shares since April, the reality is that we are flowing back between 10 to 15bps every two weeks. And this is happening most with Michelob ULTRA and Bush, which in the last week, Bush and Michelob ULTRA were both positive and the brands remain very healthy under the consumer perspective in all metrics that we see. And of course, they were impacted by the overall situation, but they are less. The Bud Light, they are more in the family. And we see and we listen to consumers saying that they are coming back to their loved brands, and we expect these brands to recover their trajectory pre-April, which I think that's only a fair assumption to consider. We are not doing any forecast, but this is what we see with the numbers. And we continue to invest, as I said, the long-term behind the whole portfolio. So we see consumers now, 40% of lapsed buyers declaring that they are ready to come back, and declared intention is there. We want to see now the behavior materializing. It's already taking place of Bush Light with Michelob ULTRA and some other brands in the portfolio. On the reset, I think that we talked about this a couple of times. It's worth to complement the information that you shared, which is pretty accurate with what we said before. Fall reset is usually very small. And when you look at this fall reset, we had like around 10% of the chain towards doing some change, which is pretty much what happened. So around 10%, a little bit less. When you look at what is the main takeaway from that and the like, it's a little bit less than one phase on average. On average is 0.8 phases out of, on average, 20 phases that Bud Light has per store. So that is an adjustment of 5% of the cubic space that Bud Light has. The main reason for that is because Bud Light remains the number one volume and the number one brand by units. And as I said before, all big brands around the space, because it's usually in the category you have a lot of items with lower losses, but you want to represent. So the impact so far in Bud Light is very small. Michelob ULTRA gained in space, Bush Life gained in space and some other very important items that we have in the portfolio also gained in space. So I think that the number of cactuses that we have increases. Since the quarter one, we see good momentum as we move forward on the relationship with the retailers and the hard work that our wholesalers do. So we want to continue to call back this share position, make the right choices and investments for next year so we minimize any resets coming out of the spring reset. But as I always say on the three-tier system, the retailers are independent, they make their own choices, and their choices are made based on the losses, rate of sales and the belief that they have and the brands that will drive the category. Thank you for the question. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Rob, Fernando here. On your question, I wouldn't look buyback on any specific action in isolation. If you zoom out, we continue to drive more resources to the leverage. It's a $3 billion tender offer and 1 billion share buyback. But if you zoom out even further, this is a function of the business that we have. We are in a large and growing category. We have our leadership advantage, which is our unparalleled footprint and scale. We have the replicable growth drivers that iconic mega brands and digital products, and we have the superior profitability. It's pretty much our margins on cash flow. When you get all of that and get this to move and continue to deliver growth, we continue to generate cash, and then we need to allocate cash in a way that creates more value to shareholders, and that's the dynamic allocation of our capital. And the $3 billion cash tender and 1 billion share buyback, just a reflection of our business performance and the choices that we have to maximize value to our shareholders. Rob Ottenstein: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question. Mitch Collett: Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. It's Mitch Collett from Deutsche Bank here. I've got one question, please. You had a big recovery in your EBITDA margin in South America and primarily by Brazil. But can you talk about the drivers of that expansion? Clearly, there was a big benefit at the gross margin level from pricing above COGS inflation. But did these help at all, perhaps in terms of managing SG&A or maximizing your revenue per unit? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Mitch, I think that we also referred to this point in a couple of the calls that we had before, where we clearly made the separation between what our structural issues in relation to our margins versus what was a consequence of commodity inflation and FX. And it's very clear for us that structurally, we don't have any impact on our margins, but we have a lot of impact from commodities and FX. And we also highlighted that because of specifics in terms of sourcing, hedging, currencies, some of our markets got earlier into this margin compression, and some of the markets later. And therefore, the phasing out, we also not to be uniform. And when you think about what's happening in Latin America and especially in Brazil, we see great performance from our mega brands. So they are growing, driving growth both in power and in share. We are well positioned with the scale that we have and efficiencies, so operating very efficiently in the overhead. And as we see now commodities normalizing and FX a little bit more in our direction, the margins are rebuilding. Of course, part of our operating model now contemplates BEES, which enabled us to reduce cost to serve, enlarge our distribution scale and is also helping us to manage better the campaigns and the promotions that we do, integrating online and off-line. You combine this with a very good portfolio that we have today in Brazil, market structure that looks much better than it used to be in the past, so competitors competing more at the top, more premiumizing the market and the portfolio. And now with operating efficiencies, we are glad to see that this is converting into margins. It's all combined as it goes in Brazil and Latin America, and we saw together the same effects in Latin America when we were together in Mexico. So it's moving in the right direction. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Simon Hales with Citi. Please proceed with your question. Simon Hales: Thank you. Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. So two for me, please. The first one is with you around your marketing and sales investments as we go through the end of the year. Is it fair to assume that the rate of SG&A growth that we're going to see in the business into the fourth quarter will probably begin to slow versus what we've now seen in recent quarters as you lap that World Cup spend unwinding Q4-on-Q4? Or should we still expect enough weighting of investment elsewhere in the business and not least your ongoing commitment to wholesaler support in the U.S. to maybe sort of offset some of that sort of theoretical Q4-on-Q4 benefits? So that's my first question. And then just secondly, just I suppose just a point of clarification with regards to the share buyback. Can you start executing that immediately, Fernando? Or do you still need to appoint a bank to handle the process and go through some other approvals before you'll actually be in the market? Michel Doukeris: Good morning, Simon. Maybe I'll take a shot on the first one, and I'll leave Fernando to complement the buyback. So you know that we give the guidance on the EBITDA line, the fourth way as a way to simplify our conversations and making sure that we have both like the freedom and commitment to invest to the long-term while the financial discipline to deliver profitable growth over time. So I don't think that it makes any sense for us to give too many details or guide for where the sales and marketing will be on the quarter four or quarter one, quarter two next year. This is all built into our overall outlook for the year. But you have one point that's right there, which is we had World Cup last year in which a lot of the expenses in sales and marketing were skewed towards the quarter 4 of last year, but we continue to invest for the long term now and we are balancing well what we to do as we keep developing and leading and growing the category with the needs that we have to activate demand across the market. So it's all built into the fourth weight, which we just reiterated as we announced in quarter 3. Thank you for the question. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi Simon, Fernando here. And on your question, the best answer is probably almost immediately. You need to go to a few administrative tasks that you can only do after you announce, but that takes almost no time at all, so kind of almost immediately. Thank you. Simon Hales: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Brett Cooper with Consumer Edge. Please proceed with your questions. Brett Cooper: Good morning. Just one for me. Have your digital initiatives revealed any products or categories where the company has a small presence today that are areas where you've seen ABI demonstrated competitive advantage given your infrastructure? Thanks. Michel Doukeris: Hi Brett, that's an interesting question. I think that I will take this in two parts. So we are focused now on increase the coverage with BEES as we get to new countries. And at the same time, get more people to convert to BEES marketplace. And the growth that we are seeing in BEES marketplace, both in orders and GMV is very promising. This flywheel works with more partners and their products getting scale and reach as we roll them through BEES marketplace. When we think about products and services within BEES in the digital ecosystem, we are prioritizing on our own initiatives things that we can use low capital and low infrastructure, but leverage and take advantage of the digital platform that we built. During the Capital Markets Day in Mexico, we showcased Vendo by BEES, which is basically a feature built within this to allow us to sell digital products or to work as a place, a channel where people can pay digitally their bills that they have. And this is scaling quickly. In Mexico, 100,000 orders so far, which is a big advantage, a big improvement since we were together in Mexico. It's light structure, fast conversion, good margins. And BEES digital products and digital capabilities such as credit and digital campaigns is where we are focusing on more now, while we are supporting the development of the products of our partners, the physical products through marketplace, which continues to both expand and gather more consumers, engaged in more than 60% of the BEES buyers are now BEES marketplace buyers. Thank you for the question Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from James Edwardes Jones with RBC. Please proceed with your question. James Edwardes Jones: Yes. Good morning. Michelob ULTRA, I noticed included in the global brand slide unlike Q2. How big is Michelob ULTRA outside the U.S.? And what are the main countries where it's sold? And secondly, you had about $10 billion of cash last year-end, which means that you're paying a coupon of more like 5% on your net debt rather than the 4% coupon on your gross debt that you talked about. Presumably, some of that's going to be used for the bond redemption. I guess my question is, how much cash does AB InBev need to operate? Michel Doukeris: Hi, James. Good afternoon. Michel here. I'll take on the first question, and then I'll leave Fernando to complement on the cash question. I think that Michelob ULTRA, first and foremost, is a brand that is very well aligned with an important global mega trend, which is around healthier lifestyle and wellness as a way to socialize and complement our lifestyle, and this is a mega trend that you see present across the globe, pretty much all markets from Latin America to North America, to Asia, are showing an opportunity in this area. And because Michelob ULTRA fits very well and complement our global portfolio in these more social occasions, we thought that would be the right moment to elevate Michelob ULTRA, and we showcased the reasons why and how during the Capital Markets Day. If you look at how the brand is developing, so in the U.S., we are all familiar with the growth path and the velocity of the brand. This is pretty much being replicated as a core proposition in Canada, where the brand has a lot of momentum, fastest-growing brand there. When you think about Mexico, which is a place that we launched, and the brand as well a couple of years ago moving at speed and very healthy growth premium price as well. We extended the brand to some other markets in Latin America, think about Panama and you go through the islands in the Caribbean. The brand has very good momentum as well and we have plans now to continue to roll, choosing the most important countries where we want the brand to develop, where it can add to the portfolio as a core to us. So it's good for margins but also can tap and lead this healthier and wellness type of trend in consumption because it is low calorie, low carbs, very good for everyday consumption as we see from the data in the countries that we already rolled the brand. So huge headroom for growth, premium core plus positioning, global mega trend that's present across majority of our markets and very important play as we continue to consolidate our mega brands, and we continue to drive both category growth and our performance with a more efficient portfolio. Thanks for the question. Fernando Tennenbaum: And James, Fernando here. On your question, the out of the debt answer would be around $5 million to $6 billion. That's normally what you say is the minimum cash you need to operate, and that's already coming from a safe place because it takes somehow into account seasonality and somehow take into account that they are not tapping any other liquidity sources, which we have a lot like the RCF or any commercial paper. So, if you look at our cash balance, probably we're taking even a more conservative approach lately. If we finish the year with $10 billion, $10 billion is way more than we need to run the business. So kind of we -- and then again, depends on your strategy to give a moment in time. I feel we're still focusing on deleveraging, but Montana health cash balance to make sure that any volatility, we can navigate with no issues at all. Thank you. James Edwardes Jones: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Olivier Nicolai with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions. Olivier Nicolai: Hi, good morning, Michel and Fernando. Just two questions first. First, a follow-up on the recently announced USC partnership. Could you perhaps give us a bit of background on it? And if it's a normal sponsorship with a fixed payment or if there's viable part linked to the potential recovery of the Bud Light brand over time. And then secondly, many staples companies have commented on how GLP-1 drugs could potentially affect consumer habits in the U.S. Obviously, I assume at not going to be the main company being the most concerned about this. But considering that a lot of your portfolio is within the light beer segment already, but I was just wondering if you've done any work on the topic and the potential risk to volumes on B or RTD or had sales there. Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi Olivier, Michel here. Good morning. Thank you for the question. So I'll take both, starting with the UFC. I think that is just like emphasizing and overstating that UFC is like a global vibrant and growing international sport. It reached hundreds of millions of fans around the world, and it's a great fit for Bud Light in the U.S. and for Budweiser in our other markets. So the combination of global and presence in the U.S. gives us an incredible opportunity to partner with UFC and tap into the fan base both in the U.S. with Bud Light and globally with Budweiser. You know that as a company, globally with support sports period, so from soccer and FIFA to basketball and MDA to football NFL, Golf and PG and many, many other sports platforms because it's a great way to connect with consumers globally in a very relevant occasion. In the U.S., if you go back in time, Bud Light was the official, original UFC sponsor. That was like more than 15 years ago and was only like a natural fit for these two great brands to come back together. So UFC has shown tremendous growth, has over 500 million fans worldwide. And since our revisional sponsorship, it's incredible, amazing to see the growth that the UFC and all the accomplishments of Bud Light to create a truly global brand. So I think that beyond the passion for celebrating our fans, UFC NAV share this American routes, track record of employing American people, driving economic growth part, supporting veterans and first responders. So we could not be more excited about taking this partnership to the next level. And to answer your question, is a normal partnership agreement with as any other partnerships fee payment and then activation around the platform. So there is no variable pay involved in any end of the agreement. So it's a great partnership. I could not be more excited about joining or rejoining UFC on this come back and to have Bud Light in the U.S. for the fans and Budweiser being activated globally, so leveraging the best of both worlds. On the GLP, we've been seeing a couple of questions and people talking about that. But I think that the key point here is beer category remains vibrant, is growing globally, gaining share of throat and is projected for all sources, IFWR, Euromonitor to continue to grow globally, volumes and gaining share of throat. At this stage, I think that's too early to assess any overlap or change in behavior in relevant consumer groups. You see that the penetration of these drugs is still very small, and that is like a relatively wide range of points of view on where this is going with very limited data. I think that for us, we don't see any impact so far in the business. Our portfolio, as you know have several different options for socialization and consumers understand that. And the big distinction because we are not in the indulgence business, right, so you see a lot of the conversations around sweet and more things that are related to indulgence, which is not the case of our portfolio. And on top of that, we have like an incredible range of offers with low calorie, low-carb, non-alcohol, think about Michelob ULTRA, low-calorie; Corona Cero, 56 calories; Budweiser, 50 calories. So we have a portfolio that has some broad range, we see no reasons to make any consideration at this point. And I think that without more data and seeing the developments of deals is going to be more of speculation, so at this point, nothing else there. Olivier Nicolai: Thank you very much. Operator: Thank you. Our final question will come from the line of Andrea Pistacchi with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question. Andrea Pistacchi: Yes. Hi Richard and Fernando. Two, please for me. The first one is on the consumer environment. I mean some of your peers have called out in some markets, mainly in Europe and Asia. Some deterioration in recent months, LatAm seems to be quite fairly resilient for now. So I wonder if you could provide a quick assessment in terms of what you're seeing in consumer environment in your main markets around the region and whether you have seen any change since the last update of Q2. And the second question, please, is on your SG&A in North America, which increased 2.5%. Now there's clearly various buckets within your SG&A. I imagine distribution costs will be declining support to wholesalers going up. But in terms of your media spend, a couple of quarters ago, you had you'd said that this year, it would be very focused on the summer months as there'd be a step-up through the summer month. So I was wondering whether that has taken place or whether maybe over the last few months, your plans have evolved a bit. Maybe you're waiting for the dust to settle before really stepping up media spend in the U.S. Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Andrea, thank you for the questions. I'll take both here. In terms of the consumer environment, I will follow the sequence of your question, starting with Europe. I think that the categories, I think, dollar-wise remains resilient. And most importantly for us, consumer -- underlying consumer demand for our brands is going very well. So if we look at the volumes in this quarter, we saw a decline like high single digits, and a lot of that was weather-related. And it's interesting because the south of Europe was very hot. But our footprint is more concentrated on the center and northern part of Europe that was very cold, very wet. And we saw July, August, very bad with some improvement in September and further improvement in the early readings of October. So difficult to precisely say how much was weather, how much is consumer environment, but was more on the weather, less on the consumer environment. And the consumer environment, of course, has inflation and prices up and solids that are catching up. So as you see the disposable income, September also marked a point where disposal will increase because of the salaries increase. It's now at par and recovering versus inflation. So I think that, that is an interesting combination of better weather, more disposable income as we face from quarter three to quarter four. In China, we saw a similarly complicated industry, mostly impacted by weather. So the El Nino hit the South China and the Southeast China as well. I just came from China two weeks ago, spent a lot of time there, 12 days in the region. The consumption, you see that is thriving. The market is open. Consumers are coming back. The beer category, resilient overall other than the ones that impact. And most importantly, for our portfolio, premiumization remains a very important trend. I think that the overall environment in China is a one-off recovery with utility recovering, activity recovering. You see that some structural issues in the real estate, which is not our business, but of course, impacts the overall economy and a little bit more cyclical in exports, but this doesn't change the long-term prospects for China for our business, and particularly because both the industry remains very resilient. And the most important thing, which is premiumization, where our portfolio is performing very well, continues to move in the right direction. And in Latin America, I think that we are seeing this strength that continues to manifest across majority of the markets. Of course, you have impact here and there from the El Nino climate. We just saw this big event in Mexico Poco region. But you are also seeing strength across other markets, Colombia and Brazil, where inflation is more under control, real sellers are moving correct, and the strength of our portfolio is delivering the numbers that we need to deliver. So I think that this is like a big consolidation of how I see the industry and the consumer environment. Andrea Pistacchi: Yes, on the marketing and the media spend in the U.S. and the SG&A. Michel Doukeris: I'm sorry, I forgot the second question. Sorry about that. In short, we are managing very tight as usual, our overheads. And we've been investing, as we said, behind our brands to the long-term, and we didn't change our investment plans for the summer. We continue to invest, and we will continue to make the right investments and choices to the open. Thank you. Andrea Pistacchi: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jesse. Thank you all for your time today and for your ongoing partnership and support of our business. Stay safe and well, and we will see you on our quarter four. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be opened for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see Risk Factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 17th of March 2023. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jesse, and welcome, everyone, to our second quarter 2023 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our second quarter operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we have made in executing our strategic priorities. After that, we'll be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with our operating performance. Our global momentum continued this quarter, although was partially offset by the performance of our U.S. business. We delivered revenue growth of 7.2%. Our net revenue per hectoliter increased 9% as a result of pricing actions, ongoing premiumization and other revenue management initiatives. Total volumes declined by 1.4% as growth in the majority of our markets was offset by volume decline in the U.S. EBITDA increased by 5% and reached US$4.9 billion. Underlying EPS was US$0.72. While this quarter was not without challenge, the strength of our brand portfolio, global footprint and our focus on disciplined resource allocation continues to enable us to invest for the long-term while delivering profitable growth. We delivered broad-based growth this quarter with double digit top line increases in four of our five operating regions. Revenue increased more than 85% of our markets with volume growth in over 50%. Our diverse geographic print positions us well to deliver superior long-term value creation. Now I will take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the quarter from our key regions, starting with North America. In the U.S., the beer industry remained resilient delivering revenue growth of 2.3% this quarter and with beer gaining share of value of total alcohol in the first half of 2023. Our revenues declined by 10.5% and STR volumes by 14% with performance impacted by the decline of the Bud Light brand. With respect to Bud Light brand performance. We have actively engaged with over 17,000 consumers since April, and there are a few clear insights. First, most consumer surveyed are favorable towards the Bud Light brand and approximately 80% are favorable or neutral. The consumer will always be at the center of everything we do. All of us at ABI deeply care about and respect all our consumers. Second, regardless of favorability, our consumers across all sentiment groups have 3 points of feedback in common. One, they want to enjoy their beer without a debate. Two, they want Bud Light to focus on beer. Three, they want Bud Light to concentrate on the platforms that all consumers love, such as NFL, Folds of Honor and Music. We are taking the feedback and working hard toward our consumers' business every day across the world. While our total beer industry share declined by 520 bps this quarter to 36.9%, it has been stable since the last week of April through the end of June. U.S. EBITDA declined by 28.2% this quarter with approximately two thirds driven by market share performance and one third driven by productivity loss and the long-term strategic choices we made to increase sales and market investments in our brands and provide support to our wholesaler partners. As we move forward in the U.S., we are focused on what we do best, brewing great quality beer, actively engaging with our consumers, supporting our partners and positively impacting the communities that we serve. Now moving to our largest region, Middle Americas, which delivered margin expansion and another quarter of growth. In Mexico, we continue to outperform the industry, delivering double-digit top and bottom line growth. Our above core portfolio grew revenue by mid-teens led by the strong performance of Modelo Especial. We continue to progress our digital DTC initiatives. With our DTC platform, TaDa, now operating in over 60 major cities and fulfilling on average over 300,000 orders per month. In short, Mexico continues to execute effectively across all three pillars of our strategy to drive consistent performance. In Colombia, our business delivered high single-digit top and double-digit bottom line growth with our beer portfolio continue to gain share of total alcohol. Our mainstream portfolio drove our performance, delivering double-digit revenue growth led by a particularly strong performance from Poker, which grew volumes by mid-teens. In South America, our business in Brazil delivered double-digit top and bottom line growth with approximately 400 basis points of margin expansion. Our beer volumes declined by 2.6% as we cycled a strong performance in 2Q 2022, which was supported by post-COVID recovery. Our premium and super-premium brands led our performance, delivering a volume increase in the mid-terms. BEES marketplace continued to expand, reaching over 700,000 customers, a 29% increase versus 2Q 2022 and GMV growing by 64%. Brazil is another example of effective execution across all three pillars of our strategy. Now let's talk about EMEA. In Europe, we grew top and bottom line by high single digits. Volumes declined by mid-single digits, outperforming a soft industry in the majority of our key markets. We continue to drive premiumization across Europe. Our premium and super-premium brands delivered double-digit revenue growth this quarter, led by Corona and Budweiser. In South Africa, we delivered double-digit top line growth with our portfolio continue to gain both share of beer and total alcohol. EBITDA was flattish as top line growth was offset primarily by anticipated commodity cost headwinds. Our performance was led by Carling Black Label, the number one beer brand in the country, which grew volumes by high teens. Our global brands grew volumes by more than 50%, driven by Corona. And finally, APAC. In China, our business delivered double-digit top and bottom line growth, driven by continued premiumization and on-premise recovery across our key regions and channels. We outperformed the industry delivering volume growth across all segments of our portfolio this quarter led by mid-20s volume growth in both our premium and super premium portfolios. Now I would like to share with you a few sustainability highlights. We continue to innovate and progress towards our 2025 sustainability goals. Here are few examples of local initiatives with the potential to scale globally that are driving progress on our sustainability priorities. In Climate Action, we invested in a biomass processor in our Jupille brewery in Belgium to produce thermal energy from malt husks, which we expect to reduce our gas consumption by 15% and reduce our carbon emissions. In smart agriculture, we provide the technical and financial training to over 900 smallholder barley farmers in Uganda to strengthen local supply chains. In Water Stewardship, we are installing new vacuum pump technology breweries across several markets to reduce water usage in bottle fillers by approximately 50%. For Circular Packaging, our business in Brazil launched a nationwide returnable bottle campaign to help increase the use of returnable packaging by promoting affordability and sustainability. Now let’s move on to our strategic pillars. Let’s start with pillar one of our strategy lead and grow the category. We continue to execute on our five levers to drive category expansion and delivered a strong quarter of profitable top line growth. We are leading and growing the category by offering superior core propositions, developing new consumption occasions, and expanding our premium and Beyond Beer portfolios. Our global brands continue to scale and drive premiumization across our markets. The combined revenues of Corona, Stella Artois, and Budweiser grew by 18.4% outside of brands’ home markets led by Corona, which was recently recognized by Kantar BrandZ as the number one fastest growing global brand by value with 23.7% growth. Budweiser delivered a revenue increase of 16.9% with broad-based growth in 25 markets, and Stella Artois grew by 14.5%. Now let’s turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. This continue to accelerate usage and reach, capturing US$9.2 billion in gross merchandising value this quarter, a 30% increase year-over-year and reaching 3.3 million monthly active users. Customer satisfaction continue to improve with our weighted average Net Promoter Score improving to plus 60, up 10 points since last year. In 15 of the 20 markets where BEES is live, our customers are also able to purchase third-party products through BEES marketplace. Customer adoption is increasing with 63% of BEES customers now also BEES marketplace users. In the second quarter, BEES marketplace generated approximately US$340 million in GMV representing approximately US$1.3 billion on annualized basis. Now let’s talk about how we are strengthening our direct relationship with our consumers. Our digital DTC products Zé Delivery, TaDa and PerfectDraft are now available in 20 markets and generated over 16.5 million orders and US$115 million in revenue this quarter. We continue to leverage our digital DTC products to further develop new consumption occasions. For example, in Brazil, Zé Delivery enabled the launch of Corona Sunset Hours, an everyday activation, encouraging consumers to disconnect from work and reconnect with friends in the early evening. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimize our business. Fernando, over to you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. We aim to maximize value by focusing on three areas, optimize the resource allocation, robust risk management, and efficient capital structure. With respect to capital allocation, we are focused on maximizing long-term value creation by dynamically balancing our priorities. We continue to invest in organic growth to support our strategy to lead and grow the category and digitize and monetize our ecosystem. In the first half of 2023, disciplined overhead management and efficient allocation of resources enabled us to invest approximately US$5.6 billion combined in sales and marketing and CapEx. The excess cash generated by our business is then dynamically allocated to our three capital allocation priorities: Deleveraging; selective M&A and return of capital to shareholders. As you can see in the next slide, two point times net debt-to-EBITDA remains the point at which we maximized value, though approximately 90% of the benefits from deleveraging can be captured as we approach three times. As of June 30, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio reached at 3.7 times down from 3.86 times year-over-year with net debt reached US$73.8 billion. As a reminder, we typically generate the vast majority of our cash flow in the second half of the year. Net debt was also impacted by the increase dividend paid in the first half of 2023, as well as the translational effects hedged. Our debt maturity profile remains well distributed with no bond maturities in 2023 and no relevant medium-term refinancing needs. If you look at our debt maturity profile, we have US$3 billion worth of bonds maturing through 2025. As of June 30, we had total liquidity of US$16.9 billion, which consisted of US$10.1 billion available under committed long-term credit facilities and US$6.8 billion of cash equivalents. Our bond portfolio has an average pre-tax coupon of around 4% and a weighted average maturity of 14 years. In addition, our debt portfolio does not have any financial covenants, and it is comprised of a variety of currencies, diversifying our FX risk. 96% of our bonds have a fixed rate insulated from interest rate volatility and inflation. And now let me take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS this quarter. We deliver EPS of $0.72 per share versus US$0.73 per share last year as we cycle a $0.04 per share net benefit from tax credits in Brazil year-over-year. Organic EBITDA growth accounting for $0.12 per share was offset primarily by translational effects. Lower income tax increased EPS by $0.04. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments before we start our Q&A session. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap my key takeaways for the quarter. While this quarter was not without challenge, we continue to make progress in executing across each of our three strategic pillars. Our business momentum continued this quarter with double-digit top line growth in four of our five operating regions. Driven by the strength of our leading brand portfolio, we grew volumes in the majority of our markets and revenues in over 85%. We made important strategic choices in pricing and other revenue management initiatives, which drove continued strong net revenue per hectoliter growth of 9%. We progressed our digital transformation, generating US$9.2 billion in GMV through this with 63% of these customers now also BEES marketplace buyers, delivering a GMV increase of 41% versus last year. EBITDA grew organically by 5% as disciplined overhead management mostly offset that elevated cost environment. We are actively engaging with our consumers globally and investing to drive long-term value creation, and our results this quarter are another proof point of the strength of our global footprint. With that, I would like to hand it back to Jess for the Q&A. Thank you, Jess. Operator: Thank you. The floor is now open for question. In the interest of time, we will limit participants to one question and one follow-up. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Our first question is coming from Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question. Trevor Stirling: Hi, Michel and Fernando. I have two questions from my side, please. The first one, Michel, showing your – you're looking at your chart showing the market share trends over time in the U.S. It does look, maybe I'm being too optimistic here, that last week start to see a little bit of an improvement in market share trends. Is that something you'd agree with? So is that being driven by Bud Light itself or the other brands, so basically Bud Light is still weak, but the other brands and the collateral damage if you like, is starting to reduce. And the second question, probably one more for Fernando. Very good margin performance in Middle Americas, I think you mentioned in the release Mexico 175 bps of margin expansion in the quarter. Maybe if you could give a little bit of color on that. And is that sustainable for the rest of the year? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Trevor. Good morning. Thanks for the question. I'll take the first one here and then Fernando can take the second. The main objective for us to share this data, which is public data is to, one, bring a little bit the idea that we see, which is a more stable shared over the last couple of weeks. You see that from May to June to the early July readings that is actually like an improvement on the delta share as you come month to month, week to week, but it's more a stable scenario. And now, of course, brands and the team in the U.S. working hard to build it back and to earn back consumers as our commercial activities are in place. And we continue to invest for the long term brewing great quality beer, supporting our wholesalers and the team there. But the reading is really stabilization with signals of improvement when you cut across different states and channels. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Trevor, hello. Fernando here. On your question on margins, when we started this year, we said that we will have cost pressures to a lesser extent than last year, and it was not evenly distributed across the globe. As deal goes by what we've been seeing is that, of course, you have some hedges in places and a lot of your cost of goods sold is hedged. But there are always a portion of your cost of goods sold that cannot be hedged and the latest evolution of commodities definitely help you on that. So you definitely are seeing the benefit in Latin Americas. You mentioned Mexico, it's right. You can also refer to Brazil. Brazil is also performing well from a margin standpoint. And then if you start to fast forward and looking the costs we are seeing now, the effects we are seeing now and how that's going to unfold, definitely, you should – then again, we are not fully hedged, and then there are a lot of numbers that can change over time, but you should expect to start having some tailwinds, especially when you go into next year. It's too, too early to say, still too early to be 100% sure, but definitely start having some regions that we'll have some tailwinds going forward. Trevor Stirling: Perfect. Thank you very much Fernando and thank you Michel. Michel Doukeris: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question. Mitch Collett: Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. Given you did organic EBITDA growth of 9% in the first half, but 5% in the second half, which is pretty impressive given the challenges you faced. Can you maybe run us through the puts and takes for the second half and specifically what you're assuming for the U.S. and how we should think about the shape of Q3 and Q4. Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Mitch. I'll just try to clarify the question. I think that you said 9% first half and the 5% that you referred to is quarter two, right? Mitch Collett: Yes. Michel Doukeris: Okay. I think that, again, the first half of the year was strong. Of course, this quarter two, we had our own challenge here, but in puts and takes, you saw things working very well across four out of our five regions with very strong growth. And I think we mentioned before that the second half of the year, we would have differences in terms of quarter three and quarter four because of the World Cup last year. So we have, at the back end of the year, some of the benefits, Fernando was mentioning in terms of the commodities already turning into more tailwinds than headwinds. So this is in the back end of the year. And we have a very strong phasing as last year we invested more sales and marketing aligned with FIFA in the back end of the year. And this year, we have decided and we planned heavy up investments on the Q2, Q3. So we see now quarter three, quarter four coming, the balance is more commodity tailwinds in the quarter four, heavier investments in quarter two, quarter three in sales and marketing, while we maintained our outlook for the full year. I'm not sure if Fernando you want to compliment something. Fernando Tennenbaum: So I think that's exactly right. We remain confident in the business. As Michel pointed out very well, we had a very good performance on Q2 on four out of our five regions. And the performance going forward, we need to monitor the phasing but we remain confident we are making no changes to our outlook, and we continue to expect to have a strong year. Mitch Collett: Thank you guys. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore. Please proceed with your question. Rob Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much. I want to circle back to the U.S. Two of the things that I think have concerned investors the most is what's going on in on-premise, concerns at the on-premise may be worse than what we see in the scanner data. So if you could talk about that and what you see on the on-premise with TAPs? And then the promo environment, obviously, we see in the press and in the news, a lot of pretty deep discounts and couponing. How is the promo environment now that we're in the middle of the summer season? And how does it compare to the past? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Robert. Good morning. Thanks for the question. Two questions here. I think that own enough. When you look at the numbers, pretty similar, there's nothing like big to highlight in difference between on-premise and off-premise so far. And I think one important indicator that you brought that we are always monitoring is TAPs. And that is – it's not now. I think that since they come back from COVID, there is a quite meaningful rotation in terms of TAPs, and we see bars, restaurants, optimizing for high turnover. I think that's the best way to explain what's happening. And you see brands that have higher sales and turnover getting more TAPs. And these large varieties that some points of sales carry that had very low productivity being delisted. We see this happening across some of our craft brands or brands that have low turnover. We measure this with our wholesalers and through independent. We have retained more than 98% of our TAPs throughout the year. And some of our brands are gaining a lot of TAPs. Some of brands are declining some TAPs. But all in all, on-trade and off-trade performance, very similar, as you could see on our numbers. The second point, I think, that we addressed in the last call, the promotional activities, pricing and discounts. So the environment in pricing, I think that healthy. If you think about the inflation last year this year, the fact that we took two price increases last year, given the size of the inflation and costs, and there is a good carryover throughout this year. As per plan, we concentrated more of our commercial activities in the middle of this year. So this doesn't have anything to do with the Bud Light situation was planned and announced and shared with our wholesalers last year. We see the depth and the intensity of the promotional activities in line with historical levels. There is no anything beyond that. But of course, during the summer, you saw some activities and people bringing a lot of news around that, but not different than what the Super Bowl activity is promotions, coupons across the board. And of course, we saw in the U.S., these two price increases last year trying to catch up with inflation. Inflation is slowing down a little bit this year but it's still neither margins or the full price caught up with inflation yet. So we continue to monitor the environment and especially the consumer purchase power to have our plans for the end of this year, next year in place. Thanks for the question. Rob Ottenstein: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from the line of Laurence Whyatt with Barclays. Please proceed with your question. Laurence Whyatt: Hi. Thanks very much for the questions. A couple from me. Firstly, in regard to the sales in the U.S. potentially starting to stabilize, do you think the cost base in the U.S. is in around the right place at the moment? And then secondly, on Brazil, you said you perhaps lost a little bit of share this quarter. I think at the full year results, you stated how much share you gained over the past few years. Are you comfortable with the level of market share that you're taking in Brazil? And is there anything further that can be done there? Thank you very much. Michel Doukeris: So two questions there. I think that one data we shared, we got some questions in the last interactions about the cost base in the U.S. It's like the EBITDA decline that we saw so far, rough numbers, two thirds related to the volume, one thirds is more operational leverage. And of course, there is many opportunities to improve productivity as you get less dislocation in production, you can optimize your lines and those things are being planned and implemented, as we are always working on optimizing costs. So there is work to be done. The team is working on that and we will be capturing productivity – while the quarters as we move forward. And in Brazil, I think that we are having a very good performance. Volumes performed very well in the quarter. We saw a slowdown in the industry during the quarter two. Our premium portfolio continues to work very well. Our core-plus brands are working well. And as premiumization trends continue to be in place as we cycle the very strong comps that we had last year, I think that we will continue to see market share improvements and especially in the premium segment where we are accelerating big time, both volume and brand equity. So Corona performing well. Spaten performing very well. Original growing high double digits. So we are taking share on this very important segment in Brazil. Laurence Whyatt: Great. Thank you very much. Michel Doukeris: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question. Edward Mundy: Morning, Michel. Morning, Fernando. First question is, I'd love to get your perspective about how you think about the process of restoring lost brand equity. In particular, what are the lessons from previous brand turnarounds at ABI? Any examples, specific examples, you can talk to around what you did, sort of how long it took to improve on equity and then how long it took to sort of get consumers back on site for some of these brands. And then the second question, just building on the point of premiumization, both yourselves and one of your competitors that reported earlier this week, still seeing really good premiumization within the beer category. I appreciate the macros holding up okay. There's still some sort of revenge spending going on. But do you think this premiumization will persist as you look out over the short to medium term? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Ed. Thank you for the question. Let me start with the premiumization one. We have repeated this based on data and the insights that we have. We see the premiumization in the beer category, both having like a very large headroom because we have a lot of opportunity to continue to premiumize, but also a trend that is very consistent, is consistent across the globe and is consistent across different economic cycles. And we even shared with you before that in some recessionary scenarios when consumers are more under pressure, you will see a rather acceleration because people they concentrate their purchase power in categories where they can buy more with less, let's say. So it's more affordable to premiumizing beer than it is with some other categories. And we see very consistent results like China, South America, Middle Americas, North America continues to premiumize. And in Europe, our portfolio is more than half today in premium brands. So we see consistency here. We see our brands performing very well. We announced a very strong quarter for our main global brands, and they performed very well across the globe. When you think about the brand equity, I think that this story is they are very similar yet each and every one is different. And as a company in the U.S., we are listening and actively engaging with our consumers. We learned a lot through these interactions so far. And as I shared in the webcast is people still with good members favorable, the brands still have a very high equity, but people basically – they want to enjoy their beer without a debate. They want us to focus and concentrate in platforms that all consumers love and this is what we are doing. We are investing behind the platforms that we have engaged throughout the years with our consumers. The response for both communication, advertisement, the events and platforms that we are activating is good. And you need time, so you can get a better reading and better results. We have three months so far since this situation, and we continue to learn, and we continue to move forward with the main activities that we know that work everywhere, including in our regions in the U.S., different responses in different regions, but some very good responses across brands. Edward Mundy: Okay, thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Jeff Stent with BNP Paribas. Please proceed with your question. Jeff Stent: Hi. Just one question from me, if I may. There seems to be some quite radical tax changes progressing through the Brazilian Congress. And I was just wondering if you could perhaps comment on those in the context of your business and what they might mean if they go through as proposed? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hello, Jeff. Fernando here. We support the tax reform that will reduce the complexity of the Brazilian tax system, tax reform that can provide for legal certainty. And of course, it does not increase the industry's tax burden because if you look, we – it's probably among the highest, if not the highest aggregated tax burden in Latin America. The proposed changes, which have been debated in the Congress for direct and indirect tax, they're gaining momentum this year. It was listed a top priority from the new government, and it was approved in the Congress in July. And now is that the Senate to be approved or to see how they deal with that? The proposal will simplify a lot, the tax system that we have, which is good it’s to have going to have a dual VAT, which both a federal and a state one. And this simplifying a meaningful way, the current consumption tax system. And there is an excise tax that apply to some services and good. And this kind of has not been defined it, but it’s going to be defined later on. So this is pretty much the indirect side. On the direct side is still have to be discussed. And overall, I think we need to see they both combine it, but if there is any simplification less uncertainty, I feel net-net should be a positive for the industry and a positive for the country. Jeff Stent: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Jared Dinges with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question. Jared Dinges: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. If I can come back to Mexico, please. Like, I think volumes came in a bit weaker than expected, and a bit weaker than they have been for a while. I know there’s some phasing that you guys called out, but can you talk about what you’re seeing in terms of underlying trends in that market? Do you still see industry growth there in the second half and as you look towards 2024? Thanks. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Jared. Michel here. Thanks for the question. So Mexico remains an incredibly exciting market with a lot of energy around the beer category that is both growing and premiumizing. And when you look to the quarter, I think that is always good to focus, but also step back in this quarter we have couple of shift. The most important one is Easter, right? So we had earlier Easter, so some of the volume phased into quarter one versus what was last year, a later Easter. And all the volume was inside the quarter two last year. So the comps here are important. The second component is like two sides of the same coin component, because as the effects appreciates in Mexico, the Mexican peso, we see the remittances from the U.S. to Mexico continue to grow in a health way. And this is a very important component on the Mexican economy, but because the peso is appreciating which is very good for us in EBITDA translation, of course in local pesos the remittances are not as big as they were last year. So this definitely is bringing in combination with the inflation, a short-term pressure on the consumer purchase power. And then we also saw, as in other regions a little bit colder weather throughout the quarter two, bounced back at the end of the quarter, so the end of June was slightly better. But the beginning April, May was a little bit colder than usually it is if this [indiscernible] transition. But nevertheless, confident with the market, long-term trends in the industry, very healthy premiumization in place. We are outperforming the industry and the portfolio is very healthy, responding very well very strong demand for our brands in Mexico. Jared Dinges: That’s perfect. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question. Sanjeet Aujla: Hey, Michel, Fernando, a couple from me, please. Firstly, Fernando, I think earlier you alluded to some potential tailwinds from the current commodity and [indiscernible] environment. I just wanted to get a sense in that context, what’s your pricing philosophy as we look forward to some of those tailwinds? Would you look to maybe reinvest some of those tailwinds back into pricing to volumes or would you look to continue the price in [indiscernible] geography? That’s my first question. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Sanjeet. Michel here. We had a little bit of a breakup on the line, but I think that I got your question. So as Fernando was saying before, we see at the backend of this year commodities coming back a little bit in price, and the visibility we have now with six, seven months under the belt is that this strand extends towards 2024. And we saw that different regions we said this before, they got the impacts of this commodities differently, right? So lockdown, for example, is already getting out while some other regions like Europe and Africa is still a little bit in the middle of the headwind in commodities. And in terms of pricing, I think that long term, as we always say, we expect the price to move with inflation. We discussed this before because of the high impact of commodities and high inflation is being playing a little bit of catch up over the last two years. Margins are not back. But as commodities start to go back, we should see some margin rebuild. And of course, the investments that we are making in our brands and the long-term strategy, we continue to be a priority, while we expect prices to move long term with inflation, margins to rebuild to pre COVID. And if this tailwinds get confirmed for the second half of next year, we should see some of these materializing next year. Sanjeet Aujla: Got it. Thank you. And just a word on China, now we’ve seen some reopening come through in the Q2 numbers. How do you assess the steady state of the Chinese consumer at the moment? Michel Doukeris: Well, that’s interesting. I’ve been couple of times to Asia this year already and spent a good time with consumers, and we see like a steady recovery after the COVID. And remember that we discussed this last year, couple of times that we were disproportionately impacted by the lockdowns because there was a lot of the lockdowns in the Eastern China, but also a lot of channel impact on our nightlife Chinese restaurants. We saw traffic rebuilding so good level of consumer coming back to the channels. We see this impacting in a disproportional way down our premium business and our presence in the more premium channels like nightlife and restaurants, consumers as everywhere else, they came back from the COVID experiences likely different. So they are more demanding for their brands. They want to see more value for the money that they’re spending is a common topic in China now is show me the value so you can get my money. It’s kind of how you translate what people are saying. Premiumization trends in beer remain very healthy. Consumption is moving well in our category. I know that in some other categories there is some slow down, but beer continues to be moving well after the reopening and summer now is an important season for the core business and the premium business. And so far we’ve been seeing a good rate of sales and distribution is growing as we expand the business. And our portfolio continues to perform very well in the premium and in the super premium business, which is very interesting. And long term we know that the prospects of China is continued premiumization and we are very well positioned with our portfolio to continue to benefit from that. Sanjeet Aujla: Great. Thank you very much. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Richard Withagen with Kepler. Please proceed with your question. Richard Withagen: Yes, good morning, Michel. Good morning, Fernando. I’ve got two questions, please. First of all in the press release, you mentioned that you attracted more lower income groups in Latin America and in Africa through brands and back innovations. So can you give some more details about this? And is this a response to a more difficult circumstances for consumers, for example, as a result of the inflation that we see? And then the second question, probably for Fernando on the working capital especially your receivables and your payables were big drag on free cash flow in the first half of 2023. So can you talk a bit what is behind the adverse effect here and what your expectations are for the second half of the year? Michel Doukeris: Hey, Richard, Michel here. I’ll take the first question and then hand over to Fernando. So we’ve been talking through the last few quarters and since our market capital day in 2021, about growing the category and implementing solutions that we know that work across the globe that we tested in the last few years, and we are scaling up. So let me give you one example to quickly address that. So in Brazil, we are combining three things that are very important for us to increase participation and more occasions in the category. So a very strong core portfolio with the Burma skull [ph] Antarctica brands, returnable packaging that we know that makes the product more affordable for consumers and the convenience of Ze Delivery with the home delivery of cold beer in 30 minutes. So we can, by combining the initiatives that we developed over the last few years, increase participation, get our products to penetrate more and have higher participation from low income consumers, while continue to have very good service level, good margins, and performance on our core brands. So this is a little bit of what we were talking in the press releasing how we are increasing participation. Of course, in different places we have different packs that address the same type of occasions, consumer base, but I think that this example from Brazil where you combine returnable package, direct to consumer deliver, and strong core brands is an example that brings to life how we are leading and growing the category. And then Fernando, on the working capital with you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Richard. Fernando here. On the working capital, a few topics. So you mentioned receivables, the biggest chunk here is derivative receivables position, which is actually reversed in non-cash. This is like $500 million, $550 million. Then we have another chunk around $250 million, which is higher volume growth and channel mix, mostly in APAC and middle Americas. Then on the payable side is you need to look payables in conjunction with inventories, because what ended up happening is during the pandemic as everyone is very well aware, there were all these supply chain fluctuations, and they ended up having more inventories than you actually needed just to make sure that there was no vision service level. Now, when you start bringing these inventories to a more healthy level, what happens is that you reduce the inventories, but at the first moment you reduce payables. And then once you start cycling that over, then you are going to have a lower inventory level, and then you’re going to review some of these payables. So no major concern here. And as we cycle over the pandemic, we should start normalizing that, and you should seeing cash coming from lower inventories and the respective benefit on payables. Richard Withagen: Very clear. Thanks both. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Robert Vos with ABN Amro. Please proceed with your question. Robert Vos: Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. When looking at, I think it’s a question for Fernando. When looking at your current bond portfolio and taking into consideration the upcoming debt redemptions, which are quite minimal and possibly also duration of some hatched interest rates for how long do you think you will be able to maintain an average gross debt coupon of 4% and maybe a follow-up on the working capital question. Do you expect some kind of reversal in the second half? So the cash outflow was 4.6 billion in the first half. Will that impart a reverse in the second half? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hello, Robert. Thanks for your question. On the bond portfolio, what is quite interesting is that it’s a fixed rate bond portfolio, and now with interest rates rising what we ended up doing is that as we generate cash, in other words still the leveraging and taking the opportunity to buy back some debt outstanding. We’re actually – you get more return of our cash when you buy the highest coupon debt. Since we don’t have to borrow money in this new interest rate environment and are retiring as we retire debt that actually supportive for our 4% coupon. So we should be continuing to do that. And so no concerns on maintaining the 4% coupon here. On your second question, yes, as we explain it, the moment that you start normalizing your inventory levels and you start having the lower inventories, but building back some of the payables, you could expect to have some of the reverse on debt. We always remind that most of our cash flow is generating the second half of the year, and the working capital component is very important to that. Robert Vos: Very clear. Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our last question today will come from the line of Simon Hales with Citi. Please proceed with your question. Simon Hales: Thank you. Hi Michel. Hi Fernando. So just a couple of things from me then. I just want to come back to the U.S. sort of please. One of your major competitors has been highlighting an acceleration in the number of U.S. retailer shelf resets, it’s seeing and is that something you can confirm your experiencing and perhaps how you preparing for a further step up in shelf resets as we move into the fall? And then secondly, I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the support you’ve been providing to your U.S. wholesaler partners through Q2. And what support we should expect to continue to see with wholesalers in Q3 and beyond? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Simon. Thank you for the question. I think I got the two questions here. In terms of shelf resets, different in each country and by retailer, but as an average in the U.S. you have two periods of the year, four [ph] spring. Usually during the fall, you see 20% of the retailers, let’s say resetting, while the majority of the resets take place in the spring. We saw some activity now towards the fall, a little bit off cycle, but smaller activities. So third or a fourth of the 20% of the retailers already doing some adjustments. And there is a huge planning on both sides, like retailers and us and wholesalers. We work throughout the year to make sure that the shelves are optimized in the best possible way with the retailers, of course, always making the last call on how they organize shelves and set for their consumer demand and needs. In terms of the wholesaler support, we have this long-term partnership with our wholesalers. Of course objectives pretty much aligned in here in maximizing our interests combining our sales and operations as much as we can for optimization. And given the situation in the U.S., we thought that would be extremely important to extend support to our wholesalers, link it to their volume sales. And as we announced it to them it goes until the end of the year. So it’s the same support from June until December. And very important as we bridge the situation here and we maintain our wholesalers competitive and focus on what they do best, which is high quality service level for their customers, and making sure that we are bringing moments of joy to our consumers through our brands, platforms, and activations that we have. Thanks for the question. Simon Hales: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I’ll now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Hey, thank you Jeff. Thank you everyone for your time today and ongoing partnership and support for our business. Hope you always stay safe and well. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s earnings conference call on webcast. Please disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see risk factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 17, 2023. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jesse and welcome, everyone, to our first quarter 2023 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our first quarter operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we've made in executing our strategic priorities. After that, we will be happy to answer your questions. Let me start with our operating performance. Our business momentum continued this quarter and we are very pleased with our strong performance to start the year. We delivered revenue growth of 13.2%, with volumes up by 0.9%. Revenue per hectoliter increased by 12.4% driven by price actions across our markets, other revenue management initiatives and ongoing premiumization. We grew EBITDA by 13.6% with a margin expansion of 13 basis points despite continued commodity cost headwinds and while increasing sales and marketing investments in our brands. Underlying EPS was US$0.65, an 8.7% increase versus last year. Our focus on disciplined resource allocation and everyday efficiency continues to enable us to invest for the long term while delivering consistent profitable growth. We delivered broad-based growth this quarter with both top and bottom line increases in all 5 of our regions. Revenue increased in 80% of our markets, with volume growth in over 60%. Our diverse geographic footprint provides a unique combination of growth and reliable cash flow generation, positioning us well to deliver superior long-term value creation. Now, I'll take a few minutes to walk you through the operational highlights for the quarter from our key regions, starting with North America. In the U.S., the beer industry remains resilient with industry volume trends improving sequentially and U.S. dollar sales up 3%. Our business delivered another quarter of top line growth and stable EBITDA despite delivery cost environment. Our above core beer portfolio continued to gain share of segment, growing volumes by mid-single digits. Since we are talking about the U.S., let me share some thoughts on the Bud Light situation and put it in the context of our global company. Let me start by clarifying a few facts. This was the result of one camp. It was not made for production or sales to general public. It was one post, not a formal campaign or advertisement. Bud Light campaign is easy to drink, easy to enjoy. We should address the situation through the lens of 3 areas that are very important: Our people; our consumers; and beer. Let's start with our people. This situation has impacted our people and especially our frontline workers: The delivery drivers; sales representatives; our wholesalers; Bud owners; and servers. These people are the fabric of our business. They are our neighbors, family members and friends. They are in every community in America. We've been doing everything we can to support our teams and ensure that safety, while continuing to brew, package and together for wholesalers deliver great beer to the market. We are providing direct financial support to the frontline teams that work for us and our wholesalers. As to Bud Light, we have significantly increased our investments behind the brands in the U.S., including tripling our medium spend over the summer. Now let's talk about our consumers. We continue to be committed to the programs and partnerships that we have forged over decades with our consumers and with organizations that represent a wide range of communities where we operate. We work every day to delight our consumers and bring people together. When we do this well, our brands perform. Finally, let's talk beer. Everything we do should be about beer and should promote beer. Beer is an essential part of life's meaningful moments, whether in sports, music or celebrations. These are moments that bring people together and this is why I love beer. While beer will always be at the table when important topics are debated, the beer itself should not be the focus of the debate. But life is about being easy to drink and easy to enjoy. That's what consumers want and that's what we are focused on delivering. We stand behind Bud Light and we'll continue to invest in the brand to drive it forward. As CEO, I'm accountable for our results, this company and our shareholders and stakeholders and my team. But life is very important to our U.S. business and I would never minimize the situation. However, seeing the context of our global company provides perspective. Over the years, our global footprint has enabled us to successfully navigate different types of challenges, such as temporary ban on beer sales in certain countries and the most long shutdown of bars and restaurants across the globe. With respect to the current situation and the impact of Bud Light sales, it is too early to have a full view. The Bud Light volume decline in the U.S. over the first 3 weeks of April, as publicly reported, would represent around 1% of our overall global volumes for that period. With this perspective and in the context of our global business, we believe we have the experience, the resources and the partners to manage this. And our full year EBITDA growth outlook is unchanged. In summary, we are focused on our people, our consumers and beer. We want to reiterate our support for our wholesaler partners and everyone who brings our great beers to the market. I can tell you that we have the agility, resources and people to support the U.S. team and move forward. We will continue to learn with the moment and come out stronger. And we'll work tireless to do what we do best: Bring people together over a beer and creating a future of more cheers. Now moving on to our largest region, Middle Americas which continues to deliver strong results. In Mexico, we continue to outperform the industry and grow top line and bottom line by double digits. Our volume growth was broad-based, led by our both core beer brands which grew by low teens. Our digital direct-to-consumer platform, Tada [ph], is now operating in over 50 cities and fulfilling on average, over 300,000 orders per month enabling us to build closer connections with our consumers. In Colombia, our business delivered top line growth with our beer portfolio continue to gain share of total alcohol despite inflationary pressures impacting consumer demand. EBITDA declined low single digits, driven by anticipated cost pressures. Our leading mainstream portfolio drove our performance, delivering mid-single-digit revenue growth. In South America, our business in Brazil delivered double-digit top and bottom line growth, with 235 basis points of margin expansion. Our beer volumes grew by 0.9%, with stable market share despite lapping a strong comparable. Our premium and super-premium brands led our growth, delivering a volume increase in the mid-30s. Now let's talk about EMEA. In Europe, we grew top line by double digits with flat volumes despite the softer industry. EBITDA grew by high single digits. We continue to penalize our portfolio with our global brands and super-premium portfolio delivering low teens revenue growth, led by Budweiser and Corona. In South Africa, we delivered record-high volumes for the first quarter and grew revenue by high single digits. EBITDA declined by low single digits, impacted by anticipated commodity cost headwinds. Our performance was led by Carling Black Label, the number 1 beer brand in the country. Our premium, super premium and bold beer portfolios, all delivered double-digit increases in revenue. And finally, APAC. In China, our business delivered double-digit top and bottom line growth as channel traffic continued to normalize and consumer demand for our portfolio accelerates. We delivered volume growth across all segments of our portfolio, led by our premium and super premium brands which grew by approximately 10%. Now I would like to share with you a few sustainability highlights. We continue to work in collaboration with our suppliers to drive decarbonization across our supply chain. In March this year, we were recognized by CBP as being a top supply engagement leader in 2022. In circular packaging, our team's on awards for our innovations using up-cycle barley straw in majority recycled marine waste for Corona 6-packs and crates. Now let's move on to our strategic pillars. Let's start with pillar 1 of our strategy, lead and grow the category. We continue to execute on our 5 levers to drive category expansion and delivered a strong quarter of consistent and profitable top line growth. We are leading and growing the category by offering superior core propositions, developing new consumption occasions and expanding our premium and Beyond Beer portfolios. Our global brands continue to scale and drive premiumization across our markets. The combined revenues of Corona, Stella Artois and Budweiser grew by 15.4% outside of the brands' home markets, led by Budweiser which grew by 17.8%. Now let's turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. This continue to accelerate usage and reach, capturing US$8.2 billion in gross merchandising value this quarter, a 32% increase year-over-year in reaching 3.1 million monthly active users. Customer satisfaction continued to improve with our weighted average Net Promoter Score improving to positive 59, up 11 points since last year. In 15 of the 20 markets were business lies [ph], our customers are also able to purchase third-party products through this marketplace. Customer adoption is increasing with 59% of these customers now also BEES-marketplace biased. In the first quarter, BEES marketplace generated approximately US$295 million in Gen-Z representing US$1.2 billion on an annualized basis. Now, let's talk about how we are strengthening our direct relationship with our consumers. Our digital B2C products, [indiscernible] are now available in 20 markets and generated over 16 million orders and US$100 million in revenues this quarter. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimize our business. Fernando, over to you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. We aim to maximize value by focusing on 3 areas: optimize resource allocation; robust risk management; and efficient capital structure. With respect to capital allocation, we are focused on maximizing long-term value creation by dynamically balancing our priorities. We continue to invest in organic growth to support our strategy to lead and grow the category and digitize and monetize our ecosystem. The excess cash generated by our business is then dynamically allocated to our 3 capital allocation priorities: Deleveraging; selective M&A; and return of capital to shareholders. Our debt maturity profile remains well distributed with no bond maturity in 2023 and no relevant medium-term refinancing needs. If you look at our debt maturity profile, we have US$3 billion worth of bonds maturing through 2025. Our bond portfolio has an average pretax coupon of around 4% and a weighted average maturity of 14.5 years. In addition, our debt portfolio does not have any financial covenants and it is comprised of a variety of currencies, diversifying our FX risk. 95% of our bonds have a fixed rate, insulated from interest rate volatility and inflation. As a result of our deleveraging progress, strong free cash flow generation and robust risk management practice, both Moody's and S&P recently upgraded our credit rating to A3 and A-, respectively. And now let me take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS this quarter. We grew underlying EPS by 8.7% versus last year, delivering EUR 0.65 per share. This increase was primarily driven by nominal EBITDA growth which accounted for a $0.13 per share increase. As we continue to deleverage, our net interest expense has reduced, contributing a $0.01 improvement. Higher income tax reduced EPS by $0.04 driven by country mix. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments before we start our Q&A session. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Before opening for Q&A, I would like to take a moment to recap my key takeaways for the quarter. We continue to make progress in executing across each of our 3 strategic pillars. Our business momentum continued this quarter. Driven by the strength of our leading brand portfolio, we grew volumes in 60% of our markets. We made important strategic choices in pricing and other revenue management initiatives which drove continued strong net revenue per hectoliter growth of 12.4%. We progressed our digital transformation generating US$8.2 billion [indiscernible] with 59% of these customers now also base marketplace buyers. EBITDA grew organically by 13.6% and our margins expanded even in the context of continued elevated cost environment. And as a result of our deleveraging progress and strong free cash flow generation. Our credit rating was upgraded 1 notch by both, Moody's and S&P. We are investing to drive long-term value creation and our results this quarter are another proof point of the effectiveness of our strategy. With that, I will hand it back to Jesse for Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from the line of Priya Ohri-Gupta with Barclays. Priya Ohri-Gupta: Firstly, congratulations on the upgrade from both Moody's and S&P. Fernando, I'd love to start with you. Now that you've achieved those low single A ratings, how should we think about your focus on getting to 3x net leverage as a near-term target? And is there any potential desire to move towards mid-single A ratings over time, given that, that could lift you to Tier 1 commercial labor access? Fernando Tennenbaum: Thanks for your question. I -- the best way to frame it is to go back to our resource allocation priorities. The objective, at the end of the day, is to maximize the value creation. We always invest behind the organic growth of our business. And with the remaining cash, we balance the leveraging shareholder payouts and selective M&A. When you think about deleveraging, we said a few times that we maximize the value of our business at 2 times, but 90% of these benefits we will be capturing around 3x. So our goal is to do the right thing for the business. And by doing the right things for the business, the rating will be a consequence. In a nutshell, for the time, we still see a meaningful amount of value on deleveraging. We increased the dividend last quarter. But in the grand scheme of things, most of the cash is still going towards deleveraging. But as we start moving closer to 3x, then start defense in 3x, moving closer to 2x. More and more, we can have other priorities, but always with the mindset of doing the right thing for the business and rating will be a consequence. Priya Ohri-Gupta: Great. And just as a follow-up, you highlighted that you have only about $3 billion of maturities coming due through '25. So as you think about further debt reduction, would you prioritize looking at those or maximizing deleveraging by perhaps looking further out the curve, given some of those months are still trading below par? Fernando Tennenbaum: It changes a lot depending on the interest rate environment. And we -- whenever we are in a position to start redeeming more debt, we always look at different trade-offs. If you recall correctly, in early 2020, given all the services, we focus a lot on the short term. And because interest rates were low, it made more sense for you to ride short-term debt. As we see interest rates rising it made more sense for us to redeem long-term debt because it was much more attractive. And we are in a position, given all the risk -- the risk management initiatives that we had in 2020, that we don't have any near-term so we can really make sure that we focus on whatever is maximizing value because the risk profile is in a very good place. Operator: Our next question will be coming from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Robert Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much. So Michel, as you clarified in your comments in terms of Bud Light, this is all about one can, one social media post, one influencer. And yet somehow it's just become something a whole lot bigger than that. There continues to be a lot of misinformation out there, a lot of confusion. Can you offer any thoughts, reflections on how this happened, what you've learned and what -- now that we're here, what are you going to do about it? Michel Doukeris: Robert, thanks for the question. So I think that to start, we need to understand the current environment and especially social media landscape. And how consumer brands, especially big brands with significant reach, can be pulled into a discussion like this one. And we know that ours, Bud Light, is certainly not the first brand that was pulled in a situation like that. And as I said, while beer will always be at the table when important topics are debated, the beer itself should not be the focus of the debate. And to me, this is the key learning. So moving forward, I agree with you. One challenge is what you call the misinformation and confusion that still exists. We will need to continue to clarify the fact that this was one can, one influencer, one post and not a campaign and repeat this message for some time. But as we do that, we are more focused on leveraging our global experience and mobilizing our global resources to support the U.S. team as we move forward. We have adjusted and streamlined our marketing structure, so the most senior market peers are more closely connected to every aspect of our brands. In addition, we are supporting our frontline teams. We are investing behind Bud Light tripling our need investment for the summer and we are investing more together with our wholesalers in our local markets. Just getting like last week, Bud Light was on the stage at the NFL Draft. We released a new TV commercial that continues our campaign. The current campaign easy to drink, easy to enjoy. We have strong presence in the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in California and there is much more to come. And as I said, it's too early to have a full view on the impact, but I know that we have the people, the partners to learn from that, to continue to move forward and to come out stronger. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Mitchell Collett: I've got two questions, please. The first is, given the strong start to the year from an organic EBITDA perspective, can you give some color on why you didn't raise or refine the F '23 guidance? And in particular, I'd be interested in the puts and takes from volume, pricing, COGS and SG&A perspective, as we pass through the quarters. And then secondly, Colombia has been a really strong performer for a couple of years now, but it seems to have hit some challenges in Q1. Do you expect to be able to take enough price to offset input cost pressures in Colombia? And do you think the consumer is in the right place to accept it? Fernando Tennenbaum: Mitch, Fernando here. Let me take the first question. In terms of guidance, I always refer back to the reason why we started giving guidance. We give guidance, our medium-term outlook at the end of 2021, because we are moving from an inorganic strategy to an organic strategy. And when we look at the middle term, that's the growth that our business can sustain and can deliver. With that in mind, every quarter is going to be different. There are going to be better quarter, worst quarters and there will be puts and takes in different regions of the world performing in different ways. With regard to this year specifically, we just had the first quarter. It's too early. We had a good quarter. And of course, there are always puts and takes. That's why, for the moment, we are maintaining -- because the main objective of the guidance is to give certain of the medium-term potential performance of the business. In terms of commodities, the question that you asked, we said about 2023, that we would have some commodity pressures, of course, to a lesser extent than 2022. We have most of our commodities hedged, but there is always a portion of your cost of goods sold that is not hedged. A good example is cost of freight. And to some extent, this is moving in our favor, this is moving favorite, it's somewhat healthy. You also have the different geographies corporates. We said before that you have some regions like Brazil where the cost of goods sold should be in a better place. You could actually see that the Brazilian operation having gross margin expansion already this quarter. And this is their commodity scenario. On the other hand, you have regions like Europe which is still somewhat under pressure on the commodity front and will continue to be for this year because energy prices, although they are improving, they are is still very high compared to previous levels. So a lot of puts and takes. We just had the first quarter. We continue to be confident on the business. But I think it's too early for us to talk about changing the guidance on upon way or another. And the second question, I will pass to Michel. Michel Doukeris: Mitch, thanks for the question. I think that when we talk about Colombia, if you allow me just to step back for a second, I think that we need to look at this developing markets and how inflation cost of goods sold and consumer purchase power is playing a different role in each of these countries. And the fact that, as I said before and I keep repeating, we've been balancing our revenue management strategy, aligned with category, consumer purchase power and the inflation and cost of goods sold. So Colombia is coming from a very good performance for the industry. The last year was a great year for the industry. And this year, in quarter 1, we saw volumes declining by low single digits. And we have good share. Beer is gaining share of growth. What we saw in the industry overall was an impact from a softer macroeconomic. We need to remember that Colombia imports a lot of goods and you have 2 impacts there. One is the inflation itself, the other one is FX. The country is moving. So you see that salary is already moving up as well. And the demand for our brands remain strong. We grew well gaining share of total alcohol. Our brands, core brands performing well, premium brands performing well as well. And under this macro background, we need to keep watching how the industry will behave while we continue to invest in our brands and they have good underlying demand. So the business is great. The macro environment was a little bit soft, but we continue to watch deals across the globe very carefully as we continue to push forward on our -- both category strategy but also revenue management strategy. Thanks for the question. Operator: Our next question is coming from Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Trevor Stirling: Michel, just one question from me and following up and thank you very much for your perspectives on the Bud Light feeding frenzy. We're looking, I suppose, trying to judge things based on the scanner data which is one channel and several weeks in advance. I know you have more closer to real-time data across many channels. Is there any sign that the pressure is starting to ease, or it's still very too early to say? Michel Doukeris: Trevor, I think that's still too early for us to understand the duration and the total impact. We look at the same public data that you look and we see the data. There's a lot of information on the week basis, but we also see day after day. We can see on the days that there is some stabilization and this Bud Light volume in the first 3 weeks, as I said, they would account for like 1% of our global volume in this period, because there is still a lot of confusion there and misinformation as I was telling Robert. So we need to continue to clarify these information as we move forward. We need to continue to invest as we have done last week. And together with our wholesalers continue to drive both the business forward, the focus on beer which is what we do best and make sure that the right information is clarified to everybody. Because when we do beer, our brands perform well. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Jeff Stent with BNP. Jeff Stent: Two questions. The first of which, would the 4% to 8% like-for-like EBITDA guidance still hold if Argentina was to be excluded? That's the first one. And the second one is -- you've talked a lot about Bud Light. But has there been any sort of spillover impact beyond Bud Light? And also, what are you doing to ensure that the market peers don't sort of enter a state of paralysis and become very fearful of sort of embracing any creativity? Fernando Tennenbaum: Jeff, Fernando here. Let me take the first one. I'll go back to the reason why we provided an outlook and we did that the medium-term outlook at the end of 2021. What is the potential for our business over the medium term now that we move from an inorganic to an organic strategy. And that includes our whole portfolio. But of course, there is one very important KPI, but there are other KPIs that we should be looking at. From first quarter, for example, for the first quarter, we ended up growing more than our outlook. We ended up growing 13.6%. But this is the organic growth. If you look from a business standpoint, we grew more -- on a nominal basis, we grew more than $270 million. So it was a very strong growth. If you look from an EPS standpoint, we grew like 8.5%. So at the end of the day, this is our food business and we need to make sure that we manage all the different variables, all the different KPIs. And the goal at the end of the day is to create value and that's what we are aiming for. So the guidance is for -- the outlook is for our full business. And the second question, I'll pass it to Michel. Michel Doukeris: Yes, Jeff. Thanks for the question. I think that similarly to what we just discussed on the Bud Light volume, the public available data shows some spillover effect across the other brands, while the majority of the impact is still on Bud Light. And this is happening, I think, that on the same direction, given the information that's out there, the confusion and the noise and of course, more localized on Bud Light and we continue to drive our programs forward for all brands. And I think that one of the key points that I was highlighting before is that we continue to be committed to the programs, partnerships, investments that we have in place, our key programs and campaigns for the brands, they remain in place. And one key thing in the U.S. was quickly adjust and streamline our structure. So in this situation and given the current environment, especially for the social media landscape, that we have senior marketers running the programs. We have a strong plan for the year. The brands are performing very well in the quarter 1. The programs we know they impact correct consumers and they move the brands in the right direction. And I think that as we do what beer needs to do: Focus on sports, focus on music, focus on connecting with our consumers, our brands perform well as we know, right? So we will continue to invest. We are having healthy investments now during the summer across all brands as original part of our plans. But also, we are having up the investments on Bud Light as we reallocate global resources and we invest more on Bud Light. So I think that we feel good about the plans that we have moving forward. And while it's still too early to understand again, all the numbers and the duration of this impact, we need to keep moving the business forward. And that as CEO, I think that my role is to really get the learnings, mobilize resources support the team and work together with our partners as we move forward. Operator: Next question is coming from Laurence Whyatt with Barclays. Laurence Whyatt: Michel, Fernando, two for me, please. Firstly, on margins, they've come out a lot better this quarter than perhaps the Street was expecting. And I seem to remember, previously, you said that Q1 was probably going to be the toughest quarter for COGS. Do you see the COGS environment getting a little bit easier from here? And how would you split the impact from COGS from both commodities and transactional FX? And then the second question on China. Could you give us any more color on the exit rate or sort of March number? I think you previously mentioned that Bud 8-pack was up around 20% in February. Can we assume that March was significantly stronger than that? Fernando Tennenbaum: Laurence, Fernando here. Let me take the first one on margins. Definitely, we talked a lot about COGS. And I want to talk about COGS, COGS probably we still have some pressures this year. Probably the pressure is a little bit higher in the first half of the year, a little bit smaller in the second half of the year. Of course, there are some portions that we cannot hedge. And I mentioned a while ago, freights and this is something that came in our favor. Every market is different. If you say about transactional effects, it's better in Brazil than it was the year before and you are seeing that reflecting through the Brazilian beer margins or the gross [indiscernible] being positive, increasing year-on-year. It's a little bit more of a pressure when you think about Europe, so every market is different. But you have to bear in mind that the EBITDA margin is not only about cost of goods sold. It's the main driver of our last year's cost of goods sold. But you also have overhead and overhead was an important component. And of course, overhead you have seasonality. So it's going to be slightly different quarter-on-quarter. We're still maintaining our outlook where revenues are growing ahead of costs. and continue to manage an opportunity to improve an opportunity to better, we continue to leverage on that. Probably a number that you should continue to look is how commodity and FX evolve. For 2023 is more or less set. A few open items like trade, but more or less set. And for 2024, at least too early to say, but we are not seeing any major swings in commodities like we see in the last couple of years. And if that's the case, that should be positive news, also going forward. But it's too early to have a final view on that. Michel Doukeris: Yes. And with China, I think that the way that we see the quarter 1 is like a transition quarter. You remember, all the restrictions being lifted at the end of last year. There was an earlier Chinese New Year. So January was a little bit dislocated. And therefore, we see continued recovery that accelerated throughout the quarter. If you look at some of the leading indicators, let me share one, for example, the on-trade, night life, Chinese restaurant reopening. Beginning of the year, January, they were around like 70%, 75%. And as you look at the same indicator in March, we were pretty much like close to 100% of the POX [ph] operating we've normalized operating environment, in-store, traffic. And that happened from middle of February towards March. We, of course, we put our plans in place. We are getting our fair share in premium and super premium. And as the channels reopened the long-term trends of premiumization, they continue to impact the industry and our business in China which benefits from that. So we have strong innovation and we see that the industry is recovering. The premium opportunity continues to be huge in China and we have disproportional or asymmetric market share in this segment. And as the channel reopens, this is a tailwind for the business. The prospects for the long term do not change. We think that in the short term, that is this good opportunity and the industry so far is performing well. Operator: The next question is coming from the line of Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Edward Mundy: I'm sorry to come back to Bud Light, but I've got -- I just want to pick up on some of your opening comments, Michel, around having experienced the resource and the partners to manage through. If we take experience, could you talk about some of the prior experience ABI has a brand turnaround of this nature? I mean Stella Artois, for many decades in the U.K. had a pretty bad name and those previous negative associations have been eliminated. What are the 2 or 3 things you've got to get right as you think about taking things forward from here? And then on resource, I think you mentioned you're going to mobilize global resource to support the U.S. team. I think Bud Light is about a $5 billion revenue business at supply level, probably spend 10% on A&P, maybe a fraction of that, maybe half of that is media so call it, $250 million. If you're going to triple that, that's about $500 million and that's about 2% to group EBITDA. Are those numbers directionally okay, or have I missed something there? Michel Doukeris: Ed, I think I got all your topics here, then I'll try to cover one by one. So the first point around experience and how we deal with different situations globally. And of course, starting from the point that each and every situation is unique in itself. And given the current environment, especially social media landscape and how brands have been pulled into these situations, that is a big learning from this situation that can help the company also on the other way around globally. But we have faced, as you know, just to think about COVID from alcohol ban in some countries. And then we had to adapt to the situation, keep a very agile mindset, rethink the way that we go to market and how we organize our operations, to the other [indiscernible] in the very big footprint that we have. You remember, for example, the U.K. for that time was an issue. We had issues before in Korea. We had issues in Brazil. And the way that our brands got attacked for some time there. And we redesigned the portfolio, rethought the way that we communicate to our brands. And we always stay true to what we do best which is brew high-quality products, make sure that we keep connected with our partners investing to the long term and keep reading and learning from consumers and see how we adjust our path forward. We know that easy to drink, easy to enjoy, it's a powerful message for Bud light. We know that the Bud Light lane is around, quality beer is to drink, is to enjoy, is about sports. That's why we came back strong with the NFL Draft. It's about music and it's about every day enjoyment. So when we do that, our brand performs very well. As we mobilize resources, so that is people resources, time, that is knowledge, resources, that is partners that we have and that is money. So our plan for the summer in the U.S. was already a very strong plan. And the triple the mad idea is versus what we had last year. And traditionally, Bud Light invest very heavily in the shoulder season because of football, NFL. This year, we built a plan to be more connected with the summer season, because this is very important for mainstream brands, therefore, very important for Bud Light, there was already a heavy at investment there. And now we are using resources that we have that we are using for other brands and other priorities to further increase the investments that we have in the U.S. And because we have many lines in the P&L, right, not only sales and marketing, we are mobilizing lines across the P&L as well. And media doesn't make 100% of the sales and marketing investments of any of our brands anywhere globally. So the match is not really like as you triple media, you triple the entire marketing budget. There are other lines within the sales and marketing package as there are other lines on the P&L that we can work, as we always do, in a very agile way. And because of that, we reiterated our EBITDA growth. So as we did during COVID, we are scrambling, moving very fast, getting this agile mindset to work as we support and increased investments. In leading the U.S. we are working the other muscles that we have from the global company, the size and the scale that we have, while the EBITDA outlook is unchanged. Edward Mundy: If I could just follow up. I appreciate you don't run your business on a 4 to 8. That's really a framework for us essentially and some years ahead, some years below. But I guess you face the choice of either looking to protect the bottom line in the U.S., or perhaps you could use a windfall from the rest of the group, from a COGS rollover or trying to bounce back to double down in the U.S. Is the message that, look, you're running the business for the long term and you're going to really double down on the U.S. And you can allocate global resources to really go behind Bud Light? Michel Doukeris: So all markets are important for us. We do not minimize this situation on the U.S. Fully committed to get our plants and our brands and our portfolio to rebalance in the U.S. and we are investing to make it happen. And this all falls into our outlook. We always have an issue to deal with every quarter, every year in every geography and it's very important that at global level, we keep this agile mindset to use the resources. And definitely, urgency creates opportunities as well. So as we invest, focus, mobilize in the U.S., we think that this situation is manageable globally. We never minimize any issues for our brands, our consumers. But we are confident that we have the team and the resources to continue to invest, to move forward in the U.S. and to support our team there to get out of this stronger. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with Credit Suisse. Sanjeet Aujla: Michel, Fernando, two from me, please. Firstly, I appreciate your earlier comments on Colombia. But if I look at some of your major emerging markets, more broadly, volume seems to have deteriorated as pricing has picked up. So I'd love to get your thoughts on any inflections you're seeing in consumer behavior, particularly with regard to frequency of consumption, past formats, et cetera. And then my follow-up is really around Brazil. One of your competitors there recently filed for bankruptcy. I think you called out stable market share in the quarter, but I'd love to get your perspective on how you see the competitive landscape evolving in Brazil in recent weeks and months. Michel Doukeris: Sanjeet, two pieces there. I'll try to address both to you. The first one, I think there is this inflationary scenario which is common across the globe. And we see that, as I've been saying, different clusters, three type of clusters where we see the industry and the whole consumer purchase power and consumer goods moving is slightly different and they're all dealing with the same issue. The key point there is we see the beer category continues to be resilient and performing well and gaining share of growth. I just gave the example of Colombia. Of course, when you talk about resilience, doesn't mean growth across the board and all the markets at the same time. Especially because when inflation moves fast, you have this timing in which salaries, especially minimal salaries for these developing countries, they get to be approved. So think about Brazil that just announced the salary increases now in May, right? So January to April, consumers were dealing with high inflation and they have their salaries from last year. Industry performed well. But now you have an extra injection of cash and purchase power coming to consumers. So when inflation goes up, there is some time for prices to catch up and there is some time for salaries to catch up. I think that we need to look throughout the lenses of the full year before drawing to many conclusions. And amongst the markets, they have different realities. To use the same example, why you see currency devaluation in Colombia. And Colombia has a high percentage of goods that they import, Brazil is in the other side of that, because currencies that are appreciating and therefore, the import goods will have like a different impact on the basket for inflation as well as focused consumer purchase power. So I think that we keep an eye on that, an eye on our revenue management. The industry is performing well in most of the countries, especially when we look at in the context of the other beverage. We know that premiumization being placed, that beer is more resilient and we are happy so far with our strategy in terms of revenue management and this is coming. On the other point on Brazil, what I say is that -- I see 3 things in Brazil that are very interesting and very important. I see the industry structure in Brazil, a healthy one [ph], so players focus on premiumization. We see an environment in terms of inflation, price that's playing well for the industry. We see that Brazil was hit earlier than other markets on the cost effects and now we are getting to the other side of this equation, where cost of goods sold is becoming more normalized and FX is playing more in our direction. You see the company, our portfolio today in Brazil is as healthy as never before. So [indiscernible] is performing very well. Origin Now which is a premium brand of ours, performing very well. Our core brands performing very well. Corona, we had a limitation in terms of supply that we are organized to have more volumes. And as we supply the brand sales by itself, so a very healthy brand in Brazil, growing a lot. And our digital transformation continues to accelerate not only the pace in which we gather more consumers into that delivery, but our capabilities will be and the algorithms [indiscernible] helping us to harness the data and to elevate the potential of what we have there and this is a competitive advantage that we built and is helping us drive the business forward. So I'm optimistic with Brazil, I think that the thing there is doing a great job. Our market share is in good position. Our revenue strategy is well organized in place, our portfolio very healthy and our digital transformation is accelerating our opportunity in flotation [ph] in Brazil. So I see Brazil in a place that's as good as it has been for many, many years. Sanjeet Aujla: And just one quick follow-up on that. Has there been any noticeable change in the competitive landscape since one of your competitors filed for bankruptcy there in recent weeks? Michel Doukeris: Not meaningful for us to talk about here. And I think that while they deal there with that situation, our focus is on our consumers, our focus is improving our service level that's very high in Brazil now in getting our portfolio to perform, the portfolio of the physical brands that we have in the digital assets. So we remain steady focused on our strategy. Operator: Thank you. Our final question is coming from the line of Brett Cooper with Consumer Edge. Brett Cooper: So I want to come back to, I guess, the first question, but more from an operational standpoint. After the SAB deal, you guys have been relatively inactive on acquisitions. At the same time, the beverage and alcohol markets have changed and are evolving. So can you continue to maximize the growth potential of your business via organic activity, or acquisitions and higher growth parts of the industry necessary to maximize that growth in returns? Fernando Tennenbaum: Brett, it's Fernando here. At the end of the day, this is a resource allocation discussion and about the value creation discussion. If you look at our business, when we did the Investor Day, we said that the outlook for the business is to be able to deliver 4% to 8%. And if we deliver that, there is a minimum amount of value to be created. We can enhance this penetration by making resource allocation decisions. And that's the triangle. So -- which means that the priority is to invest behind our business because we believe it can grow, can grow at a decent pace and can create a lot of value with excess cash and our business generates a meaningful amount of the cash. How we use that excess cash can also create value on a stand-alone basis. Over the last 2 or 3 years, there was a strong focus on leveraging because, as we said, the leveraging creates a meaningful amount of value, most of that going to get to us 3x. We made meaningful progress, but we are not at 3x yet which means that we can still benefit from value creation by deleveraging a little bit further. But as we keep making progress, other options open up for us. Other options like we increased the dividend is likely as a percentage it was a meaningful increase. In that sole basis, it was not that much of an increase. But increased dividends, we are improving on that. And M&A is definitely an option as well. We can have selective M&A. We know how to do M&A. We did M&A in the past. We know how to create M&A. So if the right deal at the right moment shows up, of course, we entertain that if it can bring another avenue of growth. But we don't need M&A to deliver a meaningful value creation to pursue growth. Brett Cooper: And if I can bug you with 1 follow-up. One component of your business is different than it was when you've done M&A in the past, is all the digital infrastructure that you've built? So how do you think that extracts value from transactions or creates or, I guess, improves your ability to create value from organic activity? And does that weight your view one way or the other over the medium to long term? Michel Doukeris: Yes, I can take this one. I think that in a short answer, these digital products that we created both on the B2B side and on the B2C side, they help us to get better and they are the second pillar of our strategy. They get us better because we have more information. With more information, we can make better decisions. And as we standardize our ways of operating with these products, we have efficiencies that we can extract from this scale, from these revised processes and our ability to act faster with the data that we have. A second part of that, as I keep saying, another advantage of the digital products is that once you build them, the scalability is very fast and you don't need more resources. So different from the physical products, if you grow Corona, the example that I just gave here in Brazil, we need more bottles, more production capacity. We need to invest in physical assets so we can grow our physical brands which we are doing. On the digital space, the scalability once the product is ready and available, is much faster. And the resources that you need to invest for the scalability are much smaller in proportion to the physical products. So we can continue to grow and we are doing that. For example, with beer, we are getting to geographies where we do not operate. We are getting there with the digital product by using partners. And then it can continue to monetize the digital product even if you are not present in that market. But then now that we are becoming present in that market, so you might have opportunities to go to market differently than what we had before. So you are right in the intuition that the digital projects are -- have done to our M&A to kids [ph]. But they can also become an important vehicle as we grow organically, including geographies that we are not present today because the digital roll to market becomes an enabler for our expansion strategy. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This was our final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jesse and thank you all for your time today and for your ongoing partnership and support of our business. Stay safe and well. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. This does conclude our earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today’s call, please visit AB InBev’s website at www.ab-inbev.com, and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today’s webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev’s actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev’s future results, see risk factors in the Company’s latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 18th of March, 2022. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jessie, and welcome, everyone, to our full year 2022 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our full year and fourth quarter operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we’ve made in executing our strategic priorities. After that, we will be happy to answer your questions. Let’s start with our operating performance. We are very pleased with the continued momentum of our business and the strength of the beer category across our footprint in both the fourth quarter and the full year 2022. For the full year, our top line grew by 11.2%, with volumes increasing by 2.3%, reaching a new all-time high. Revenue per hectoliter increased by 8.6% accelerating in the second half of the year, driven by revenue management initiatives and continued premiumization. Driven by the consistent execution of our strategy and top line growth across all operating regions, our reported revenue is now $5.5 billion above full year ‘19 pre-pandemic levels, with our volumes 5.8% ahead. EBITDA increased by 7.2%, at the upper end of our medium-term growth ambition and 2022 outlook. Underlying EPS was $3.03, a 5.2% increase versus last year. As a result of our performance and strong free cash flow generation, gross debt decreased by $8.9 billion this year, leading to a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 3.51 times. Following our deleveraging progress, the Board has proposed a full year dividend of €0.75 per share, a 50% increase versus 2021. In the fourth quarter, we delivered top line growth of 10.2%, with accelerated revenue per hectoliter growth of 11.2%, driven by the implementation of price actions, ongoing premiumization and other revenue management initiatives. Our volumes declined by 0.6%, driven primarily by the significant impact of COVID restrictions in China and a softer industry in the U.S. which was impacted by the phasing of price increases and abnormally cool weather in December. We delivered an EBITDA growth of 7.6% and underlying EPS of $0.86, a $0.12 increase versus quarter four ‘21. Our diverse geographic footprint provides a unique combination of growth and reliable cash flow generation, positions us well to deliver superior value creation. In 2022, we delivered broad-based growth with a top line increase in all five of our regions and volume growth in over 60% of our markets. Now, let me take you through the operational highlights for the year from our key regions, starting with North America. In the U.S., we continue to transform and premiumize our portfolio. Our business delivered another year of top line growth and stable EBITDA, despite the elevated cost environment. Our above core portfolio continued to outperform the industry this year and combined with our Beyond Beer brand now represents over 40% of our revenue. While industry volumes in the fourth quarter were soft, we are seeing improved performance to start 2023, with year-to-date beer industry volumes down 1%, and U.S. dollar sales up 5% through the 12th of February, according to IRI. Our business in Middle Americas continues to deliver outstanding results. In Mexico, we delivered another year of double-digit top and bottom line growth, with record high volumes continue to outperform the industry. Volume growth was broad-based across all segments of our portfolio with our above core beer brands growing over 20%. In the fourth quarter, we completed our Oxxo channel expansion with our portfolio now available in approximately 20,000 Oxxo stores nationwide. Looking ahead, we are focused on continuing to build the partnership and we are excited by the opportunity to activate our brands and gain our fair share across the network. In Colombia, our business delivered double-digit top and high single-digit bottom line growth, led by the consistent implementation of our category expansion levels. The beer category continued to grow, gaining 80 basis points share of total alcohol this year and with 2022 marking the highest beer per capita consumption in over 25 years. Moving on to South America. Our business in Brazil reached record high volumes and grew top and bottom line by double digits as we continue to expand our market share. Our performance this year was led by over 20% revenue growth of our premium and super premium brands. Now let’s talk about EMEA. In Europe, we grew top line by double digits and EBITDA by high single digits. Our portfolio continues to premiumize with over 55% of our revenue now coming from premium and above premium brands. In South Africa, we delivered record high volumes this year, growing both top and bottom line by double digits, despite capacity constraints in the fourth quarter. And finally, APAC. In China, both the industry and our business were impacted by significant COVID-19 restrictions throughout the year, leading to a total revenue decline of 4.2% and EBITDA decline of 10.8%. While 2022 was a disrupted year, underlying demand outside of COVID-19 restrictions remained strong. As restrictions have eased and infection rates declined, we are optimistic about the industry recovery and returning to growth as channel traffic and mobility normalizes in China. Now, I would like to share with you a few highlights of the progress across our sustainability priorities. Our priorities are centered around the beer category, which is inclusive, natural and local. With these priorities embedded into our commercial strategy, we can create value and share prosperity for our business, our communities and our planet. We continue to make progress across our priorities. Highlights include: investing over $700 million since 2016 in social norms market campaigns, promoting Smart Drinking and Moderation, reducing Scope 1 and 2 absolute emissions by 39% and improving water efficiency by 14% versus our 2017 baseline. We are working with nearly 24,000 farmers in our direct sourcing programs through research, technology and hands-on support to help skill, connect and financially empower them. Additionally, we progressed our circular packaging goal, with 77% of our products now in packaging that is returnable or made from majority recycled content; kicked off Cohort of our 100+ Accelerator, program that continues to densify breakthrough sustainable and innovative solutions; increased representation of women in the top 5 leadership levels of our business from 19% in 2017 to 28% today. Now, let’s move on to our strategic pillars. Let’s start with pillar number one, lead and grow the category. This year, our volume reached all-time high with growth across more than 50% of our markets. This is a direct result of our commitment to lead and grow the category by investing in our brands, innovation and category expansion levers. Our total volumes are now 5.8% ahead of pre-pandemic levels. Our above core beer brands have led the growth, increasing almost 17% versus 2019; with Corona, the star performer, growing volumes by 42% outside of Mexico. Despite the challenge of COVID-19, we invested an average of $7 billion per year over the last four years. On a currency-neutral comparable basis, in 2022, we invested more than $400 million in sales and marketing versus 2019. The consistent investments combined with our digital capabilities and increased effectiveness is driving the power of our portfolio and organic growth of our business. In 2022, we are named Creative Marketer of the Year by Cannes, the Most Effective Marketer Worldwide at the Effie Awards, and the number one advertiser in the Creative 100 by the WARC Advertisement Research Center. Once again, congratulations to our teams and partners for these truly remarkable achievements. We continued to execute on our five levers to drive category expansion and delivered a strong year of consistent and profitable top line growth. We are making the category more inclusive, offering superior core propositions, developing consumption occasions, and expanding our premium and Beyond Beer portfolios. Our global brands continue to scale and are driving premiumization across our markets. The combined revenues of Corona, Stella Artois and Budweiser, grew by 8.9% outside of the brand’s home market, led by Corona, which grew by 18.6%. Budweiser growth of 2.5% outside of the U.S. was significantly impacted by COVID-19 restrictions in China, the brand’s largest market. Excluding China, the brand grew revenue by 12.6% in 2022. Innovation continued to support category expansion across each of the five pillars with innovations contributing approximately $5 billion in net revenue in 2022. From expanding our non-alcohol beer portfolio by launching Corona Cero in 11 countries to growing our Beyond Beer portfolio by scaling Cutwater and NÜTRL within the U.S., our focus remains on driving sustainable long-term growth. Now, let’s turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. This continues to accelerate, usage and reach, capturing $32 billion in GMV this year, a 60% increase year-over-year, reaching 3.1 million monthly active users. Since BEES began its rollout in 2019, our initial focus market have strengthened customer engagement with the weighted average Net Promoter Score improving to positive 56 as of year-end 2022. In 15 of the 20 markets where BEES is live, our customers are also able to purchase third-party products to BEES Marketplace. Customer adoption is increasing with 56% of BEES customers now also BEES Marketplace buyers. In 2022, BEES Marketplace generated approximately $850 million in revenue. As an example of how BEES is improving our business and enabling us to be a better partner to our customers, let’s take a look at one of our countries, Brazil. BEES is enabling us to be closer to our customers and solve their most pressing pain points. Since the rollout of BEES in 2019, we have expanded our customer base in Brazil by over 250,000 plus, [ph] increased the total number of annual delivers by 3 million deliveries and broadened the availability of our portfolio. And most importantly, our relationship with our customers has improved significantly, with NPS score increasing by 24 points. Digital transformation is a key pillar of our strategy and has enabled our accelerated growth in Brazil. Since 2019, the beer category has gained share of total alcohol with beer market share expanded and our beer volume grew by 17%. One key learning from BEES is when our customers grow, we grow. Now, let’s talk about how we are strengthening our relationship with our consumers. Our digital D2C products, Zé Delivery, TaDa and PerfectDraft are now available in 17 markets and generated over $450 million in revenue and 69 million orders this year. That is 69 million opportunities to better understand our consumers and their consumption occasions. The FIFA World Cup offered an exciting opportunity for our digital DTC platforms as we launched the biggest digital campaign in our history. Our D2C activation yielded impressive results, increasing daily average orders during FIFA World Cup and attracting nearly 0.5 million new consumers to our platform. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimize our business. Fernando, over to you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. We aim to maximize value by focusing on three areas: one, optimizing resource allocation; two, robust risk management; and three, efficient capital structure. With respect to capital allocation, we are focused on maximizing long-term value creation by dynamically balancing our priorities. We continue to invest in organic growth to support our strategy to lead and grow the category, and digitize and monetize our ecosystem. The excess cash generated by our business is then dynamically allocated to our other three capital allocation priorities: deleveraging; selective M&A; and return of capital to shareholders. Investing in the organic growth of our business is our number one priority, and we have no shortage of investment opportunities. In addition to sales and marketing, which, as Michel mentioned earlier, has averaged around $7 billion per year since 2019, we also continue to invest in our facilities and capabilities, allocating $4.8 billion in net CapEx in 2022. Over 50% of our CapEx spend is to support capacity expansions, new capabilities, digital transformation and other growth initiatives. In 2022, we invested a combined $11.7 billion in sales and marketing and net CapEx. And since 2019, we have invested over $45 billion to full growth. As you can see on slide 33, 2 times net debt-to-EBITDA remains the point at which we maximize value, though approximately 90% of the benefits from deleveraging can be captured as we approach 3 times net debt-to-EBITDA. This year, we continued to deliver strong free cash flow generating approximately $8.5 billion. Gross debt reduced by $8.9 billion to reach $79.9 billion. As a result, we have made significant progress on our deleveraging journey with our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio reaching 3.51 times. Our debt maturity profile remains well distributed with no bond maturity in 2023 and no relevant medium-term refinancing needs. If you look at our debt maturity profile, we have $3 billion worth of bonds maturing through 2025 and more than sufficient liquidity today to redeem all of these bonds. Our bond portfolio has an average pretax coupon of around 4% and a weighted average maturity profile of approximately 15 years. Moreover, our debt portfolio does not have any financial covenants and it is comprised of a variety of currencies, diversifying our FX risk. 95% of our bonds have a fixed rate, insulated from interest rate volatility and inflation. And now, let me take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS this year. In 2022, we grew underlying EPS by 5.2% versus last year, delivering $3.03 per share. This increase was primarily driven by nominal EBITDA growth, which accounted for a $0.29 per share increase. We continue to optimize our business, reducing net interest and income taxes expenses, mostly offsetting headwinds in other line items. To simplify our disclosure, as from January 1, 2023, mark-to-market on derivatives related to the hedging of our share-based payment programs will be reported in the non-underlying net finance line. As a result, we will discontinue disclosing normalized EPS as a separate metric. As we continue to optimize our business and bring our dynamic capital allocation priority to action, in 2022, we invested $11.7 billion in sales and marketing and net CapEx to drive organic growth. We reduced gross debt by $8.9 billion and reached a net leverage of 3.51 times. As a result of our continued momentum and consistent deleveraging progress, the Board has proposed an increase of the full year dividend by 50% versus 2021 to €0.75 per share. With that, I would like to hand it back to Michel for some final comments before we start our Q&A session. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Allow me to take a few minutes to recap my key takeaways from the year and how we are prepared to continue to meet the momentum in 2023. We lead a big, profitable and growing category. Beer is resilient and is gaining share of throat globally. We made significant progress in 2022, executing across each of our three strategic pillars. Driven by the increased strength of our brand portfolio, we delivered all-time high volume and gained share across key markets. We made important strategic choices in revenue management, driving accelerated net revenue per hectoliter growth of 11.2% in the fourth quarter. We progressed our digital transformation with 63% of our revenues now digital. 56% of BEES customers are now also BEES Marketplace buyers. And our digital D2C products fulfilled more than 69 million orders. We delivered another year of strong free cash flow and underlying EPS growth of 5.2%. As a result, the ABI Board has proposed a full year dividend of €0.75 per share. Looking ahead to 2023, we are focused on the relentless execution of our strategy and driving the momentum of our business. We have an industry-leading portfolio of brands across all price points, an advantaged geographic footprint and superior digital products that are bringing us closer than ever to our customers and consumers. We are well positioned to meet the moment in 2023 and to create a future with more cheers. With that, I will hand it back to Jesse for the Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from Simon Hales with Citi. Simon Hales: Thank you. Hi Michel, hi Fernando. I suppose a couple. My first, Michel, is really on Mexico. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about what’s been happening there. Clearly, Q4 volumes were a little bit weaker than the market expected, maybe a little bit slower than we saw through the first nine months of the year. But perhaps more importantly, could you talk about what -- how you see that market developing as we head into 2023 and you get the full benefit of the Oxxo rollout into the North. And perhaps associated with that, what are you doing in Brazil in Oxxo stores to make sure you get your fair share of the consumer uptake? So, that’s my first one. And then my follow-up would be just around the U.S. market. Michel, clearly you referenced sort of volumes running down about 1% for the industry year-to-date. How are you thinking about the state of the U.S. consumer for 2023? How do you think about the full year beer market trends there? And what are you seeing in terms of elasticities on your brands? Michel Doukeris: Hey Simon. Good morning. I think I got all the questions here. We had a little bit of background noise on our side. I will go through the answers. And at the end, if I miss any point, please complement it. But starting with Mexico, I think we had a great year in Mexico. Volumes positive, share positive, top and bottom line double digits. We talked a little bit about this bad weather in the quarter four in North America. And the reality is that this expanded to Mexico as well, even though we’ve been talking a little bit less about that, but it was extremely cold, including some of the Caribbean countries where we do have operations. We think that as we look at this year, things are more normal, and we expect to see how the quarter one is going to be, and we’ll talk more as we announce results for quarter one, later. Oxxo, we completed the last wave of our expansion, and we could not be more excited now with the opportunities to activate our brands across Oxxo, premiumize the portfolio and get our share -- fair share across the network. So I think that continues to be a great opportunity as Mexico is a relevant country, Oxxo expands and we’re going to be expanding our portfolio together with them. In the U.S., I think that we saw this one-off complicated quarter on quarter four. Many things there from phasing of price increase, the effect of the two price increases of the year in one quarter and a really, really complicated weather at the back end of the quarter. As we are now with couple of weeks under the belt into January and February, the published numbers that are there, IRI numbers, they point out for volumes, give or take, 1% down, revenues close to 5% up. And you see this very consistently across each and every week. Of course, there is phasing of Super Bowl, which is an important part of the industry in the first quarter of the year, but working well so far. Consumer and demand, resilient. We say that different than other categories, beer does not have penetration on private labels. So, we don’t see what other categories see in terms of trade down. What we see is consumers changing a little bit channels and changing a little bit package, so people buying more in larger formats, both in terms of the chains, supermarkets and the packs and people staying more at home. So penetration and consumption at home is being bigger, which in a way is very good for beer because beer has higher share of throat in home than out of home. And our brands continue to perform well. We see strength in Michelob ULTRA, we see strength in Bud Light. We see better performance so far in some of our core brands and our Beyond Beer portfolio performing very well. Operator: Our next question comes from Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Mitch Collett: I’d like to ask a question on BEES, please. I think you say in the release that 40% of your revenue in China is now via digital channels or at least it was by December. And I think at the Q3 stage, that was 15%, so a pretty big uplift. You talked about China and the U.S. being part of the third wave for the BEES rollout due to the wholesaler model there. So, can you comment on the benefits of that digital rollout and what it brings to China and how we might think about that as it goes into other wholesaler-led markets? Michel Doukeris: Hi Mitch. Thank you for the question. It’s very interesting because I just came back from a trip in China. I was there in the region for one week. And one of the things that I spent time looking at and discussing with the team was BEES. And you are right, like BEES is the -- China is one of the markets where BEES was being built for a different role to market. And because of the difference on the role to market is this third wave in which deceleration is not the same as when we have direct distribution. I was super glad to see that the product is very good. It is scaling up very fast. Usage by the retailers is very, very good, and they are very happy. The NPS is high. And one extra point coming from BEES in China is a little bit complicated to explain but I’ll try to put this in a simple way. In China because of the 3-tier system of China that can be a 5-tier system is very complicated for CPGs to trace product and to have visibility throughout the route to market. Because we are integrating very well QR codes the wholesalers and BEES as a tool, we are doing a lot of geolocation, we are getting an unbelievable array of visibility through the network. And it can really now get even when we have more tiers in the route to market, the full visibility of the sales on a pack-by-pack basis. And of course, by doing that, we are integrating revenue management, promotional actives, our wholesaler and logistics network. So, I think that BEES will continue to scale very fast in China. Both wholesalers and retailers are very happy with the product and what we bring in terms of better data, quality data and visibility. And I think that the effects in China will be pretty similar to other markets. We’ll see acceleration in sales, better trade programs, better integration with our marketing campaigns and more efficiency. It’s very effective and helps us big time. Operator: Our next question comes from Brett Cooper with Consumer Edge. Brett Cooper: I wanted to dig into your approach to managing the portfolio with respect to balancing the need to support the core versus innovation. And more specifically, innovations in more traditional beer like Brahma Duplo Malte have been successful, which we can see in the innovation contribution. But expansion in Beyond Beer has proven, I think, a bit harder with the Company being at the strategy of innovating and extending for a period of time. I was hoping you could share learnings from your work over the last several years and maybe how you balance efforts and investments on the core versus innovation, and if that process has changed at all? Thanks. Michel Doukeris: Hey. Thank you for the question. I think that the first point is really a matter of and instead of and instead of or. So, I think that we need to be able to invest in the core and renovate, create excitement around our core brands. As you said, best-class work being done in Brazil for Brahma Duplo Malte. If you think about Cass in Korea, incredible results, Victoria and Modelo in Mexico doing extremely well. At the same time, because we know that we have penetration opportunities, and we can gather more consumers and be present in more occasions. We need to continue to innovate in this Beyond Beer space that offers us incredible opportunities for growth, especially with female consumers and sources a lot from liquor and from wine. One of the key learnings, I can talk about this for a long time, but I -- I’ll try to get to you the biggest learning that we had so far because of the timing the other questions that we’d like to talk about is really that when we create new brands that are catered to this consumer and to the occasions that we want to gain share, they work better in the long term. They start -- is lower than when you extend brands from our core brands, but they build a much more sustainable model. And the learnings that we’ve been having on that -- they go from Brutal Fruit in Africa to BEES in Brazil to what we’ve been seeing with Cutwater and NÜTRL in North America from Canada and the U.S. And those brands, they are champions of the future that we are investing consistently to build. It’s a very, very good way to expand the portfolio. It’s aggressive because they go outside of our core and they interact with new consumers, but is much more sustainable. And we’ve been doing things both ways, when we need to do something fast, using our core brands, extension lines, but we’ve been doing also creating new-to-the-world brands, and they are doing very well. And this is true in the physical world. I just gave you examples NÜTRL, Brutal Fruit and it’s even more true in the digital space. For example, what we are doing in TaDa now in the direct-to-consumer ecosystem is a multi-country already born global brand. We’re are in 11 countries, expanding very quickly, is a very powerful value proposition to consumers, a brand that is being built at fast stellar pace. And we are very happy with both examples, physical but also digital products that we are creating. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Trevor Stirling: Two questions from my side, please. The first one, Michel, you highlighted that volumes are up almost 6% compared to 2019. I think by my calculations, revenues are up 24%, but margins are down -- EBITDA margin is down about 600 bps. How much of that do you think you can get back? I appreciate there have been input cost pressures, transactional FX, negative operating leverage from COVID. But how much is it realistic to get back and over what time frame, especially since -- guess, implicitly, you expect more margin compression in 2024? And the second question, maybe one more for Fernando. The underlying EPS is up 5%. The dividend is up 50%. Is that purely a function of where we are on the deleveraging curve? Michel Doukeris: Let me take the first one here, and Fernando will take the second. We always talk about this and I always start the conversation around margins with two real statements. The first one is that we love our margin. We really like the fact that we have high margins because this brings us a lot of flexibility to invest as well as to navigate when situations are tougher. And the second one is that our margins, they exist for structural reasons, the power of brands that we have, premium brands that they command higher margins, the strength of positions that we have in key markets and the way that we operate our business in a very efficient way. And yes, I acknowledge what you said, the margins since ‘19. I think that we all saw a huge dislocation in terms of costs because of supply disruptions, because the way that things happen, but also because of inflation, that got worse with the situation last year in Europe and commodities going even higher. And we’ve been balancing as much as we can, our ability to price correctly and having the category penetration and the growth of the category being prioritized. I think that -- we talked about this before. As we look at 2023, with the visibility that we have today, the cost escalation is big but it’s smaller than what we saw in 2022. And on a percentage basis, it’s definitely smaller. And we continue to bring our prices up. So, what we did in the quarter four was a very important wave of prices and revenue management that will yield for us good benefits this year. And I think that things will accommodate with time. I can’t precisely tell you when and how much in a time frame, but we are very focused in continuing to drive the powerful brands, charge the premium price that they deserve and be efficient in the way that we do actives in the Company. So therefore, we expect our margins to come back. Fernando Tennenbaum: And hi Trevor, on your second question on dividends, on EPS and capital structure, I always like to take one step back and look at our business. We have a very good business that generates a large amount of cash flow in a very sustainable basis. So, it’s a very good business that consistently generates cash. Having said that, we need -- once we have the excess cash for the business and just to quote a number, the free cash flow for 2022 was $8.5 billion. We need to decide what is the best way to allocate? And that’s what we call dynamic allocating our capital. We know that deleveraging creates value, and we know that 90% of the value of deleveraging happens when you get towards 3 times. So, while we were at a higher leverage, we focus most of the efforts towards deleveraging and very little towards other uses of capital. Now, we are at 3.5%, we continue to use most of our resources towards deleveraging. You see how much our gross debt was reduced in the year 2022, but we already are dynamic allocating and increasing dividend. Still -- it’s a sizable increase as a percentage. In absolute figures, we are still driving most of resources towards deleveraging. And the idea is that going forward, at any given moment, we see what is the combination that maximizes value-creation, that should be the main driver of our decision-making. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Pinar Ergun with Morgan Stanley. Pinar Ergun: The first one is on marketing. We’re hearing from a range of consumer companies how they’re looking to increase their marketing spend in 2023. How do you think about that? And then, the second one is when you look at ‘23, which regions do you feel most bullish about in terms of volume development? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi Pinar, thank you for the questions, Michel here. On the first one, you know that we don’t give guidance by line, and we showed during the webcast here that we continue to invest, it’s close to $7 billion across all years since 2019. And there is a growth when you get 2019 to 2022 of roughly $400 million in organic terms. And our plans are to continue to invest behind these brands. They are great brands. We achieved last year, all-time high power of our portfolio, it’s the measurement that we have for favorite preference, whatever different companies call, we call power. And both brands they deserve good investments because they drive the growth that we want to have for the Company today. And in this journey from inorganic to organic, growth will be achieved by the quality of the sustainable growth of our brands. But I think that more important than that is increasing investments with effectiveness. And our creative quality is as good as never been, recognized by Cannes, recognized by Effie. We were -- not only creative but also effectiveness. And as we expand our digital products, both this and the DTC, we have this unique opportunity to combine data to do all to all, to activate campaigns in large scale as we did, for example, during FIFA World Cup in a very effective way. So, we are not only growing the amount of dollars that we are investing in the brands, but we are sweating these dollars much better than before with higher ROIs. And on the second question, I think that this is easy from our side to answer. I think that the market that we are more excited for the moment is China. And in a nutshell, China was incredibly disrupted last year by series of lockdowns, open, close and people really losing opportunities to be social and to use our products. And based on what I saw on this trip last week in the market, I visited several places. I could see like restaurants with two hours waiting list on GivingThursday. I saw nightlife parks full of people and consumption resuming very quickly. I think that the market that we are more excited for 2023 is getting China to its full potential and giving our premium presence, the relevance of our brands there and how sizable China is, that can be a nice add-on to build on the momentum that we have across the globe. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Rob Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much. And congratulations on the tremendous progress deleveraging and the dividend increase. Can you -- kind of going back to a prior question, can you give us maybe a little bit more granularity on the major price increases that you took in Q4 in the major markets? Any -- as much detail as possible would be great. And your sense of how well those are sticking, are competitors following? I mean, in most cases, you tend to lead. So, that’s an important dynamic. And then, I have a follow-up question for Fernando. Michel Doukeris: Hey Robert. Good morning. Thanks for the question. I think that you already know that we don’t disclose much of this price by market and with details. But I think that the best way to answer this question is thinking about our policy of moving prices with inflation. And inflation, as you know, was slightly different on a market-by-market, but growing everywhere. And we had beer -- beer total, not only BI behind but lagging behind inflation throughout most of the year, but catching up towards the end of the year. So I think that perhaps more interesting is to think about the positive carryover that this price will have for 2023, while 8%, give or take, during 2022 was above 11% in the quarter four. And we know that inflation is pointing down across most of the markets, but it’s still on a high level. So, I think that we have a very good carryover. We were able to move these prices globally according to our plan and reorganize the plans as inflation was above what was originally planned. We see majority of the markets holding well, and we know that beer is a resilient category, it’s not immune to inflation and everything that happens, but it’s very resilient. I think that throughout the year, as you see salaries increasing and each and every country has a different agenda for that, right, from March, April, May, in some of the Latin American countries to more middle of the year in North America, in China, we will see their purchasing power coming back. And I think that the balance of volume and price would be very positive. On a relativity basis, historically, we see that the relativity is holding. And in this very high inflation, high input costs the relativity tends to be good across the markets. We monitor this, of course, because we have to balance the prices that we have, the penetration of our brands and how the category is responding on a market to market. Too early to call more details. I hope that my answer was helpful to you. And I’m sure that we’ll be talking more about that as we go to quarter one to quarter two and then with much more details and information in our hands. Rob Ottenstein: Great. Thank you. And then Fernando, I just want to push you a little bit on the capital allocation and this idea of the dynamic capital allocation. As you get to three turns and head towards, I think, the long-term goal of two turns, it’s striking to me that where the stock is valued today is on a multiple that is well below kind of transactions that everybody has done in the beer industry for the slowest growing businesses. And if you even put a multiple on your consensus estimates for EBITDA for ‘24 at the lowest valued kind of international transactions, you get a stock price of $100 or more. So it just seems remarkably cheap. I know you expect it to go higher as you delever. But if this disconnect continues, how do you think about the possibility of buying back stock when you get to three turns or less? And that’s something you haven’t historically done, but it’s a new world, and love to get your thoughts on that. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi Rob, thanks. It’s a good question, a long question, but a good question. I feel that we go back to the dynamic capital allocation, and what is the main goal of dynamic capital allocation. The main goal is to create value. That’s we’re aiming for at the end of the day. And in different moments of time, you are going to wait all the benefits of each one of the options. You mentioned buybacks. You are going to -- of course, you have your model to see the value of ABI share. We have our own model. We’re going to always see the increased IRR versus the IRR of deleveraging versus the IRR of paying dividends versus the IRR of any M&A projects. And we are going to look at every moment in time, which composition is the one that maximizes value for ABI. So, I think -- I don’t have much more to share because I cannot give any guidance, but you can be assured that in any given moment in time, we’re going to be assessing all the different alternatives and seek the ones that maximize value. Operator: The next question is coming from the line of Olivier Nicolai with Goldman Sachs. Olivier Nicolai: Just two questions, please. First, if go back to the U.S., ABI is losing share within beer, but beer as a category is actually losing share against spirits, and that’s been the trend for some time. Now, what do you think the beer industry is missing when it comes to innovation or marketing or pricing relative to spirits to stop this trend? And second question, just on -- Fernando, you’ve given guidance for the increase in accretion expense this year. But regarding your other financial results, they have increased by 50% to $1 billion. What should we expect for 2023 there? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Olivier, Michel here. First question is a tough one to answer. I think that there is a lot happening there at the same time. If you look, I think that -- the best part of my answer is going to be, if you look at the last few weeks and what’s happening in the U.S. is beer responding much better, the biggest loser is wine, spirits continue to do well, but the majority of the growth is in ready-to-drinks. And in ready-to-drinks, actually, we are leading the pack, and we are much better positioned to grow the ready-to-drinks based on the footprint that we have, the network that we have. And this is part of our portfolio renovation. So, that’s why it’s so important for us to get premium correct, to get Michelob ULTRA to continue to expand and having NÜTRL Cutwater and the other ready-to-drinks propositions that we have to grow. I think that when you think about the main causes for spirits to be performing well in the U.S., has a lot to do with availability. So, several propositions in states, things that increase the availability and for some people questioning how big this can be and all the availability that was created, this it is the correct thing. And the second point, we see throughout the years, more on the affordable cheap side when you compare the spirits prices in the U.S. versus any other market globally, which is something that is interesting, not to say anything different. It’s quite affordable. But it’s good to see that in the last weeks and when you look one through three years compounded, beer is performing better than was performing before, year-to-date is gaining share of value and gaining share of throat. And I think that innovation, quality of the products and the right alignment with the consumer long trend are the answer, yet a lot of work to be done. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Olivier, on your second question on other financial results. You mentioned accretion expenses. This is the one that is more predictable, so we can give the outlook and provide the range. On the rest of other financial results, the most relevant line is the carry cost of the hedges. And carry cost of the hedges are a function of interest rate differential between different countries. And this one can float. That’s why we don’t provide too much of an outlook. But if you look at our major exposures, which we have available on our financial statements, and if you understand the carry cost differential, then you can make an educated guess, but acknowledging that interest rates may flow throughout the year and the number may be somewhat different. Operator: Our final question will come from the line of Laurence Whyatt with Barclays. Laurence Whyatt: Firstly, we saw a Winter World Cup in much of the Northern Hemisphere, but of course, it was the Summer World Cup for much of the Southern Hemisphere. We didn’t hear too much about any benefit from that over the last few months and the last quarter. Are there any geographies that took a real benefit? Do you see anything in Brazil or South America or Africa from that World Cup benefit? And then, secondly, we’ve seen a decline in a number of your input costs, and I understand you hedged generally on a 12-month basis. If you were to look at the current spot rates of those input costs, would they be below the current hedge rate for your 2023 COGS, i.e., would you expect 2024 input cost to be below the current level of 2023 hedges? Michel Doukeris: Hey Laurence, it’s Michel here. I’ll take the first one and leave the second to Fernando. I think that you are not hearing me talk too much about that because it’s still depressing, Brazil lost. But all in all, FIFA was a great opportunity once again for us to activate our brands. And different geographies, they had different results. Of course, you can imagine that Argentina had extended party that never ended, went through December and parts of January, and some other countries, they run short and the interest was likely smaller. But I think that the benefit was great for the brands. So Budweiser had a hell of a run and very strong results in brand equity across the globe with the campaigns that we run. The interest for the sport, all-time high and huge excitement building up now for the next event that’s going to be Canada, U.S. and Mexico. We activated our brand, especially digitally. We gained 500 million consumers more. So, there was an interesting way of seeing the power of integration of brand campaigns and our digital products, and we had a great volume of Budweiser in quarter four. The exception was China once again because of the lockdowns, very relevant Budweiser market for the -- for Budweiser. So we saw that the Budweiser was not good, but outside China, very positive, especially in the places where we heavily activated the campaign. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Laurence, on your question on input costs, it’s too early for us to start looking at this metric. We normally hedge 12 months out. So we are just starting to look at 2024. Probably more as the year goes by, we’re going to have a more relevant information that is more useful for us to start thinking about. So, too soon to make any comment on that. Operator: Thank you. This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Mr. Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jesse. And thank you, everyone, for participating for the questions. I hope you are all doing well, and we wish you a great 2023. And we will get back, talk to you as we close quarter one. Thank you. Have a good one. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today’s call, please visit AB InBev’s website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today’s webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev’s actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev’s future results, see risk factors in the company’s latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 18th of March 2022. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jessie and welcome, everyone to our third quarter 2022 earnings call. It is a great pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our third quarter operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we've made in the execution of our strategic priorities. After that, we'll be happy to answer your questions. Let's start with our third quarter operating performance. We are very pleased with the continued momentum of our business and the strength of the beer category across our footprint, even in the context of the ongoing dynamic operating environment. Our volume momentum accelerated this quarter, driven by strong consumer demand for our brand portfolio, ongoing digital transformation, and increased investment in our brands. We delivered our best quarterly volume performance this year, with 3.7% volume growth. Revenue per hectoliter increased by 8%, driven by revenue management initiatives and premiumization across the majority of our markets, resulting in top line growth of 12.1%. EBITDA increased by 6.5%, as our top line growth was partially offset by anticipated transactional effects and commodity headwinds, increased sales and marketing investments in our brands. Normalized EPS was $0.81 and underlying EPS was $0.84. As a result of our performance and continued momentum, we are raising the bottom end of our 2022 EBITDA growth outlook from 4% to 8% to 6% to 8%. Our medium-term outlook remains unchanged. This quarter, we once again delivered broad-based growth with a top line increase in all five of our regions and volume growth in over 60% of our markets. Our diverse geographic footprint provides a unique combination of growth and reliable cash flow generation, positioning us well to deliver superior value creation. Now let me share some highlights from our key markets. In the US, the beer industry remains resilient with volume trends improving throughout the year in all major beer segments, even in the current inflationary environment. Our business delivered another quarter of top line growth and strong cash flow generation. Our above core beer portfolio outperformed the industry, gaining share within the segment for the third quarter in a row, led by Michelob ULTRA, which grew volumes by double-digits. Our STR volumes declined by 1.7%, estimated to be below the industry. Within the experience-based ready-to-drink segment, our portfolio continued to outperform the industry, with both Cutwater and NÜTRL growing is strong double-digits. We continue to make progress in our commercial strategy with over 40% of our revenues now coming from both core beer and Beyond Beer brands. In Mexico, we accelerated our market share gains and delivered a third consecutive quarter of double-digit top and bottom line growth. Our volumes grew by more than 10%, with growth across all segments of our portfolio, led by both core, which delivered volume growth in the high 20s. In Colombia, we delivered double-digit top and high single-digit bottom line growth and continue to expand the beer category, again, reaching all-time high per capita consumption. We delivered volume growth across all segments of our portfolio with our premium and super-premium brands growing volumes in the high teens, reaching all-time high volume and share of our total revenue. Our business in Brazil delivered double-digit top and bottom line growth with EBITDA margin expansion. Our premium and super-premium brands continued to outperform this quarter, delivering high single-digit volume growth. Total beer volumes were flat as we cycled a strong performance year-over-year. Digital transformation continues to make progress with over 70% of our BEES customers, now also BEES marketplace buyers and our digital Zé Delivery product reaching 4.3 million monthly active users. In Europe, we grew topline by double-digits, driven by volume growth, revenue management initiatives, and on-premise recovery. Our portfolio continues to premiumize with growth this quarter led by our premium and super-premium brands. EBITDA declined by mid-single-digits as topline growth was offset by elevated cost pressures and increased sales and marketing investments to support our premium strategy and FIFA World Cup activations. Our business in South Africa grew both top and bottom-line by double-digits this quarter. We delivered growth across all segments of our portfolio, led by over 30% revenue growth in our leading core brand, Carling Black Label. Our premium, super-premium and Beyond Beer portfolios all delivered a double-digit increase in volumes. We are investing in capacity expansion to support our growth in South Africa. In China, COVID-19 restrictions continued to disproportionately impact our key regions and sales channels. Underlying consumer demand remains consistent with volumes growing by 3.6%. We continue to invest in our strategy, geographic expansion, premiumization in digital transformation. In our priority expansion cities, excluding those impacted by restrictions, Budweiser and our super-premium portfolio grew volume by double-digits. Premiumization of the beer industry in China remains an exciting long-term value creation opportunity. We continue to make progress across our ESG priorities with highlights this quarter, including; in recognition of our global water stewardship initiatives we are proud to recently be included on Fortune's Change the World list. We have achieved carbon neutrality at eight facilities to-date and continue to drive deep decarbonization across our value chain. We brought together key packaging and raw material suppliers that account for over 50% of our Scope 3 emissions to share best practice and take collective climate action through our global supplier collaboration initiatives called Eclipse. Now let's move on to our strategic pillars. Let's start with Pillar 1 of our strategy, lead and grow the category. Our creative marketing capabilities continue to be recognized. Following our best-ever performance at this year Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, we were recently named as the world's most effective marketer in the Global Effie Effectiveness Index for the first time. This combination of best-in-class creative brand-building capabilities and effective marketing are driving strong consumer connections with our brands and enabling our accelerated topline growth. A big congratulations to our teams and partners for this extraordinary achievement. We continue to execute on our five levers to drive category expansion. And by making the category more inclusive, offering superior corporate positions, developing consumption occasions, and expanding our premium and Beyond Beer portfolios. We delivered another quarter of consistent and profitable top line growth. Our global brands continue to drive premiumization across our markets. The combined revenues of Corona, Stella Artois and Budweiser grew by 12.7% outside of the brands markets, led by Corona with 23.5% growth. To illustrate our portfolio development and execution are driving growth, I would like to take you through three examples from our market expansion model. Let me start with an emerging market example, Zambia. In emerging markets like Zambia, our primary objective is to make the category more inclusive by developing superior core propositions, introducing premium and Beyond Beer brands. Over the last five years, we have expanded our portfolio with a broader range of offerings, expanding price in different segments and consumption occasions. Per capita consumption of the formal beer category has increased by approximately two liters with significant headroom for growth. Whilst still in the early stage of premiumization journey, our both core portfolio has increased its share of our revenue by over 300 basis points to reach approximately 23% today. Category expansion and market share gains have resulted in the consistent growth of our business, increasing volumes at an 8.7% CAGR since 2018. Now let's take a look at one of the key developing markets in our portfolio, Mexico. By consistently investing in our portfolio development, we are unlocking the full potential of the beer category. We are now offering a more complete range of brands and packs across core to reach more consumers in more occasions and leading the development of premium and Beyond Beer segments. The development of the business in Mexico is truly remarkable. Beer per capita consumption continues to grow, and our volumes have consistently outperformed the industry, growing at 5.6% CAGR since 2017. Our core brands continue to lead the industry, while our above core portfolio is leading premiumization. And now moving on to an example from one of our developed markets, the US. In the US, we are at half time of our 10-year plan to rebalance the portfolio towards the growing segments of the market. Five years ago, the portfolio was over-indexed to declining segments in the industry. To date, as we continue to rebalance and enhance our portfolio, we are better positioned across all segments of the market. To accelerate growth, we are focused on our priority mega brands. Within mainstream over the last five years, we stabilized our share, Busch Light is one of the top five share gainers in beer industry since 2019 and has gained share of beer for the last 15 quarters in a row. Busch Light remains the number one brand in volume and brand power. Our above core portfolio continues to improve performance and is gaining share in the last three quarters. Michelob ULTRA doubled volume in the last five years, becoming the second largest brand in the industry and continues to grow double-digits. In the premium segment, Stella Artois, Kona Big Wave, and Estrella Jalisco are growing volumes in the high single-digits. Within the beer, we now have two of the strongest propositions in the fastest-growing spaces of the category, with Cutwater in NÜTRL. In 2017, 27% of our revenues came from the both Core and Beyond Beer segments. To-date, these segments make up over 40% and have been key contributors to approximately $800 million in revenue growth over the last five years. As a result of this portfolio rebalancing, our business has now delivered revenue growth in eight of the last nine quarters. As we enter the second half of our 10-year plan, we have a healthier portfolio positioned for growth and expect to engage in a multiyear increase in commercial investments, to accelerate our portfolio rebalancing. Now, let's turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. This continues to accelerate, usage and reach, capturing $7.7 billion in GMV this quarter, a 40% increase year-over-year. This is now available in 19 markets, reaching 3.1 million monthly active users and generating over 1.8 million orders per week. In 14 of the 19 markets, our customers are also able to purchase third-party products through this marketplace. Customer adoption is increasing and 44% of these customers in these markets are now also this marketplace buyers. Today, we have over 200 partners providing more than 500 brands through the platform, generating September annualized run rate revenue of approximately $850 million. This winning partnership empowers our customers to grow by the benefits of digital inclusion and enables our partners to benefit from our world-class platform and route to market and highly engaged this user base. Now, let's talk about direct-to-consumer. Our digital direct-to-consumer products, Zé Delivery, TaDa, and PerfectDraft are now available in 17 markets and generated over $100 million in revenue and 17 million orders this quarter. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimizing our business. Fernando? Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. We aim to maximize value by focusing on three areas; one, optimized resource allocation; two, robust risk management; and three, efficient capital structure. With respect to capital allocation, we aim to maximize long-term value creation by dynamically balancing our priorities. We continue to invest in organic growth and support our strategy to lead and grow the category and digitize and monetize our ecosystem. The excess cash generated by our business is then dynamically allocated to our other three capital allocation priorities, deleveraging, selective M&A and return of capital to shareholders. Our debt maturity profile remains well distributed with no bond maturities in 2022 and 2023 and no relevant medium-term refinancing needs. If you look at our debt maturity profile, we have US$2.8 billion of bonds maturing through 2025 and more than sufficient liquidity today to redeem all of these bonds. Our bond portfolio has an average pre-tax coupon of around 4% and a weighted average maturity of approximately 16 years. Moreover, our debt portfolio does not have any financial covenants and is comprised of a variety of currencies, diversifying our FX risk. 94% of our bonds have a fixed rate, insulated from interest rate volatility and inflation. Now let me take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS for the quarter. Underlying EPS was stable at $0.84 per share, $0.01 lower than the third quarter last year. Organic EBITDA growth accounted for a $0.17 per share increase, but was partially offset by $0.12, primarily from translational effects. Higher depreciation and amortization accounted for $0.03. As we continue to deleverage, our net interest expense has reduced contributing a $0.04 improvement. Other financial results reduced EPS by $0.08, largely due to higher cost of hedging, driven by a higher interest rate environment. I'll now hand it back to Michel for some final comments. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. Allow me to take a few minutes to recap my key takeaways for the quarter and how we are continuing to meet the moment. The beer category continues to demonstrate its strength and is gaining share of throat globally. Our business has momentum. We delivered our best quarterly volume performance of the year, with growth in over 60% of our markets. This is now present in 19 countries. This marketplace is gaining traction. We finalized run rate revenues of US$850 million. Our industry-leading portfolio of brands, revenue management capabilities and operational excellence enabled us to navigate the inflationary environment. We continue to execute our strategy and delivered 8% net revenue per hectoliter growth this quarter. Looking ahead to the opportunities to activate demand, I could not be more excited for what we have coming in the fourth quarter. This is a unique moment for us as a company and for me as a lifelong football fan and beer water. In less than a month, I will be one of the billions of fans watching the FIFA World Cup Qatar, the largest global sporting event. And we are ready to connect people around the world through our shared passion for football and beer. Budweiser, the official beer of the FIFA World Cup is kicking off its most ambitious global campaign yet. Our leading core brands, like Brahma in Brazil, Jupiler in Belgium and Quilmes in Argentina, we'll be leaning into our national King partnerships, supporting local retailers and SaaS. These campaigns will be executed in over 70 countries and 1.2 million points of sales. We will also be creating new consumer experience, such as the biggest digital campaign in our history. We are engaging with more customers through bids and we have launched direct-to-consumer activations through Zé Delivery and TaDa. I could not be more excited and proud of our team and partners. The future with more cheers is right around the corner. Before I hand it back to Jessie to begin the Q&A session, let me share with you a short video that really brings FIFA and our campaigns to light. [Video Presentation] Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from the line of James Edwardes Jones with RBC. Please proceed with your question. James Edwardes Jones: Good morning and afternoon. Two questions, please. The business has got momentum, Michel, as you're saying. But are you concerned about the wider economic context you're operating in? And is that going to detract from that momentum? And secondly, I suppose one for Fernando please, the proportion of your debt denominator in euros has fallen from 33% the last year and to 25% at the end of September. Is that purely a reflection of the euros depreciation, or is there anything more than that going on? Michel Doukeris: Hey James, good morning, good afternoon, everybody. I'll take the first one and hand it over to Fernando to complement on the second question. I think there are two parts to this answer. The first one is we must focus on what we can control. And what we can control, what we see is business momentum, and this business momentum has to do with the execution of our strategy and everything that we've been discussing over the last quarters and in our meetings. So we are really focused on the category, balancing well our revenue strategy, investments in our brands and the acceleration of our digital transformation. So we can continue to lead and grow the category. Of course, the consumer confidence, inflationary environment gets us to be carefully balancing each and every piece of our strategy, while we continue to be, again, focused on what we can control, and what we can control is the execution of our strategy. Fernando Tennenbaum: And James, on your second question, Fernando here. So our debt, it's mostly the euro depreciation. So that's the biggest impact you see there. But probably it's worthwhile calling out the attention because the euro depreciation is probably why you see happening on the balance sheet, and that's the one you see the impact that you've seen on our income statement flowing through the interest line. We don't see and there is a huge economic benefit towards highlighting is the rising rate environment, our bonds were trading in the beginning of the year at around 120% of par. And now given the rate environment, they are trading a little bit lower on average than 90% of par. And given that we continue to deleverage and we are buying back bonds, it means that each dollar that we buyback of debt is worth more than $1. And if you apply the math in our whole portfolio, you see that the interest rate component has a much bigger economic benefit, the raising interest rate environment than any FX swings. James Edwardes Jones: That's very interesting. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Simon Hales with Citi. Please proceed with your question. Simon Hales: Thank you Michel and Fernando. Two for me as well, please. Obviously, we're getting close to the end of 2022 now. I wonder Fernando, whether you could share any thoughts at all on your outlook for COGS as we move into 2023. I appreciate you might not want to give any specific inflation guidance on COGS, but maybe a directional steer on 2023 COGS versus 2022 would be helpful? And then secondly, Michel, maybe coming back to the comments you were making at the end around the World Cup. Can you talk a little bit about the phasing perhaps of spend and activations into the World Cup, should we expect to see a big step up in Q4 on marketing spend and SG&A in general as a number of that, or big part of that spend already being felt in Q3 as well in preparation. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thanks, Simon, Fernando here. So, on your first question on COGS, of course, we are not giving any outlook so far. But what we commented on the last earnings call still holds true, which given -- if we look at the spot rates today, you are likely to still have some pressures next year, but to a lesser extent than the pressures we had this year. And if you want to look around the world, it's not the same magnitude, probably the region that is most impacted next year is going to be Europe. It's disproportionately impacted because of energy costs and because of agricultural barley costs. But what we said in the last quarter still holds through some pressure, but to a lesser extent than the ones that we saw this year. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Simon, good morning, good afternoon. Thanks for the question. I think that on FIFA may be getting from the beginning -- the main point, I've been talking about this similar challenge and opportunities that we would be facing this year on the operating environment and so far it's been real as well as the opportunities with the comeback of the own trade with marquee events returning. And as you travel around the globe, is being very tough to buy tickets to be able to go to any concert or sport events. And we've been planning and working very hard for FIFA and that's going to be by far the biggest category activation opportunity in the year, the biggest sports event in the year, and we will do this across 70 countries and many of our brands. And in order to do with being heavy upping expenses, so already in the quarter three, but also in the quarter four. So, I would say that our sales and marketing this year will be more skewed towards the second half as always happens when we have FIFA years, we concentrate more investments across this big activation, so quarter three, quarter four. But at the same time, it's not only more investments because we last year invested more than our brands and this year, we invest more on our brands as well, but it's becoming more effective. And as we digitally transform as added and sharper creative and focus on the key brands on our portfolio segments, we've been striking a balance of both, not only higher support and more money being invested but in a more efficient way. But directly answer your question, second half, heavier investments than first half in order to be able to support this huge moment and huge category opportunity for beer consumption. Simon Hales: Got it. Very helpful. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Tristan van Strien with Redburn Partners. Please proceed with your question. Tristan van Strien: Hi, Michel and Fernando. Two for me as well, please. I think just first to follow-up on the environment. It seems like the consumer is very confident in places like Mexico and Brazil and even mentioned Zambia here and it's reflected in the beer sales, can you just maybe give a bit more content to that? I mean, is there a continent consumer? Are they, kind of, protected from what's happening in the developed world? Is this sustainable? So some views on that as we look over the next few quarters, what you're seeing on the ground? And the second question, just going back to the developed world on the US. There have been a few comments, I think, by one of your competitors, one of smaller ones, who is saying that traditional beer, as we know it may never grow again in our lifetime in the US. I would love to hear your view on that, what your thinking is on that? And just -- and also, as I look at your slide on the US, I think, it's the first time you've spoken about Kona and Stella Artois [ph], what are you seeing those brands to kind of reinvigorate the beer category? And why you're pushing them as you go into 2023? Thanks. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hey, Tristan. Good afternoon, and thank you for the question. I think that I got here three. I'll try to answer them even though there is some correlation. I think that on the first and the second, they are somehow interconnected. I think that when we look at the beer category, and I keep on repeating that based on the data that we have and what we are seeing out there, beer category is very resilient, and it's been proving this over the years. You look back in time across all type of economic environment. And even during the pandemic, we discussed at this big time. The category is very resilient. And yes, it's true that inflation is a global thing. It is different on a country-by-country, and it's different region-by-region. And you see anywhere like 80% inflation in Argentina to 2% inflation in China. So, yes, there is global inflation, but the inflation is different market-to-market. Is also true that, the knowledge of consumers and all stakeholders, including the government, central banks to deal with this inflation is being built differently over the years on a country-by-country basis. That's why you see consumer confidence index, different because of the different reality of the inflation and the preparation that people have to deal with that being different on a country-by-country. You are talking about that, but Latin America has been so far a place where both consumer confidence is higher, but inflation is less impact for them. It is, for example, to the extremes of what you're seeing in Europe and somehow in North America. And what is very different during this time is that employment is very high. It doesn't matter where you go or at least it's more normal whenever evolves. So consumers are holding stronger evidence. I think that you can see that our volume in the quarter was the best this year and was broad-based, like 60% of our markets had volume growth, which is very good for a given quarter. We think that if you then pivot and you talk a little bit about the US, the industry in the US is not only resilient, but it is big, is profitable. It continues to premiumize, and it is incredibly dynamic, right? So it's a market that keep on reinventing itself and proposing new ways for consumers to interact and to be with the industry. So much so, you published the other day, and I read your report, the industry continues to be in good shape, growing revenues. And of course, there is a lot of dynamics playing inside the industry, right? One of the dynamics is the emerging beyond space, flavored beverage force category, whatever people call and time to time, there are some different calls around this industry, right? So a year ago or two years ago, people are discussing sales serve becoming like 100% of the image or whatever the number was. You remember that I told more than once that I didn't believe that, that would happen. And yes, beyond beer will continue to add consumers and growth to the industry, which is very exciting because they don't bear space, sources from wine sources on spirits and is more similar to the beer industry that we all are part of, and this brings more growth, growth for retailers, growth for wholesalers and growth for the beer players. I think that beer as an industry is incredibly relevant for our wholesalers, for our retailers, and they need to get behind as they do behind the industry and behind the players that invest and work to make this industry a better industry. In what I can speak on our behalf as committed as ever investing as always. And we talked about this on the last meeting that we have with our wholesale as we call the EM meeting, and we talked a little bit here as we were showing the examples of the category growth. We are engaging on a multiyear investment increase in the US because we are right at the half time of our 10-year plan. In the first 5 years, we managed to stabilize the Xhaleminstream. We got our above core portfolio to be from 27% to 41% of our revenues. We have today brand that connects with Kona, Estrella Jalisco, Cutwater that position us much better for the growing parts of the industry. So it's about second half going strong, invest more and accelerate growth. And in this scenario, Estrella Jalisco today, fastest growing Mexican brand in the US only present in markets where we started developing the brand such as California, Arizona and Texas, but with a huge headroom for growth. And Kona is an incredible lifestyle brand as a Jalisco Cutwater that has a lot of space in cementation. We are very happy with the acquisition, the partnership that we have with CBA and Kona is growing double digits, strong. It's an incredible brand. People love as much as we love the brand. So beer industry in the US is big, profitable, resilient very relevant for our wholesalers and retailers, and we are fully committed to continue to support them and invest for growth. Tristan van Strien: Thank you, Michel, very clear. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question. Q – Mitch Collett: Hi, Michel, hi, Fernando. I've got two questions. So F'22 face quite a few challenges. You've had more lockdowns persisting in China, very significant raw material inflation some headwinds in Brazil from the delayed Carnival. But you're now able to guide to EBITDA growth in the top end of your medium-term guidance range. So if you can achieve in the top end of your range given those challenges, how does that make you think about the validity of that range going forward in what might be a more normal year? And then my second question is on the spirits-based RTDs in the US, which I think you were just talking about. But – that category is achieving explosive growth, and you seem to be gaining from it with Cutwater and NÜTRL, I know you said in the presentation that – above is 40% of your US revenue. Can you just give us the proportion of your US revenue that is spirits-based RTDs and then perhaps a bit more color on the growth, which I think you said was double-digit? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Mitch, Fernando here. Let me get the first one. Your question on guidance, you're right, there's been a very dynamic year, but it's fair to say that the business continues to have momentum. And when we look at the year-to-date performance, and the momentum that we have in our business, we feel it was appropriate to raise the bottom end of our EBITDA guidance for outlook for this year from 4% to 6% to 8%. We also mentioned that our medium-term outlook remains unchanged. And whenever we talk about outlook, it's good to take a step back and understand why we decided to provide an outlook. At the end of the day, when we had our investor seminar last year, we made a clear evolution of our strategy when we move it from more inorganic an organic one. And given that we're moving to an organic strategy, which would require us to invest to lead and grow the beer category. Investor event on digital transformation and we do all of that to are dynamically allocating resources to grow and optimize our business while we're still deleveraging. It would be important to give confidence what one would expect as an algorithm for ABI. That's why as providing the outlook. And of course, now we just adjusted the full year 2022 given the momentum and given the performance so far. For the medium term, it remains unchanged. And next year, when we get to the full year-end release, we make a decision where we make any different outlook for the year of 2023, but no update so far. Michel Doukeris: Yeah, Mitch. Just complementing this answer the Fernando gave to you Anheuser-Busch InBev I think that in a way, each year will be different if it's set us challenge and equal opportunities. And as we put together our strategy, we are really focused in controlling what we can control – and in order to execute this strategy, we need to have investments, and we'll be always balancing the risks and opportunities, while giving certainty to people that their financial discipline will continue to be always there, and that's why we provided this outlook, which as Fernando said, remains unchanged to the midterm. On the RTD space, this in a way connects with Tristan's question at the beginning, on the brands and how the market is evolving. So this won't be a space ready-to-drink beverage in the US is a reality. It will be part of the industry will continue to happen, but the manifestation in what beverage types of liquids, it will be always changing a little bit. right? So we have seen different ways in different type of beverage and liquids there. And I think that at this time, a being the US ABI we are not only well positioned because we got very early into the trend of Cutwater and NÜTRL, but we have a good combination of understanding on how this will evolve. The right brands that we've been investing to develop and it's been growing very well. For us today, give or take analyzed sales, let's say, $150 million and growing ahead of the industry, high double digits. So very promising is still in the big scheme of things of the US is small to the total revenues that we have, but relevant for the growth giving the speed in which is growing. And again, in the complex cocktail ready-to-drink Cutwater is the leading brand today, and NÜTRL, is a leading brand in Canada. We are in the need of the rollout in the US, but everything that we see in terms of performance looks very good, and the brand is incredible. So we are very optimistic for what it can bring to us next year and beyond. Q – Mitch Collett: It's very helpful. Thank you, guys. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Brett Cooper with Consumer Edge Research. Please proceed with your question. Brett Cooper: Thanks for taking the question. Just a quick one. I was hoping you can help us understand the performance beer category and beer brands specifically in outlets using these marketplace versus those outlets where they're not using it. Thanks. Michel Doukeris: So let me try to give you a couple of points here on that. So this is in 19 countries. And in these 19 countries, we have a very high adoption so much so that in most of them, we are already above 80%, 90%. Marketplace is today in 14 countries and more than 40% of the customers are now also these Marketplace buyers and the traction is improving, meaning more and more best customers are buying in marketplace. The traction is coming as well, if you think about the flight. We also get customers to buy and you attract more partners, so today, more than 200 partners have joined us in the different places and they provide more than 500 brands products option for our customers to buy within the Marketplace. And the reality is quite straight forward because this is making us more effective on the point of sales. So we've been able to sell more of our portfolio and the beer category is performing better, where we have this as a tool and when we have Marketplace, you have a more engaged customer. So the points of sales, they use more of the two. They have more transactions. They buy more from us being direct first-party type, when we sell the products or when you just commercialize the products and the other companies, third-party delivered. And because they are more engaged, they are performing better, where we have marketplace than where we don't have, then when we don't have this. So it's like a flywheel that gets better, the more the customer engages with us, the better our business is with them. And because we are enabling them with digital inclusion what happens is that they have a better portfolio to sell, at the service level from the companies. They can then attract more consumers. And they can grow their business and have a better impact in their communities. So we are very excited with this possibility of including the customers digitally and making them more profitable, bigger more successful as business owners. Operator: Thank you. Move on to our next question, which is coming from the line of Laurence Whyatt with Barclays. Please proceed with your question. Laurence Whyatt: Hi, Michel, Fernando. Thanks so much for the question. Two also for me following on Biz [Ph], first one in Brazil, it's one of your more mature markets on Biz, you don't appear to have taken any material market share despite your competitors not having similar platforms. So just wondering if there's anything we're missing there or whether that should be expected to happen? And then secondly, you recently started disclosing your Biz in China, going to around 10% now. I think you said -- how do you expect the Chinese market to be any different to the markets you're already in Biz or how is it different? And could you get to similar levels in China as you do in your mature markets? You say sort of 90% of your customers using digital methods? Thank you very much. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hey Laurence, thanks for the question. I'll get the first one. And then, talk a little bit more about China, as I build on the answer for the first question. So I think that Biz is all about getting our customers to be more, digital having a better service level, understand better what are the opportunities to make their business grow and try, right? Because we drive when our communities strive and we grow when our customers grow. And this is an enabler for them to get better businesses and to make a more profitable business for themselves. Of course, in doing so, we can get our business as well to perform better with these customers, and this is what you see across all 19 countries where Biz is operating today. You see a more driving environment for the small and medium enterprises. And you see that the beer category is performing better. And therefore, as a consequence, our business is performing better as well. When you think about China, and I have mentioned this before, in one of the calls, answering one of the questions from our colleagues here that I can simplify how Biz is moving globally to you, thinking about three different clusters. The closest number one is what we call the direct distribution operations, where we can think of Brazil, you can think of Mexico, Argentina, mostly and these markets, because we have direct distribution, one, ERP system integration is very quick, and we scaled it up very fast over the last two years. The second cluster is the product that we are developing for large key accounts, so we can improve these electronic transactions EDI systems that we have is called Biz link is in the development. And once we get these large accounts to be -- with a better system, I always compare like the land line phones that we had in the past with the modern iPhones, right? So, there is a lot of opportunities to get the EDI system of the big accounts today to be much more modern because they are in place for 20 years. and they didn't change a lot. They don't have the data, they don't have AI, all the possibilities that we have today as we improve them. And then the third wave is the wave of indirect markets. And in the indirect market is where you have a 3-tier system, not all 3-tier systems are equal, but you have us, you have the wholesalers and then you have the point of sales. In China, the US they fall into this third wave. In China today, we have like 15%, let's say, of our sales already in this, because the ecosystem in China is very different for all technologies tested, we are developing a lot of things in China following the standard product and the same products, algorithms and AI that we have in the other markets, but building and hosting this in China. And because of the wholesaler system there and the structure of the market, -- those are the markets that we need to first develop choose places that we go and then roll it out and scale in a stage and way market-by-market for salable wholesaler state-by-state. -- at the beginning, that is more customization because we need to make the transformation. But our teams, they evolved a lot in the way that they learned and how to roll this fast, and now we are in scaling up mode in China. The benefits for the customers will be pretty similar across all markets, because it will empower them digitally. We'll give them more tools to manage their business. a superior portfolio and service level. And for us, of course, if this works, so more subside customers. We will have a better category. It doesn't matter China, Brazil, US. And if the category is better and the customers are more empowered than growing our business will also benefit and growth. So, the model for China, the wave of China is the third wave of the first one. Yes, the benefits and outcomes that we expect are very similar, better for customers, more empowered digitally a better category development vibrant with more tools to activate and as a consequence, a better business for us to be part of. Laurence Whyatt: That's all really clear, Michel. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore. Please proceed with your question. Rob Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much. Two questions. First, I was surprised about how well Budweiser did globally given the fact that a lot of its sales are in China, and China has been weak. So, could you please remind us what percentage of Budweiser sales are in the US and outside of the US roughly? And what's driving the global Budweiser growth, so that would be question number one. And then question number two is we -- there's always this ongoing debate about beer versus spirits, and clearly spirits are doing much better than beer in the US. Can you talk about what you're seeing now in the rest of the world, and maybe what markets beer is doing better and gaining share. You called out, I think Colombia, any other markets would be helpful. Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Robert, good morning. Thank you for the questions. I'll try to address both here. Yes, you know that we don't disclose absolute numbers, percentages by country region. But definitely, the two largest markets global for Budweiser are the US and China. So you know this correctly. And the brand overall globally is very healthy. You see even in the US, the brand power and the share of segment is probably having the last two years, the best performance in more than 20 years. In China, the brand remains very solid, demand when you are outside the lockdowns remain solid. When you get the cities that we are expanding that are not facing any lockdowns, the growth is very healthy, and the brand is growing in other markets across the globe. So you can think about Nigeria. You can think about France, the UK, you can think about the Latin American countries where we have the brand. So the brand continues to perform, expand globally and the largest utilization for the year will be actually in the quarter four, because Budweiser is the sponsor of FIFA World Cup, and we are activating 70 countries and is the largest activation for the Budweiser brand yet. So it's going to be a very exciting moment for Budweiser in the quarter four. And we've been discussing this and sharing data with you all IWSR data and Euromonitor data. And beer globally is gaining share of throat. We have many countries, which is true. It's not one or two countries. Beer is gaining share of throat from most spirits, the low-end spirits across many countries. In Europe, you see beer gaining share of throat this year from wine is one of the reasons why volumes are growing in Europe despite of all inflation and pressures in the market there. And in the US, what you see today is beer much more stable than what was a few years ago. So we saw during the pandemic and post-pandemic beer growing penetration and participation and the category is more stable. When you add on that, the ready-to-drink beverage, the so-called fourth category, gaining space, and today a lot of the growth for spirits that we are mentioning is coming from the ready-to-drink cocktails. So it's good to have Cutwater there, growing double digit. Having neutral there accelerating and growing also ahead of the industry for this segment and excited with the opportunities and headroom you know that we have a very diversified geographical footprint. My view is that in sometime it is underappreciated, but all the growth opportunity in Latin America, in Africa and in Asia that we have not only for volume, but for growth in premium beer, it's incredible. And premium beer is growing faster than premium spirits globally. These are fact, again, as much as beer gaining share of growth when you do the apples-and-apples comparison. Premium spirits and premium beers, premium beer is growing ahead of premiums spirits and has even more headroom for growth as Latin America premiumizes as the U.S. continues to premiumize and the rest of the world is almost untapped opportunities for premium beers. So great momentum there for the category, proving to be not only big, profitable, but also resilient its incredible opportunities to continue to premiumize. So much so that Corona revenues grew 23.5% this quarter. So a number for us to remember as well on how big the opportunity is for us to continue to premiumize the category globally. Thanks for the question. Rob Ottenstein: That’s terrific. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our final question is coming from the line of Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question. Trevor Stirling: Hi. I've got two questions, please, Michel and Fernando, considering regional performance. The first one is, I think, virtually every region had margin compression of one form or another, but it looked like the margin compression was worst in Middle Americas. And I wonder could you give us some color about why Middle Americas came under such pressure? And same thing in Brazil, I think, beer volumes were flat, but premium was up high single-digits or flow was up mid single-digit, but was at the economy end of the portfolio that was weak? Fernando Tennenbaum: Yes, Trevor, if I got the two questions correct there, let me start with the Middle Americas. I think that two-fold on this answer. One as we've been talking about the inflationary costs for next year being overweighted on Europe. As we came from the 2021 to 2022 both the costs and the supply chain disruptions, they were not equal distributed across all markets. And Middle Americas, overall, when you cut from Colombia, all the way up to Mexico is growing a lot. And this growth requires both infrastructure of suppliers as well as time to accommodate all the disruptions that we saw during the COVID period. And because of that the costs there this quarter and over 2022 were more accentuated than other markets. And as we continue to grow, we are accelerating both top-line and bottom-line in a very healthy way, generating very good cash flow growth, while the margins in the short-term are under pressure. But you know my answer to that. I like our margins. They have a very clear reason why do they exist is like based on our market positions, the strength of our brands and how efficient our operations are. So we'll continue to grow in Middle Americas and margins tend to revert as all the supply chain disruptions. And as we settle and get more organized with the investments that we've been doing for partners to have the correct supply footprint there. The second one, more in Brazil. I think that in Brazil, the story is very simple. We've been growing volumes and topline in a very strong manner. Last year, all-time high on the quarter three, four. This year, we are in line with these high numbers. Premium is growing faster than value and core and you see that our core plus propositions and here, namely Spartan is having a terrific -- fantastic year in Brazil, growing a lot and leading the growth of the portfolio, while the value part of the portfolio is growing less because the core is also very healthy in Brazil with Brahma performing very well. So, it's more like the growth and the performance so far is being led by the core and above. And because we are facing very good industry numbers and our own numbers from last year, the value part of the portfolio is -- versus last year underperforming. Trevor Stirling: Understood. Thank you very much, Michel. Michel Doukeris: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. So, I'd now like to pass the floor back over to Mr. Doukeris for any additional closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Hey thank you, Jesse, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today and for your time and the other going partnership and support for our business. I hope you have great week, and you are all as excited as I am for FIFA and what's coming in the quarter four. So, thank you again. Have a great day. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. Once again, we thank you for your participation, and you may disconnect your lines at this time.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com, and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. [Operator Instructions]. Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see risk factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 18th of March 2022. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call, and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jessie, and welcome, everyone, to our second quarter 2022 earnings call. It is a pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Today, Fernando and I will take you through our second quarter operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we have made in the execution of our strategic pillars. We will then be happy to answer your questions. So let's start with our operating performance. Our momentum continued this quarter, and we are very pleased with the ongoing strength of our business. We delivered top line growth of 11.3%, with 3.4% volume and 7.5% revenue per hectoliter growth, driven by the expansion of the beer category, ongoing premiumization supported by increased investments in our brands and revenue management initiatives across our markets. Despite the dynamic operating environment, we continue to meet the moment, growing EBITDA by 7.2%. Normalized EPS was $0.75 and the underlying EPS was $0.73. Gross debt decreased by $5.5 billion in the first half of this year, and our net debt to normalized EBITDA decreased to 3.86x. Our performance this quarter was broad-based, and we delivered top line growth across all 5 of our regions with volume growth in over 60% of our markets. Our diverse geographic footprint and balanced EBITDA contribution provide a unique combination of growth and strong cash generation. Now I would like to share some highlights from our key markets. In the U.S., I would like to start by highlighting the resilience of the beer industry. Even in the current dynamic operating environment, we have seen gradual improvement throughout the quarter and an increase in value from pre-pandemic levels. While our volumes underperformed the industry. our business delivered another quarter of top line growth. We remain confident in our long-term strategy focused on rebalancing the portfolio. Our above core portfolio continues to outperform, led by Michelob ULTRA, which grew volumes by double digits. Within the spirits-based ready-to-drink segment, our portfolio once again outperformed the industry with both water and Nütrl vodka seltzer growing in strong double digits. In Mexico, we outperformed the industry. delivering double-digit top and bottom line growth. Our core brands delivered high single-digit volume growth and our above core portfolio once again grew by double digits, led by Modelo and Michelob ULTRA. Over 60% of our bus customers are now also this marketplace buyers. In Colombia, we delivered double-digit top and high single-digit bottom line growth and continue to expand the beer category, again, reaching all-time hyper capital consumption. Our premium and super-premium portfolio reached a record high volume, delivering over 40% growth led by our global brands and local premium brands, include Colombia. Our business in Brazil delivered 26.8% top line growth and a strong 34.3% increase in EBITDA. Brazil is a great example of our evolution towards becoming a tech-first FMCG. Our advanced digital transformation allows us to capture both growth and operating efficiencies. Our beer volumes once again outperformed the industry, growing by 8.5%, led by our core brands, and over 20% volume growth of our premium and super premium brands. In a nutshell, our business in Brazil delivered across all 5 levers of our category expansion framework. In Europe, we delivered high single-digit top and double-digit bottom line growth, driven by on-premise reopening, ongoing premiumization and implementation of revenue management initiatives. Our portfolio continues to premiumize with growth this quarter led by our global and super premium brands. Our business in South Africa delivered high single-digit top and double-digit bottom line growth despite significant production constraints in April and May due to floods impacting our prospect um brewery. Underlying demand for our portfolio remained strong. Our leading core brands delivered continued revenue growth and our premium and super premium deal beer portfolio outperformed this quarter. delivering a double-digit increase in revenues. In China, the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions led to a total industry decline of mid-single digits in the quarter according to our estimates. These restrictions disproportionately impacted our key regions and channels, leading to a revenue decline of 5.1%. Underlying consumer demand for our brands remained strong. As restrictions eased in June, both our premium and super premium portfolios returned to volume growth, increasing by double digits. I would like to now turn your attention to a few ESG highlights. In the second quarter, we made progress across our ESG priorities with select highlights including advancing circularity in our operations. We opened the first full-scale ever grain production facility in St. Louis, towards cycle barley using our brewing process into high-quality, sustainable protein ingredients, building a resilient value chain. We brought together more than 250 supply chain partners with the launch of our global collaboration initiatives, equips to drive climate action and decarbonization. Fostering entrepreneurship and innovation. We hosted the third annual demo date of our 100-plus accelerator program with our CPG partners. 34 start-ups showcased pilots to progress our sustainability goals as water stewardship, climate action, smart agriculture, circular packing and upcycling. Now let's move on to our strategic pillars. And let's start with Pillar 1, lead and grow the category. Our brand and the creative work that brings them to light and connects them with our consumers is a true passion point of mind. At this year, Canyon's international fastball creativity, our marketing teams achieved their best performance ever, winning 50 awards, a record high for our company. These 50 awards were distributed across of our key countries and 9 brands. We were especially honored for being awarded the Creative Marketer of the Year, and the creative effectiveness Grand Prix for Michelob ULTRA contract for change campaign. Big congratulations to our teams and partners for this extraordinary achievement and recognition of the progress in our creative marketing capabilities. Now let me take you through our category expansion levers. First, we continue to focus on making the beer category more inclusive for all consumers. This quarter, consumers' participation within our portfolio increased in the majority of our key markets, driven by brand, pack and liquid innovations. Second, we are offering superior core propositions. Our mainstream portfolio delivered high single-digit revenue growth this quarter, led by strong performances of our core brands in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. Third, occasions development. Our global brand Stella Artois grew revenues by 7.7% outside of its home market, led by the focus on the new occasion in key markets such as Brazil and Colombia. Fourth, we are advancing premiumization. This quarter, our above core portfolio grew revenue by approximately 12%, led by continued double-digit growth of Michelob ULTRA in the U.S. and Mexico and the expansion of Spartan in Brazil. Our global brands continue to drive premiumization across all markets. The combined revenues of Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona grew by 9.7% outside of the brand's home market, led by Corona with 18.2% and Stella Artois with 7.7% growth. Budweiser grew by 6.1% despite the impact of COVID-19 restrictions in China, the brand's largest market. Finally, we continue to expand the category with our beyond beer offerings. Our global bind beer business contributed over USD 425 million of revenue in this quarter. In the U.S., our spirits base is ready-to-drink portfolio continued to grow ahead of the industry, led by Cutwater and Nütrl vodka seltzer. And in South Africa, Brutal Fruit and Flying Fish delivered continued double-digit growth. Innovation this quarter supported the expansion across each of the 5 levers of our framework, contributing approximately 8% of our total revenue this year. Now let's turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. As we invest to become a tech first FMCG company, this continues to see a remarkable acceleration in usage and reach, capturing USD 7.4 billion in GMV this quarter, a 64% increase year-over-year. We have now 2.9 million monthly active users, generating over 1.9 million orders per week. In 12 of the 18 countries, our customers are also able to purchase third-party products through this marketplace. This marketplace offers a consolidated order and deliver management platform, solving pain points and empowering our customers to grow. We continue to increase adoption and expansion of product availability as 40% of these customers in these markets are also buyers from this marketplace. To date, we have over 100 partners providing more than 500 brands through the platform, generating annualized revenues of USD 800 million. is winning partnership empowers our customers to grow via the benefits of digital inclusion and enables our partners to benefit from our world-class platform. in highly engaged this user base. Now let's talk about direct-to-consumer business. This quarter, our DTC products generated USD 385 million in revenues. The number of online orders surpassed 16 million transactions this quarter, driven by the delivery in Brazil and the continued expansion of our on-demand platform in 10 additional markets in Latin America. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimizing our business. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. We aim to maximize value by focusing on 3 areas: optimizing resource allocation; robust risk management; and efficient capital structure. With respect to capital allocation, we're going to maximize long-term value creation by dynamically balancing our priorities. We continue to invest in organic growth and support our strategy to lead and grow the category and digitize and monetize our ecosystem. The excess cash generated by our business is then dynamically allocated to our other capital allocation priorities, deleveraging, selective M&A and return of capital to shareholders. In line with our capital allocation priorities, we continue to make progress on deleveraging. Our gross debt reduced by USD 5.5 billion in the first half of 2022, and our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio decreased to 3.86x. As you can see on the next slide, our debt maturity profile remains well distributed with no near- and medium-term refinancing needs. We had USD 3.2 billion of bonds maturing through 2025 and more than sufficient cash on hand today to redeem all of these bonds. Our bond portfolio has an average pretax coupon of 4% and a weighted average maturity greater than 16 years. Moreover, our debt portfolio does not have any financial covenants and is comprised of a right of currencies diversifying our FX risk. In addition, 94% of our bonds have a fixed rate, insulated from interest rate volatility and inflation. Now let me walk you through the drivers of our underlying EPS for the quarter. Underlying EPS was $0.73 per share, $0.02 lower than the second quarter last year. This was driven by an increase in net finance costs and higher income tax expenses. Net finance costs increased largely due to foreign exchange losses, which accounted for $0.04. These losses were a result of FX translation of cash held in foreign subsidiaries. I'll now hand it back to Michel for some final comments. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. I would like to take a few minutes to recap our reflections and learnings and how we continue meeting the moment in 2022. The beer category continues to demonstrate the strength. We are operating in a big, profitable and growing category. Beer continues to gain share of throat globally, and we are well positioned to capture this growth as we hold the #1 position in 7 of the top 10 global beer craft posts. Our business has momentum, driven by relentless execution of our strategy, the strength of our brands and our accelerated digital transformation, our business delivered sustained profitable growth. On top of that, this year presents unique opportunities to activate demand. such as continued on-premise reopening and return of marquee events such as the World Cup in the second half of this year. In conclusion, we are confident in our business fundamentals and our team's ability to continue to meet the moment and create a future of more shares. I would now like to hand it over to Jesse to begin the Q&A session. Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our first question is coming from the line of Simon Hales with Citi. Simon Hales: Good morning, Michel. Good Morning, Fernando.. Two questions for me, please. I mean could you talk a little bit, Michel, about sort of what is the strong revenue per hectoliter increase you continue to see in Q2? And whether that robust pricing that continues to go through in your markets around the world is having any real underlying effect on consumer offtake trends. I wonder specifically in the U.S., whether some of the recent pickup we've seen in sort of the lower priced beer brands like Busch as a reflection of some of the pricing and inflationary moves in the market. Just interested in your color there? And secondly, maybe 1 for Fernando around the tax credits in Brazil, which were clearly positive in the quarter. Is that a one-off really in Q2, Fernando. I mean, obviously, you had something last year as well. But should we expect any more tax create to support the numbers into Q3 and beyond? Michel Doukeris: Simon, thank you for the question. I'll take the first one on revenue and then hand it over to Fernando. But when we think about revenue, we discussed at the beginning of this year, as we announced the year-end results that majority of our price increase and revenue actions were in place. So we had this incoming revenue momentum and the price in place in majority of the markets. And as we look at that, we continue to very carefully analyze and access the situation market by market, given the current environment and trying to assertively balance the consumer demand and the value proposition of our brands. Up to date, let's say, based on what we saw in the first half of the year and our own volume performance, you don't see any deceleration on the trend. So beer continues to grow globally and gain share of growth in most of the relevant markets. So good performance good incoming momentum. And as we go deeper market by market, I think that you had this question, there is always 2 tails of the stories in the U.S. and globally, you see premiumization as a big trend that's not slowing down. And of course, there are brands performing differently market to market. The Busch Light point that you asked here is not new. Busch Light is in a big run for several quarters already, growing as 1 of the top growth brands in the U.S., very healthy, expanding from the inner parts of the country are growing now to more regions, and it continues to accelerate. But I don't think that has any relation to short-term pressure on consumers or trade down is much more brand momentum behind Busch Light that's working very well. So I would say that on a consolidated view and even specifically in the U.S. we don't see now signals of trading down or slow down. Historically, though, we know that beer is very resilient. That consumers trade out of some categories, but not really beer because of its affordability. And we often see more expensive beverage trading now towards spring beer. So often, what we see is an acceleration of premium beer growth when you have some inflationary scenarios and consumers under pressure. But up to date, things moving quite well. And the biggest evidence of that is the growth of beer globally according to Aero monitor and IWSR and our own volume growth of 3.4%. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Simon, on your second question, so the tax credits in Brazil were more of a one-off this quarter. There is always kind of a tax decisions out there, but it's not a recurring item that we should be expecting. And the only highlight that I would say is that even though it has a benefit in the total EBITDA and EPS is excluded from our organic growth. So the organic growth number doesn't take into consideration any tax credit benefits. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Tristan Van Strien with Redburn Partners. Tristan Van Strien: Just a few questions for me. Just 1 just quick follow-up on that last one from Simon. So just for the avoidance on the current Supreme Court decision on the tax credit, there's nothing coming in future years. Just to clarify that. Fernando Tennenbaum: As far as we know today, no. Tristan Van Strien: Okay. Great. Then just a few questions for me. One for Fernando, just on your working capital, quite a big outflow this first half from the largest I've ever seen. Can you just maybe take us through that and how we should think about it for the full year? I mean, are you going to get back to positive territory in very normally do? And then the second question, again, also go back on pricing. In the past, you said you want to get the CPI type level of pricing. When I look at the U.S. in particular, is that something you're still aiming for, for this year? Or is -- or is it just really about covering your costs rather than recovering CPI? And then, Michel, the third question on Colombia, it's really going well. I'm just trying to figure out what exactly has been that inflection point? I mean why are you guys gaining the share from alcohol, which seems to have escaped actually Colombia for many years. What are you doing very differently does happen in the past? Fernando Tennenbaum: Tristan, Fernando, once again. So let me take the first one and then I'll let Michel answer the other 2 questions. So for us to better understand 2022 working capital, we need to look at what happened in the opening balance in 2021. So if you look at CapEx, back in 2020, we made some proactive decisions to reduce CapEx during the peak of the COVID uncertainty in a meaningful way, and that led to lower payables balance in our opening balance sheet for 2021. The income tax payables were also lower as the business was impacted in 2020, so less income taxes to pay in 2021. And third, you need to remember that there was no bonus for the year. And as always, this bonus is actually paid in 2021. So again, lower payables balance. So with this context, 2022 looks more like a normal year. And if you look all those anticipated impacts are fully embedded into our plan. And with this in mind, we go back to this trend that seasonally, we generate lower cash flow in the first half of the year. And then you should have a strong generation in the second half of the year. So no changes in our normal business operation. And Michel? Michel Doukeris: Yes. Thank you for the questions. I'll take the first one on pricing CPI. I think that generally, the idea does not change much. I think that what really changed big time this year and a little bit last year is that the CPI is much bigger than one would expect and even accelerated throughout the year, right? And because of that, we had our plans in place. we look globally to date, I would say that it's clear that beer prices are lagging inflation while I just said before that we are carefully balancing consumer demand, value proposition of our brands and input costs as we build our revenue management strategy. But globally, prices that is likely below inflation. And if you think a company of our size and scale, of course, we have many levers to pull in how we offset the input costs. And that's the reason why today, we are growing both top line with strong volumes and the EBITDA. So I think that we continue to monitor. We continue to carefully balance well the consumer demand with our revenue management initiatives. On the second point, maybe just linking straight Colombia to that, I think that Colombia is a very interesting example as well. I mentioned Brazil on the webcast. But in Colombia, we have this very good combination of us activating the category levers. So the 5 levers of expansion that we talk with innovation with strong per capita consumption growth in a very well-defined digital environment for us now where we can both activate the demand with retailers, but also start engaging much more consumers in a 360 type of digital activation that helps us to position our brands activate well the demand and continue to develop the category. So I think that is another good example of a market where everything is coming together and working very well for us as we continue to gain share of throat there. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Tristan, just if I could add some color on colon as well because Colombia is a market that we had double-digit top line growth, but we had single-digit EBITDA growth, and the single-digit EBITDA growth was actually a function of this the disposal of noncore assets. This quarter is actually, we sold the land. If it wasn't for the sale of land, we would have also double-digit EBITDA growth in Colombia. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of James Edward Jones with RBC Capital Markets. James Jones: Just give us any indication what's happening to your marketing spend as a percentage of sales. For example, [indiscernible] this morning, was interesting on its determination to continue investing in marketing to take share in the total beverage alcohol market. I guess I'm wondering what your reaction to that is. Michel Doukeris: James, thank you for the question. So we have discussed this before as well in the annual release. We continue to invest behind our brands as we premiumize, create more alternatives to grow and expand the category, and there is no change in this plan. I think that what has been changing and is always a good opportunity to highlight that is that we are becoming more efficient, so the campaigns have been working better. And the more we become more digital, the more we connect with both points of sales and consumers digitally. We see growing on the investments that we are making. So we will continue to invest, and we are very glad with the performance that we are having both in creative because we continue to strike very well on the power of the brands, but also in the other of these investments that continue to grow as we digitalize. Operator: Our next question is coming from Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Edward Mundy: Two questions from me, please. The first is on your guidance of 4% to 8% organic EBITDA year, you've delivered 7.5% in the first half and to deliver off is quite a wide range. the second half. I appreciate there's still scope for a lot of volatility, but the China exit rate looks quite encouraging in June. You mentioned the marquee events and the flooding in South Africa should be in the past. Is there anything that you're seeing so far would suggest that H2 will be materially worse than the first half? And then the second question is on Cutwater and Nütrl that are doing pretty well in the U.S. Does that give you confidence to push those 2 brands as spirit-based RTDs globally? Fernando Tennenbaum: Ed, Fernando here. So on the 4% to 8%, we are reiterating the outlook. And when we said format, there is no -- nothing you could read about the different performance in each quarter rather than full year 4% to 8%. I don't know if Michel wants to add any to that. Michel Doukeris: Yes. I can add on that and take on the second question, Edward, thanks for the question. I think that the opportunity here to answer that would be just to remind ourselves and to clarify once again why we provided an outlook as we were coming from last year to this year. I think that at the moment that we announced our new strategy and the transition from inorganic growth strategy to a more organic growth strategy. We discussed and shared with you the main things that we have to evolve and what would be required for us to really land this organic strategy. And 3 points that I stressed and discussed with you, was investing to lead and grow the category, invest to advance and accelerate our digital transformation while dynamically allocating our resources to first grow the business organically, and then deliver the other 3 priorities. And we work at the midst of this pandemic and all this very dynamic operating environment, and we thought that would be very important to provide clarity on the growth algorithm. That was the reason why we gave the 4% to 8%. And all of that remains true today, right? So we are accelerating organic growth investing in the category and in the digital transformation, and we continue to support this growth. Therefore, the 4% to 8% works for us, not for a quarter only, but it's more a midterm algorithm and outlook that we are giving and sharing with you. So providing the certainty of the financial discipline that we'll do the end. We do all the investments that we need to do and deliver the EBITDA growth. And Nütrl is a very interesting question. I'm sure that for a lot of people, it's a new brand, but Nütrl is leading Vodka Soda in Canada. It's growing very fast in the last 3, 4 years in Canada, and we decided to launch at the end of last year in the U.S., performed very well in 2 states. We are rolling it out now nationally. Very accelerated growth, very good news coming from quarter 2, but also from 4th of July, where the brand stroke like high volumes and very good performance. The key focus now is on the U.S. where you have this dual strategy in the ready-to-drink Cutwater, which is a more complex huge variety of cocktails, and Nütrl is more on the vodka soda, which is the seltzer space, let's say, that is -- and the spirits based are ready-to-drink vodka soda. They take a lot of share from the mouth based sales force. And the brand is great, performing very well. Once we get this well established in the U.S. Yes, there will be very good opportunities for both Cutwater and Nütrl to continue to expand globally. Edward Mundy: And just to come back to the first question, I appreciate that the 48% is a very medium-term framework, and you need to have the flexibility to reinvest. But just to be clear, without guiding for the second half, you haven't seen anything that sort of puts an inflection on the downside since the first half that we need to know about? Michel Doukeris: So year-to-date, no change. You see the volume in the second quarter, I think that is the best indication of the momentum and we remain confident on the fundamentals and the strategy implementation and execution. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Olivier Nicolai with Goldman Sachs. Jean-Olivier Nicolai: Michel and Fernando. I got 2 questions, please. First of all, do you see or do you expect any impact on volumes from your price increase in some emerging markets, particularly in Africa and Latin America, considering that affordability for beer could be an issue and that the food inflation is definitely going up quite a lot in those countries? That's the first question. And then second question, you've made some really good progress on deleveraging in H1. And you usually generate much more cash in H2. Would it be fair to assume that you could end the year closer to 3.5x net debt to EBITDA. And from a cash flow perspective, would you be willing to reinstate the interim dividend as you've done in the past on top of the final dividend? Michel Doukeris: Olivier, thank you for the question. I'll take the first 1 and leave Fernando with the second, third question. Our incoming volume trends remain very strong. This growth is across all regions. So we see good trends across regions. And maybe the most important point here is the underlying demand because even in some of the regions today, we have some constraints in supply availability. We could be selling a little bit more. But we don't see to date any slowdown on that. And once again, historically we see that beer is very resilient. Data from [indiscernible] monitor, IWSR that we saw now at the end of quarter 1, April, continue to show the same trends, be it growing globally and gaining share of growth. So we will know more once we get through quarter three and quarter four. But to date, trends remain with good momentum. Fernando Tennenbaum: And Olivier, on your second question, for member here, you are right. We continue to make progress on deleveraging. And it is true that the leverage seems to -- normally is stronger on the second half because the cash flow component is far stronger in the second half. So we are not providing any specific guidance on the number. But as part of our strategy, and we've been very vocal about it, we continue to focus on the leveraging and we should be making further progress on the second half. On your dividend question, I see the right way to do is going back to our dynamic allocation of our capital. We continue to invest behind our business, and there are a lot of opportunities in there. And the excess cash, I feel at every given moment in time, we will look at what creates more value, whether it's the leveraging return of cash to shareholders or selective M&A, and this decision that we're going to be taking at different moments in time. So once we get to October, then we can have a discussion. But what I can tell you is that right now, we can create more value from the leveraging than anything else. So that should be more of the leveraging to come. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with Credit Suisse. Sanjeet Aujla: Michel, Fernando, given your earlier comments that beer pricing is lagging CPI is likely looking like another year of input cost headwinds into 2023. As you think about and budget over the next few quarters, is it reasonable to assume that your pricing will be considered to catch up to where CPI is now? Or should we expect you to price below CPI and place a little bit more emphasis on the volume momentum we have. Fernando Tennenbaum: Sanjit, this is Fernando here. Let me start tackling the cost and then Michael can talk about the top line. So if you look, for 2022, the majority of our spend is covered, and this is embedded into our full year EBITDA growth outlook of 4% to 8%, which we rate to rate today. And of course, revenue is growing ahead of EBITDA. For 2023, we are seeing the process of hedging our exposure, so it's too early to make any comments. But it's also fair to say that commodity price continues to be under pressure, but the recent movements have been positive. And the commodity escalation is not even spread throughout the world. If you look at based on market price today, the highest year-on-year impact is in Europe, which happens to be where we have the lowest exposure as a business. And maybe Michel can comment on the top line. Michel Doukeris: Yes. Sanjit, thanks for the question. Good afternoon. I think that on the cost for sales offer on that as we look at the situation today, the impact if the year would finish today for next year is smaller than what was an impact from last year to this year. But we will need to get through quarter three, quarter four, again, to understand that all the moving parts. And in price, Sanjit, I think that we are thinking alike, right? So there is no big change in the way that we think about our prices and inflation globally. I think that the biggest change this year was that inflation moved much faster and move it beyond what was the original expectation of everybody, and we continue to monitor and access the situation. At the same time, it's not like abnormal that throughout the year, all the prices that we have are not replacing us because in several markets, we have more than 1 price increase per year. So we continue to execute our plans as we always do. And the caveat here that I would put forward is this idea of we need to be carefully assessing the consumer environment country by country, brand by brand, segment by segment. So we keep our #1 priority, which is grow the category in mind, right? And we need to grow for the long term, not only for the short term. So penetration is very important, transactions and frequency is something that we are looking at all the time. So we don't disconnect the category from consumers. But at this point, inflation is common across categories, prices are moving in the right direction, beer is likely before inflation and catching up and consumers are responding well, even though we need to carefully watch the next quarters. And I think and I feel that we will know more as we get through quarter three and quarter four, and we only know the full picture as I gather, right? So now it's directionally, we are clear on what we are doing and it's working, and we need to continue to monitor the consumer environment. It's what I can tell you. Operator: Our next question is coming from Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Trevor Stirling: Fernando, Michel. Two questions from my side, please. First one, 127 bps of margin compression in the quarter Fernando. Could you estimate, what's the impact of the marketplace? It's clearly very accretive for EBITDA growth, but what order of magnitude of dilution is coming from these marketplace? Fernando Tennenbaum: Trevor, Fernando here. So what I can tell about this is that marketplace is still at early stage. We are rolling it out and growing customer and partner base at a very accelerated rate. The revenues coming from this marketplace are entirely incremental to have a very different margin profile, but very accretive ROI given our existing asset base. Therefore, there is an impact in the margins, which means the base business margin is better than the consolidated one as marketplace becomes more material, we'll probably disclose it separately. Wrapping up we have $800 million annualized GMV. And if you use a similar business as a proxy, one can reverse engineer the impact on margins that we're having. Trevor Stirling: Great. And second question it's clearly very early days to be looking forward to 2023. And I'm sure you still have -- 1 of your hedging has to be completed yet. But if you took today's spot rates and gas forward, are we looking at input cost inflation that's going to be worse than 2022 or better or more or less the same? Fernando Tennenbaum: Michel just mentioned, if we were to look at today, and that is still a lot of quarters to have an our hedging policies 12 months, so we are not fully hedged for next year, as one would expect. But if we look at the spot prices today and comparing to last year, you do have some pressures, but to a lesser extent than the one we have in 2022. The only case is probably the 1 region where we have more of an impact is Europe. On average, as a company, would have less of an impact, an impact but less of an impact, but the region or has more of an impact than the one we had this year is Europe. Operator: The next question is coming from Brett Cooper with Consumer Edge Research. Brett Cooper: A question on improving returns. In April, Ambev spoke to focus on improving ROIC improvement in asset turnover and NOPAT margin. Can you offer your view on where you are today, the potential to deploy or export a similar effort and any details on that deployment in non-med markets like U.S., Mexico, China and Colombia? Fernando Tennenbaum: So that's -- thanks for the question, Brett. I feel there is an opportunity for the Board, we always look into that. We talk always about resource allocation. we'll continue to work on that. And I feel that as long as we continue to deliver. We continue to deliver growth on EBITDA, we continue to be more efficient on resource allocation. That's an ABI worldwide focus. It's not only on a specific country or a specific region, but it's how we optimize our business. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Pinar Ergun with Morgan Stanley. Pinar Ergun: In the U.S., your performance has been a little lighter than the market trends. Is there anything ABI can do other than portfolio rebalancing towards the growth segments to improve its U.S. performance against the market? Michel Doukeris: Michel here. Thanks for the question. I will just repeat to make sure that I got this right. You're talking about the U.S. market, right? Pinar Ergun: I'm talking about ABI's performance relative to the U.S. market. It appears that your performance has been a little lighter or you've been underperforming the market. Can you do anything other than rebalancing your portfolio towards the growth segments to improve your performance? Michel Doukeris: Got you. Thank you. I think that we talked about 3 main highlights in the U.S. this quarter, and 1 was the results of the industry improving while our volumes underperformed in the industry. And this is not like a new component. We've been with this story for a while. And of course, each quarter is different. This one, I think that's more highlighted because the industry was very low at the beginning, improved throughout. And when the industry is not moving well, the core segments, mainstream brands, they tend to perform less than the overall industry. And of course, the portfolio rebalance, I would look at this more like the outcome of everything that we are doing. It's not the only thing that we're doing. This is the outcome that we are trying to achieve. And just to give you some examples and highlights. So 1 of the key areas that we've been improving the U.S. over the years, was category management. We made several investments in category management, and we evolved from being beverage the #20 supplier to be the a partner for the retailers in the U.S. according to the Advantage survey, which is the one that they use, and that was based on all the improvements that we have made. With our wholesalers, we enhanced a big time of our partnership, we measure the NPS, the engagement with our wholesalers every year, and we are at all-time high. Look at the marketing capabilities, innovation, so we've been leading innovation in the last 3 years and being 1 of the most awarded companies for the creative, including several prices that can. And we've been now even we all the difficulties in the 3-tier system, advancing the digital transformation as well with this growing more wholesalers, more states in the U.S. that combining this with LOLA, which is our locally optimized learning algorithm. We are getting much better data and improving the quality of the activations that we do. So as we do all of that and invest behind the right brands, the outcome is the portfolio rebalancing, and that's why we are now 7 quarters in a row growing top line in the U.S. And this growth is coming with all this cost input inflation with a flat EBITDA, which is an improvement for our business in US. More to do. I think that we underperformed in volumes, and this is the second biggest step that we have to have, but we are confident in the long-term strategy. Yet each quarter will be different in each year is going to be different as well, but confident in the long term. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Priya Ohri-Gupta with Barclays. Priya Ohri-Gupta: Fernando, I was wondering if we could just dig into the further deleveraging over the latter half of the year. How are you thinking about sort of where you could look to pay down some of that debt? And how are you considering opportunities to potentially utilize some of the lower dollar prices that your bonds are trading at to help accelerate deleveraging? Fernando Tennenbaum: Priya, thanks for the question. So actually, we generate -- our cash flow is much more skewed towards the second half of the year. So as we move into the second half of the year, with this additional cash flow, the idea is that we look for further opportunities for liability management. And you're right. If you look at the evolution of interest rates and everything that is going on around the world, you can see that our market-to-market of our debt portfolio, move it from being 120% of of fair value in the beginning of the year to being close to 100. And if you look at the different spots, the different maturities that you have, you have some others trading below 90%, closer to 80%. So probably that's another boost. When you look for our deleveraging efforts in the second half, being able to buy chunks of our debt at both parties is also a great opportunity. And it's also reinforce kind of the opportunities of having kind of a fixed rate debt in an inflationary environment and in a rising rate environment. So we need to make sure we make the most out of it. Michel Doukeris: Below par, right? Priya Ohri-Gupta: And then just one quick follow-up on how we should think about the timing of some of the cash coming in over the course of the second half as you sort of sweep in from your various markets globally? Fernando Tennenbaum: Priya, that will be too much details too much specific a few kind of -- we don't go into the detail month by month or day by day, how we generate cash. But the notion that second half of the year is much stronger of cash flow is true, has been true for several years in a row. This year, it's likely to be no different. And then once we get the cash, we'll find the moderate way to deploy to the liability management. Operator: Our final question is coming from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore. Robert Ottenstein: I want to kind of scope out a little bit bigger picture type questions. So Michel, it's -- you're coming up on about a year now as CEO. Presumably, you came into the role of certain preconceptions. Love to -- if you take a moment to reflect on kind of any surprises, disappointments, any need to kind of pivot based on what you've learned over the last 12 months and kind of just kind of assess how things have gone and what you need to do going forward. Fernando Tennenbaum: Robert, good morning. Thanks for the question, and thank you for reminding us that time goes by very fast. So it's good to be talking to you here and have the opportunity. Let me maybe start answering the question, saying something that I have said before, I shared with you, this is really the opportunity of a lifetime. It's a lot of things coming together, and I'm very excited each and every day to come to work, to think about the possibilities sharing with the team, what we've been learning and what we've been doing. At the same time, that we all need to agree that it's been like an incredibly dynamic environment. So a lot of things happening at the same time. And I'm very glad with the way that the team is engaging and billing with everything that's happening in building each and every day this future with more cheers that we define it as our purpose. And maybe like putting together the key points on your question. I think that first great industry to be a great moment to be working with beer. Beer is inclusive, natural local and big profitable and growing, right? So those are the big learnings and things that we've been sharing with the team and people everywhere. Great industry to be growing gain of share of trough globally. Second point is great foundation as we shared when I arrived here on the Investor Day, great company, great foundation, global platform, unbelievable opportunities to unlock value. And the more we get our strategy moving, the more we advance our digital transformation and work better with our scale of data, more opportunities we uncover to grow the company to digitize and monetize the assets that we have. I think that the key core things that we are moving is this idea of reimagining what a beer company can be, much more effectiveness reason, leading and growing the category, digitizing the assets that we have and finding ways to monetize everything that we built over the years and continue to optimize the business. So a fantastic opportunity, a lot of learnings getting a lot of things done within the 1 year, right? So you think about purples, strategy, execution of this strategy change in the organization and deleveraging at the same time. So it's being very dynamic but I'm still very excited, we up every day and coming to work with a lot of opportunities for us to continue to deliver. Operator: We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Doukeris cares for any additional closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: So thank you all for being here. Thanks for the partnership, and thank you for all the questions and support for the business. Have a great day and looking forward to meet you. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call and webcast. We thank you for your participation, and you may disconnect your lines at this time.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev’s First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today’s call, please visit AB InBev’s website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the investors tab and the reports and results center page. Today’s webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be opened for your question following the presentation. Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev’s actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev’s future results, see risk factors in the company’s latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 18 of March 2022. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jessie. And welcome everyone to our first quarter 2022 earnings call. It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you all today. First, I would like to take a moment to share our deepest sympathies to all of those who have been affected by the situation in Ukraine and acknowledge the commitment and dedication of our teams in supporting our joint venture colleagues and their families, while wishing for this. Today, Fernando and I, we'll take you through our first quarter operating highlights and provide you with an update on the progress we have made in the execution of our strategic priorities. We'll then be happy to answer your questions. So, let's just start with our operating performance. Our business momentum continued this quarter, and we are very pleased with our performance to start the year. We delivered top line growth of 11.1%, with 2.8% volume growth. Revenue per hectoliter grew 7.8% driven by the implementation of pricing actions across our markets and enhanced by ongoing premiumization and continued recovery of the on-premise channel. EBITDA increased by 7.4% as we managed anticipated commodity cost headwinds and elevated supply chain costs. We delivered normalized EPS of $0.67 and underlying EPS of $0.60. Now I would like to share some highlights from our key markets. Our business in the U.S. delivered continued top line growth, driven by consistent execution of our commercial strategy and the rebalancing of our portfolio despite the soft industry. Our above core portfolio continues to outperform, led by Michelob ULTRA which grew volumes by double-digit. Within the spirits-based ready-to-drink segment, our portfolio continues to grow ahead of the industry, led by Cutwater. In Mexico, we continued our momentum, delivering double-digit top and bottom line growth. We grew volumes across all segments of our portfolio, resulting in further market share expansion. Our above core portfolio increased by double-digit, led by Modelo family and Michelob ULTRA. In Colombia, we delivered double-digit top and bottom line growth and continue to grow the beer category through the implementation of our expansion levers, resulting in a new record high per capita consumption this quarter. We follow route-to-market, now digitized. 30% of these customers are also BEES marketplace users. Our business in Brazil delivered double-digit top line growth. Our beer volumes once again outperformed the industry, growing by 2.1%, despite lapping a strong comparable. With our route-to-market digitized, over 60% of these customers are now BEES marketplace users. In Europe, we grew top and bottom line by double-digit, driven by volume growth, on-premise reopening and supported by revenue management initiatives. Our premium and super premium portfolio led the way growing revenues by mid-teens, representing now over 50% of our total revenue. In South Africa, we continued our momentum, delivering above 30% top line growth with volume increasing in the mid-twenties ahead of the industry. All segments of our portfolio grew this quarter, led by over 40% growth in our leading core brand Carling Black Label, driven by BEES, our route-to-market is now digitized with almost 90% of our revenues coming through digital channels. In China, momentum continued into the start of the year, market by strong Chinese New Year. However, the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions in March led to a total industry decline of low single digits in the quarter, according to our estimates. These restrictions disproportionately impacted our key regions and channels, leading to top line decline 1.2%. Notwithstanding the restrictions, underlying consumer demand for premium products remained strong and the share of our total volume generated by our premium portfolio increased. I would like now to turn your attention to a few ESG highlights. In the first quarter we made progress across our ESG priorities. We select highlights including; recognition of our strong sustainability track record, ambitious commitments and our focused ESG strategy. We have been awarded the Gold Medal for international corporate achievement in sustainable development by the World Environment Center. Advancing water stewardship, we published a watershed health guide in partnership with The Nature Conservancy to share learning and capitalize action in driving measurable watershed outcomes. And fostering entrepreneurship, we have launched applications for the fourth cohort of our award winning 100+ Accelerator program. Founded in 2018, The 100+ Accelerator identifies any scales, sustainable innovations focused on solving key challenge reading our ESG priorities. Now, let's focus on our strategic pillars. To enable the execution of our strategy, we have announced a newly aligned commercial leadership structure, designed to accelerate the next phase of innovation and growth at AB InBev, with the creation of the Chief Growth Officer position. Under Ricardo Tadeu's leadership, this new structure will maximize data in digital integration, with our marketing and sales capabilities. We are also taking further steps to empower our teams locally. The titles of each of our six zone presence have been updated to regional CEO to better reflect the scope impact of these key positions. Next, let's turn to pillar one of our strategy, lead and grow the category. Driven by the execution of our category expansion model, this quarter, we grew volumes in more than two-thirds of our markets. Let me take you through our category expansion levers. First, we continue to focus on making the beer category inclusive for all consumers. Following the successful expansion of Coronita, our smaller bottle pack offering for Corona, we introduced it further smaller pack formats in several key markets in Latin America to provide consumers with price points and choice for consumption needs in different occasions. Second, we are offering superior core propositions. Our mainstream portfolio delivered high single digit revenue growth in this squatter, once again, outperformed the industry across most of our key markets. Third, occasions development. Stella Artois, our living brand in the new occasion grew by over 14% globally this quarter, with the planned expansion of our Sign Off, Dine, Bon Appetit campaign to a further seven markets this year. In the non-alcoholic beer category, our portfolio delivered continued revenue growth, led by liquid and pack innovations, such as Corona Sunbrew that we launched in Canada. Fourth, we are leading in premiumization. This quarter our above core portfolio delivered over 15% revenue growth, led by Michelob ULTRA, which is now available in 14 markets and grew by double-digits. Our global brands continue to lead premiumization across our markets. The combined revenues of Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona grew by 6% outside of the brand's home markets, led by Corona with 14.1% and Stella Artois with 11.5% growth. Budweiser grew by 0.3% impacted by the renewed COVID-19 restrictions in China. Finally, we continue to expand the category with our Beyond Beer offerings. Our global Beyond Beer business contributed over $350 million in revenues this quarter, led by the U.S. where Cutwater grew by strong double-digits and in South Africa where Brutal Fruit and Flying Fish delivered continued double-digit growth. Innovation this quarter supported category expansion across each of the five levers, contributing approximately 8% of our total revenue. Highlights include; expanding our superior product propositions with the launch of Budweiser Supreme in the U.S. The release of Stella Artois Unfiltered in the U.K. and the launch of Corona Tropical across some of our key markets. In the U.K., we leveraged our direct-to-consumer solution PerfectDraft to exclusively release Stella Artois Unfiltered through the e-commerce channel. Based on the positive consumer feedback and insights from the launch, we are now expanding the brand into other channels and package. Now, let's turn to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. As we continue to invest to become a tech-first FMCG Company, BEES continues to see remarkable acceleration in usage and reach, capturing approximately US$6.5 billion in gross merchandise value in the first quarter, up from approximately US$3.5 billion in the first quarter of 2021. We are now live in 17 countries, with 2.7 million monthly active users. In 11 of our 17 countries, our customers are also able to manage their orders for third-party products through BEES marketplace. We know that for many of our customers, beer typically makes up less than 25% of their resource sales. BEES marketplace offers a consolidated order and deliver management platform, solving pain points and empowering our customers. As of the first quarter, we have seen increased adoption and exponential growth, as 31% of BEES customers are now users of BEES marketplace with annualized revenues of US$800 million. Our partners are also benefited from the digitalization of sales with increased retailer engagement, distribution reach, and cost efficiencies. We are still in the early stages of exploring the possibilities, and we are excited by the results and feedback from our customers and partners. Now, let's talk about direct-to-consumer business. This quarter, our D2C products generated nearly US$300 million in revenues across 20 countries. The number of online orders grew by double-digits versus last year, surpassing 17 million transactions. In Latin America, Ze Delivery is already present in approximately 300 cities in Brazil, covering about 50% of the country's population. Revenue from Ze Delivery grew almost 30% year-on-year. Based on the success of Ze in Brazil, we are scaling the courier product to another 10 countries in Latin America. We continue to deliver on our strategy with best-in-class creative marketing and innovation capabilities. Following the announcement that ABI was selected by Cannes as the Creative Marketer of the Year, we were recently named to Fast Company World's Most Innovative Companies list for the first time. Fast Company recognizes ABI's ability to quickly seed and scale innovation to drive performance and impact. The award highlighted our beer innovations, tech products and our biotech initiatives, Evergreen. Big congratulations to our teams and partners for this remarkable achievement and further recognition of how we are embedding creativity and innovation into our strategy. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimizing our business. Fernando? Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. We aim to maximize value by focusing on three areas; optimize resource allocation, robust risk management and efficient capital structure. With respect to capital allocation, we aim to maximize long-term value by dynamically balancing our priorities. We continue to invest in organic growth and support our strategy to lead and grow the category and digitize and monetize our ecosystem. The excess cash generated by our business is then dynamically allocated to our other key capital allocation priorities; deleveraging, selective M&A, and return of capital to shareholders. In line with our capital allocation priorities, this quarter we completed the redemption of US$3.1 billion of bonds. Our debt maturity profile remains well distributed with no near and medium term refinancing needs, with the weighted average maturity more than 16 years. Our debt portfolio does not have any financial covenants and is comprised of a variety of currencies, diversifying our FX risk. In addition, approximately 93% of our bonds have a fixed rate, insulated from interest rate volatility and inflation, with an average coupon rate of approximately 4%. Our proactive revenue management, combined with our hedging policy and operational efficiency contributed to 7.4% EBITDA growth and an increase in underlying EPS, growing by $0.05 to $0.60 per share. I will now hand it back to Michel for some final comments. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks Fernando. I would like to take a few minutes to recap our reflections and learnings and how we are meeting the moment in 2022. The beer category continues to demonstrate strength. We are operating in a big, profitable and growing category. Beer is gaining share of throat globally. Our business has momentum. Driven by our leading brand portfolio and our accelerated digital transformation, volumes grew in more than two-thirds of our markets. On top of that, this year presents unique opportunities to activate demand, such as continued on-premise reopening and return of marquee events, such as Carnival and the World Cup. In conclusion, we are confident in our business fundamentals and our team's ability to continue to meet the moment and create a future with more cheers. I would now like to hand it over to Jessie to begin the Q&A session. Operator: Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. Thank you. Our first question is coming from the line of Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question. Trevor Stirling: Hello, Michel and Fernando. Two questions from my side, please. First one, maybe more from Michel. Michel, you've got very robust price mix of 8% in the quarter. Are there any signs in any markets that consumers are starting to react against the pricing, and we're starting to see some volume elasticity creeping in? And the second question, maybe more for Fernando. Just trying to understand the various drivers of gross margin, Fernando. And I appreciate it's a very complex picture of varying enormous in country-to-country. But within price mix, can you give us some sort of broad sense of the components of price, of brand mix, of channel mix, and indeed, the role of the third-party brand sales through the BEES marketplace? And likewise, on the COGS side, what is the mix between underlying policies, currency and again, that product mix through the BEES marketplace? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Trevor. Michel here. Good morning. So taking on the first question, I think we discussed this a little bit during the full year results. We have announced or implemented the majority of our price in quarter 4 and quarter 1 this year. And we've been seeing across the globe inflation continue to move up, most of the categories increasing prices. And I continue to think that's a little bit too early to measure all the impacts of that and the consumer elasticity. But it's also, I think that through, and we see this across the globe that inflation is actually trailing ahead of what was the expected numbers and forecasts that we saw last year. We can see clearly on the price to consumer that beer is behind inflation so far. And we can also see that the majority of the market that is this combination of the economy continues to do well. Employment rates are holding. In some of the developing markets, commodities are helping the overall economy. So, the elasticity is not really present yet. Even though, I think that as we face towards quarter 2 and quarter 3, we will have much better data to understand where and in which market elasticity will play a bigger role. And you also know, based on what we discussed during the road show in quarter 4 full year announcement that we kind of organized the markets in three different clusters, a little bit anticipating potential elasticity impact. And we continue to monitor very closely how things are working. But all-in-all, two-thirds of our markets with very robust growth in the quarter 1 and overall quarter 1 double-digit top line growth. I'll hand it over to Fernando to take on the second question and third question. Fernando Tennenbaum: Okay. Hello, Trevor. Thanks for the question. So, at the end of the day, when we look at revenue per hectoliter, consistent with what we are doing, of course, we have some tailwinds in different regions. Like Europe, the on trade reopening definitely helped the net revenue per hectoliter. But when you step back and look overall, probably the stronger component on net revenues per hectoliter was revenue management. That's the major driver. And when you go down to cost of goods sold, of course, you always have some mix impact. But it's fair to say that the bulk of the impact was the anticipated commodity and FX headwinds. The marketplace and all these things, they are not that meaningful in the grand scheme of things. It's really commodities and FX and -- which was anticipated. It's already baked into our four to eight outlook for the year. Trevor Stirling: Thank you very much Michel and Fernando. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Trevor. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Trevor. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Tristan van Strien with Redburn Partners. Please proceed with your question. Tristan van Strien: Hi. Just two for me. One, just a follow-up on Trevor. Some of your peers are talking about taking another price increase this year. How are you thinking about that? Is there something that's maybe on the table for you as well, particularly in some of your developed markets where that seems to be needed? The second question is just on South Africa, which is a really strong performance, especially when you consider there was a late Easter. So, I'm trying to understand what's driving that performance. What's the balance between what you are doing versus perhaps the market, because both you and your biggest competitors seem to be doing well? So, I wanted to just understand South African's performance a bit better. Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hey, Tristan. Good afternoon. Thanks for the question. Michel, here. I think that on the first one, when we talk about the price increase, we discussed this, and we said that majority of the price actions were announced or implemented between quarter 4 and quarter 1. But as you know, each market has a little bit of a different agenda. And in some markets where we have very high inflation, it's common for us to have more than one price increase during the year. As I said now answering the question from Trevor, one thing that's very clear now is that the inflation is moving much faster than what was anticipated and that the beer prices are lagging inflation so far in the year. So, we continue to monitor how things are unfolding, and we continue to work very close to the market and making sure that we are meeting the moment. As we think as well about the experience that we have and the entire revenue management that we have across the markets, we also know that as inflation is moving up and the environment is inflationary, it's better to take the price and to be part with inflation than trying to recover this later when inflation is moving downwards. So, in principle, we continue to monitor. We have markets that have more than one traditionally. Inflation is ahead of what was the expectation and beer is behind inflation so far. So, ready to meet the moment. The second question on South Africa, I think that several of our emerging markets, they continue to confirm what we've been saying, that beer is big, profitable and growing. And this growth is being led by emerging markets, not only, but most emerging markets. Our category expansion model has been very helpful across the board, as we focus on the five levers to continue to make the category more inclusive, more premium. South Africa is an outstanding example of our core products performing very well and our ability to expand to more occasions, driven by the Beyond Beer expansion. Brutal Fruit, Flying Fish are performing very, very well in South Africa. And when you think about the remaining parts of Africa as well, from Nigeria to Tanzania, market's performing very, very well. So, demand very robust. The levers that we are executing and the strategy of digitizing and expanding occasions is driving a very robust market. And we are very pleased with the performance, not only in South Africa, but across most of our markets and especially, emerging markets. Tristan van Strien: Thank you, Michel. And can I just follow-up on Nigeria, because you mentioned that there. Obviously, you're constrained on the growth currently because of capacity. Is that something we should continue to expect? And as a result, I guess everybody is pricing at this moment to recover the currency declines over the last few years. Is that the way we think about it? Or is capacity coming online soon? Michel Doukeris: Yeah. Nigeria, we had a very strong performance in quarter 1. The underlying demand for our brands continues to be very strong. Our brands are gaining power. There is inflation and there is price in the market and we have capacity coming. But as you know, building the capacity in Nigeria is not very easy and very quick as it can be in some other markets. But we have more capacity coming this year, and we are preparing to supply the demand that we have now and in the future giving the power of our brands end markets. Pleased -- very pleased with the performance of both the top line growth, but also market share and brand performance there. Thank you, Tristan. Tristan van Strien: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Rob Ottenstein with Evercore. Please proceed with your question. Robert Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much. Michel, in the U.S., the -- what could be termed adult alcoholic beverages, combining seltzers, ready-to-drink cocktails, both malt and spirits base, really seems to be driving overall beverage alcohol growth. And I was wondering, is that the case? To what extent that is the case outside of the U.S.? How important a driver do you see this being, again, when you're looking at total share of alcohol? And how is the firm looking at this opportunity through a long-term strategic lens? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Robert, good morning. Thank you for the question. I will try to address the things that I got there entirely that you are asking for. So, I think that in the U.S., we continue to see this Beyond Beer or adult alcoholic beverage, as you called, growing. The quarter 1 was not different. We saw growth there. And one of the most important and attractive points of that for us is that it's really driving share of throat towards this ready-to-drink beverage. And our capabilities from route-to-market, production capacity, ability to introduce innovation in new brands makes us well-positioned and optimistic to continue to drive growth in this area. The example that we always give here is Cutwater, which is a very new brand, that continues to grow very strong double-digits ahead of the industry this quarter. We just launched it and introduced Nutrl in the market, because it's already the leading brand in Canada, and we are now expanding to the U.S. So far, very successful as well in all markets that we launched it. It's more in the light refreshing area, but is moving very fast and growing distribution very fast. It's going to be, for sure, another important play in our portfolio. As you look at this globally, the manifestation is different market-by-market. I just mentioned to Tristan now, for example, Flying Fish and Brutal Fruit in Africa growing strong double-digits, very important contribution to the South Africa market. We have BEES in Brazil doing very well. We have now Corona expanding with Tropical in Mexico and some other Latin American markets. And different manifestations, but an opportunity, that's a global one. Our capabilities and how we are positioned globally to really take advantage of this consumer trend and this opportunity makes us feel very good. I'm very optimistic about that, because again, we have the brands. We have the knowledge from the developed markets. We have the innovation and the liquid capacity. We have distribution. And we can take advantage and really lead this expansion lever globally. And that's why this is one of our five category expansion levels in the model that we tested, and we've been proving that works very well in different markets. It's not the same product. Manifestations of what the Beyond Beer is, is different across different markets, but it is a huge opportunity for us globally to gain share of throat. Robert Ottenstein: And I think Brendan mentioned at a recent conference that this was roughly 70% incremental in the U.S. Are you seeing that same rough level of incrementality outside of the U.S.? And just can you tell us just a little bit more about the Corona Tropical product? The packaging is amazing. Is this something that you see taking globally? Michel Doukeris: Yeah. The incrementality numbers, they -- in the U.S. are very clear. You have all this household penetration and the panels where we can measure. And depending on the innovation, it's between 70% and 80%. So, Brandon is spot on, on his comment on the 75%. And that's why the share of throat opportunity is so big as we go into this beer adult alcoholic beverage. In the other markets, what you see is that this helps us in continues to drive share of throat, because beer itself is already gaining share of throat in the majority of the emerging markets. But moreover, it opens up more occasion opportunities for us to continue to premiumize and drive growth. The Mexican and the Colombian innovation in this area with Corona, it's a great opportunity to make the brand even more spread, even more premium and even more available in different occasions for different consumers. So, the other indications are very good. We need to solidify the pilot and the innovation there. And if works, then of course, the opportunities to expand to other markets, because we've been working on other very important competitive advantage that I think we have on this, which are global brands. So, we have lemonade across different markets. We have Cutwater that has opportunities to go to different markets. And Corona is already a global brand. And if this innovation works well as we expect and the orbit signs are, there is no reason why this cannot go global as well under the Corona franchise. But this decision is to be made later. Robert Ottenstein: Terrific. Thank you very much. Michel Doukeris: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question. Edward Mundy: Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. Two questions from me, please. The first is, could you provide some examples as to what in practice the newly aligned commercial leadership structure might mean for accelerating the next phase of innovation and growth? And then, the follow-up question is really around your trading momentum from the first quarter. If we back out the near-term disruption from COVID in China, has trading momentum in the rest of the business continued into the second quarter? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Edward. Good morning. Thanks for the question. On the structure, I think that the whole thing in a nutshell what the main idea is, is going back to the idea that this structure should always follow strategy. And this specific part of the structure has one single objective, which is to accelerate growth. The question then comes down to how will that happen, right? And I think that today, we've been building on both sides, on the sales and marketing capabilities, but also in data and digital front. And it's only natural now that with this strategy simplified on lead and grow, digitize and monetize and optimize, the combination of the capabilities that we are building in data and digital, integrated with our sales and marketing capabilities will enable us not only to execute better our strategy, but also to accelerate innovation. And we think that this comes in a simple way because this structure now simplifies the way that at global level, we make our platforms and programs interact with the zones. And we simplify a lot the idea of where the capabilities are being developed, global level versus this regional CEO, where the accountability for execution and implementation of these initiatives like switches in the and in the region. So simplified structure, integration of data and digital capabilities with marketing and sales capabilities. And Ricardo Tadeu is only the right guy to do that. Great experience in the , great experience as Zone President and now at the forefront of the digital transformation in the company. Then putting down to China, what we saw was a very strong start of the year. Chinese New Year was great. At the end of the quarter in March, because of the implementation of the COVID restrictions, was then much slower. And we saw like half of the on trade cost closing. Like the nightlife cost, we saw like 10% to 20% slowdown in the restaurants. And we saw the maintenance of the off trade because then we have a lot of orders and e-commerce on that. The underlying momentum remains strong, but the COVID restrictions were also in place through majority of April and early May. But now in May, you start seeing Guangdong, a little bit of Fujian coming back. And this number of improving is likely. And as the restrictions are lifted, then the consumption comes back. And we see China as one thing. But even in APAC, when you look, for example, Korea, the momentum is very strong. And outside of Asia, the underlying momentum remains strong as we faced out of the quarter 1. Edward Mundy: Great. Thank you, Michel. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Ed. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question. Mitch Collett, your line is live. You may proceed with your question. Mitch Collett: Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. My first question is hopefully pretty straightforward. So, you did 7.4% organic EBITDA growth in Q1, which is pretty close to the top end of your guidance range for the medium term in the year. Can you talk about the puts and takes for the balance of the year and that could see you at the top or the bottom of the range? So, I'm thinking about COGS pricing, potential lockdowns on trade recovery and anything else? And then, maybe a second more open question about BEES, because you're now rolling that out into geographies where you don't maybe have the same scale advantage. Do you still get the same benefits when you take these into markets where your market share is lower? Thanks. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Mitch. Let me get the first one. We are reiterating the outlook we have, the 4% to 8%. Of course, it has been a very dynamic environment and is likely continue to be a very dynamic environment. We have very good visibility in our costs given our hedging. And we have a team that over the last two years has become more agile, more digital and data-driven and that to say better equipment to navigate a more dynamic environment. We continue to see strong demand -- strong consumer demand for our brands. And we are confident that our team is going to be able to meet the moment and reiterating our outlook for 4% to 8% growth for the full year, acknowledging that revenue is going -- is likely to grow ahead of our EBITDA. And the second one, Michel? Michel Doukeris: Yeah. Mitch, on BEES, what we explained and we talked about before was this idea that there are like three waves, I would say, on this implementation. And one is where we have direct distribution. One is one of the products in the district called link that we are developing specifically for large key accounts, and this is a way to make the ABI that exists for 20, 30 years, much better. I always say that it's trying to transform the landline phone on the mobile phone, right, because we can have a lot of technology to what was the old ABI. And that's going to be a big wave that we are already testing in countries such as Brazil and the U.S. And then, you have this three-tier type of markets. And some of them, as you said, lower share that we need to implement. And the implementation of this brings one more complexity, which is the integration of the ERP. It's not only that for taking orders. The real value is how we do the integration of the data, the algorithm selling, and we work with the partners to make that business better. I think that the value proposition works well across the board. Because the value proposition is a powerful tool that allows you to gain time to have visibility on the products to manage our business and everything else that comes as a benefit with BEES. The speed of this implementation, of course, whether we have less integrated systems, lower market share, is different. But to give you one example, China, which is a three-tier type of market where the language is very different, where the technology needs to be a little bit adapted for the Chinese standards, BEES is moving very fast. And we have lower market share overall in China, as you know. But the excitement around this is the same. And the speed in which we are ramping up in China is a very good one as well. Which in turns, each market is different, but we continue to make progress in the number of customers that we have using BEES, and the number of partners that are joining us on the marketplace and in our ability to make the platform great in solving pain points for our customers. Because at the end of the day, they are the ones carrying on BEES and using, right? And as they use more opportunities and that happened for us and for them, which is great. Mitch Collett: Understood. Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question. Sanjeet Aujla: Hey, Michel, Fernando. A couple from me, please. Firstly, can you just comment on the on trade recovery you're seeing across your major markets? Where are you versus 2019 levels? And tied to that, are there returnable glass bottles also coming back to 2019 levels? And then, my follow-up question is just on the online marketplace. You're annualizing around $800 million of revenue there. Is that profitable for you yet standalone? And what level of revenues do you need to achieve to breakeven there? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Sanjeet. Good afternoon. I will answer here is that you have two questions if I got this right. One is about on trade, and the other one is about BEES and marketplace. On the on trade, what we've been seeing is different behavior market-by-market. I think that's very clear for us that as you see markets reopening in some places, restrictions coming back, partially lifted or fully lifted, that is different behavior. And on average, which I think that is the point that you are looking for, is when everything goes back to normal, that is a pretty good 90%-plus of the in the volume versus 2019 back right away. And that was the reality in the United States when we saw the reopening. That was the reality in Brazil when we saw the reopening, it was in Europe. Interesting enough, this number gets to be above 100% as you are rebuilding the pipeline and resupplying the points of sales. And after this , let's say, right, because the volume goes up beyond the 100%, it settles in between 90% and 100%. I think that the main reason for that is because in some places -- or in majority of the places, the base infrastructure, meaning the number of points of sales, it does not come back day one. As the markets remain reopened, you see that new restaurants are being opened, new bars are being opened. And I would expect that at one moment, this would stabilize pretty close to the 100%. But it is like -- the average is 90% to 100%. It gets to be beyond 100% as you are resupplying and then settles between 90% and 100%. Infrastructure, meaning number of , the main reason why it's not 100% yet. And in some places, you see a new wave of new bars and restaurants being reopened. On the marketplace, as we said, like close to 10 markets to date operating marketplace. Number of customers growing, average to date 30%. The highest level is around 60%, let's say, Brazil. Number of partners growing, number of orders growing exponentially. Annualized revenue as of March, $800 million, which is already meaningful in a way for the year results. But as you know, beer is only like around 25%. 75% of the revenues come from other categories and products. We are just scratching the surface here. It's just at the beginning. And if I got the back end of your question, it's like the revenue is growing very fast. We are servicing the customers as well as we can with the partners. And one thing that we have as an operating principle here is that we are making money on the orders, right? So your question is not whether or not we will achieve breakeven. So, the breakeven is present since the beginning. Now, it's a matter of how fast we can grow and how well we can serve both the customers on one hand and our partners on the other hand, because it's very important for us that our partners get to get bigger reach, so bigger distribution that our brands can perform well and grow and they can get a much better understanding of their route-to-market through data and the analytics that BEES can provide to them. So, early beginning. We decided to share here some numbers with you. They are not as material as we think that they will be in the future. But that 30% marketplace buyers already in 10 countries is a very exciting part of what BEES can become. Sanjeet Aujla: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Laurence Whyatt with Barclays. Please proceed with your question. Laurence Whyatt: Hi, Michel, Fernando. Thanks very much for the question. Just following on -- again, on BEES. There's a number of markets that you've achieved nearly 90% or around 90% of your revenues coming through the digital channels. But Mexico remains somewhat below that level at around 75%. Is there anything specific about the Mexican market that means it can't achieve similar success to other surrounding neighbors? Is there anything you would highlight in Mexico that means you can't get there? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Laurence. Good afternoon. Thank you for the question. There is no really special point. I'll go back to this idea. I'm trying to simplify three waves of implementation. So, in Mexico, interesting enough. We have the combination of everything. We have direct distribution. We have large accounts. And we have wholesalers, distributors. So, the entire direct distribution in Mexico is already using BEES and is very high adoption and very high coverage. The BEES link is not yet available for the key accounts. So, in the key accounts, we continue to use regular ways of taking the orders. And we are implementing what I call the third wave, which is BEES for the wholesalers in Mexico, but is not fully implemented yet. That's the difference why in Mexico we have 75%, and in Brazil we have above 85%. But Mexico, for sure, get there very, very soon. Laurence Whyatt: Excellent. Thanks. And just perhaps following up on Mexico. You've entered a number of the OXXO stores, which are in the stronghold of your nearest competitor. I was wondering, has that all gone to plan as you expected? Or is there anything you'd highlight that perhaps was slightly different to your expectations in that part of Mexico? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: No. OXXO is an incredible opportunity and a great partner, a great retailer in Mexico. We have now covered two-thirds, give or take, of that stores. And the remaining part and the last wave, we call the seventh wave, eighth wave that we just got into, is more in the north, more where our market share is smaller and our availability is more restricted. Therefore, the opportunity and the growth opportunity in these areas is only bigger than what it was before. So, we are very happy so far with the evolution. Two-thirds gone, one-third to go. And in this one-third, the opportunity is bigger, because our market share and our distributions are much smaller than our average in the country. Laurence Whyatt: Excellent. Thank you very much. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Olivier Nicolai with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question. Olivier Nicolai: Hi. Good morning, Michel, Fernando. Just a couple of questions, please. Focusing on the U.S. First of all, we've seen a bit of a slowdown in the hard seltzer category, which used to be a tailwind for you and for some of your competitors. You're gaining share, but how do you see prospects, the growth prospects for the category in the midterm? And then, in the U.S., just for this quarter, STRs were down 5%. I know the comps was difficult, but we've heard a lot of commentaries around pressure on disposable income. So, I was wondering if you've seen any changes in consumer behavior for the core mainstream beer drinker in the U.S. I know you indicated in the press release that premium was growing. I'm more interested as a mainstream drinker here. Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Olivier, good afternoon. Thanks for the question. I think that there are two parts. We answer first the seltzer part and the Beyond Beer. I think that on seltzer, three comments to make. The first one is that we've been repeating this over and over again, that seltzer is part of this Beyond Beer space and is one of the manifestations of how consumers interact on this ready-to-drink space for their needs. And the growth of seltzers was accelerated during the pandemic based on the -- at the right moment being the hot new kid on the block. So, there was a lot of accelerated growth driven by the in-home consumption. And this is a very fast-moving part of the industry. The Beyond Beer is like, give or take, 10% to 12% of the industry. We have seen before other manifestations. And now what is growing very fast is the ready-to-drink cocktails, no longer the seltzer. So, the Beyond Beer continues to grow, and this is the exciting part. So, despite of the fact that seltzers are growing less or declining, the Beyond Beer overall is growing and is being led by ready-to-drink cocktails, where we have, fortunately, Cutwater performing very well. And we just launched Nutrl, which is our second leg into this market. Continues to be great to the category, continues to be incremental to the category. Robert was saying 75%, and the numbers that we see is always between 70% and 80%. And we are well-positioned with Cutwater and Nutrl, which is somehow like the next wave of growth that we see coming on that. The second point on seltzers and Beyond Beer overall is that is very seasonal. And so far, the quarter 1 is the low seasonality for this Beyond Beer. And it was colder than average. And you had the Omicron at the beginning of the year, which I think that impacted overall the category, and that's why the industry is down in the quarter 1. In terms of mainstreams -- mainstream brands. Mainstream brands are also extremely seasonal as the category is. They got heavily impacted by January, which was a very, very tough month to the industry. And as you can imagine, and I'm sure that you know, mainstream is more impacted by seasonality than premium offers. So, we are all looking forward to the summer in the North American zone. It looks like that the winter is definitely gone by the time that we speak here today. And we need to see now how May and June will perform. And then, our expectation is that mainstream brands will perform well during the summer, because we don't see indications of hard elasticity or less consumption so far in North America. And given how robust the economy so far, salaries are moving up, employment is up, I think that beer will weather very well what's coming ahead in the North America. But we need the summer to start. That's what we are looking for. Olivier Nicolai: Thank you very much. We are looking for -- towards the summer as well. Michel Doukeris: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our final question will come from the line of Pinar Ergun with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question. Pinar Ergun: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. ABI's balance sheet should be stronger by the end of this year compared to few years. Now, I appreciate organic growth is still our top priority. But I was wondering if you're coming across any interesting M&A opportunities. It would be great if you could please remind us of which categories or geographies would be of most interest. Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Pinar. Thanks for your question. Fernando here. So as you said, our balance sheet continues to improve. We've had just another important data point. We just redeemed another $3.1 billion of bonds this quarter. And we should be in a better place by the end of the year. Always keep in mind that there is a natural seasonality in cash flow generation, and deleveraging has historically been strongly weight towards the second half of the year. It's important to highlight that leverage is a metric, but having a 6% and 4% interest rate in rising interest environment and high inflation, it's a very good place to be. We -- I always like to highlight that we reiterate that we capture the majority of the value creation as we continue to move closer to three times net debt to EBITDA. On the business itself, we definitely have a great business. And as you mentioned, we continue to invest in the organic growth opportunities, which there is no shortage of. On the inorganic question, we're going to access and valuation the opportunities when and if they arise. And, of course, nothing to share at this moment. But the right framework to think about is, with the fast cash that is generated by our business, we aim to maximize value creation more than anything else. And we will do that by dynamically balancing the capital allocation by audits, which are deleveraging, M&A and return of cash -- the return of excess cash to shareholders. Thank you. Pinar Ergun: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to reach out to the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jessie. And thank you all for your time today and for your ongoing partnership and support of our business. Please stay safe and well, and we look forward to see you all. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today’s call, please visit AB InBev’s website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the investors tab and the reports and results center page. Today’s webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. [Operator instructions] Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev’s actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev’s future results, see risk factors in the company’s latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the 19 of March 2021. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and should not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jessie. And welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you all today, and I hope you are staying safe and well. Today, Fernando and I would like to cover three topics with you: our fourth quarter and full year operating highlights; an update on the strategic pillars of our strategy; and how we are meeting the moment in 2022. We’ll then be happy to answer your questions. So, let’s start with our operating performance. We are very pleased with our performance in both the fourth quarter and full year 2021. In the fourth quarter, we delivered top-line growth of 12.1% with 3.6% volume growth. Revenue per hectoliter accelerated in quarter four 2021 to 8.1%, driven by the implementation of pricing actions across some of our key markets, ongoing premiumization and continued recover of the on-premise. EBITDA increased by 5% versus quarter four 2019 pre-pandemic levels. We grew top-line by meetings in EBITDA by low single digit. We delivered normalized EPS of $0.90 and underlying EPS of $0.74. Let’s now move on to our full year results. We delivered 15.6% top-line growth in full year 2021 comprised of 9.6% volume and 5.5% revenue per hectoliter growth. EBITDA grew by 11.8% at the top-end of our 2021 outlook. Compared to pre pandemic levels we grew top-line by more than 10% and nearly recovered EBITDA on organic basis. Normalized EPS increased to $2.85 and underlying EPS increased to $2.88. As a result of our performance and strong cash flow generation, we reduced gross debt by nearly $10 billion this year, leading to a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 3.96 times. This ratio is now below 4 times for the first time since the combination with SAB in 2016. The Board has proposed a full year dividend of €0.50 per share for fiscal year 2021. Now I would like to share some highlights from our key markets. Our business in the U.S. delivered a third consecutive year of topline growth, driven by consistent execution of our commercial strategy, focused on rebalancing our portfolio. Our above core portfolio now presents over 30% of our revenue and grew by high-single digits this year. In Mexico, we finished year strong, delivering double-digit top- and bottom-line growth compared to both 2020 and 2019. Market share expanded by over 150 bps versus pre-pandemic levels. In Colombia, we deliver double digit top- and bottom-line growth to full year 2020 and above pre-pandemic levels. Led by the implementation of our category expansion model 2021 was marked by the highest per capita consumption in Colombia in the last 25 years. In Brazil, we delivered double digit top-line growth with record high beer volumes. However, bottom-line was impacted by anticipated transactional effects and commodity headwinds. BEES now covers more than 85% of our active customers, and Zé Delivery fulfilled six to one million orders, more than double of 2020. Our business in Europe recovered top-line to pre-pandemic levels. Premium and super premium brands now may cover 50% of our revenue and grew by double digits. In South Africa, we grew top-line ahead of per-pandemic levels in both the quarter and full year. A strong consumer demand for our brands resulted in full year market share expansion in both beer and total alcohol versus 2019. In China, we delivered double-digit top- and bottom-line growth. Premium and super premium brands increased by double digits. Our market share expanded versus both 2020 and 2019. Moving on, I would like to spend some time talking about the progress we’ve made on our ESG agenda. Our ESG priorities are organized around three themes, inclusive, natural, and local. With these priorities embedded into our commercial strategy, we can drive meaningful value and shared prosperity for our communities and our planet. I’m proud of the journey our teams are on to advance our ambition ESG agenda. As part of our focus to drive decarbonization and build climate resilience, we have announced our ambition to achieve net zero by 2040. In 2021, we made progress across our priorities. Highlights include reduced our overall value chain emissions by 13.5% versus our 2017 baseline. Name it to CDP’s Water A List for the third year in a row. We advanced our Smart Drinking Agenda by updating our label designs on 100% of our primary product packaging in all countries where guidance labels are not required. Recognized in the inaugural ranking of the Forbes World’s Top Female Friendly Companies in 2021, selected in the Reuters Events Responsible Business Award in the categories of Social Impact and Circular Transition. You can learn more in our 2021 ESG Report. Now let’s pivot to an update on the three pillars of our strategy. Allow me to start with pillar one, lead and grow the category. Our commitment to lead and grow the category by investing in our brands, innovation and creative marketing is already delivering results. We met the moment in 2021 with all-time high volume. As we move from being category leaders to leading category growth, we continue to execute on the five levers of our category expansion model. First, we are building an inclusive category through scaling pack and product innovations. In full year 2021 our portfolio of inclusive brands increased revenue by double digits. Second, offering superior core propositions. Our mainstream portfolio gained an estimated 1.4 percentage points of share of the segment globally. We have rolled out our double malt innovation concept across more than 12 brands in 10 markets, contributing revenue of over $450 million this year. Third, occasions development. We are tapping into new occasions with our global portfolio. Stella Artois grew over 20% globally supported by increasing penetration in the new occasion. And now our non-alcoholic beer portfolio grew revenues by double digits. The fourth lever is leading premiumization. Our premium portfolio delivered over 20% revenue growth in full year 2021, and now represents approximately one third of our total revenue. Our global brands continue to lead this growth. The combined revenues of Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona grew by 23% in full year 2021, outside of the brand’s home markets. Finally, we continue to expand the category with our Beyond Beer offerings. Our global Beyond Beer business grew by over 20% contributing $1.6 billion of revenue in full year 2021. Innovation supports category expansion across each of the five levers of our model. From entering new occasions, through our growing non-alcohol portfolio, to driving premiumization by expanding Michelob ULTRA to even more markets. Our innovations contributed 10% of our revenue. In total, more than $5 billion in 2021. We are leading the way innovation across our footprint. Our rolling 36 months share of innovation increased year-over-year in almost all of our key markets, including the U.S., Brazil and China. We are leading and growing the category with best-in-class creative marketing capabilities. Just this week, Cannes Lions honored ABI as the Creative of the Year. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge our talented teams and agents partners who made this remarkable achievement possible. Now let’s move on to our second strategic pillar, digitize and monetize our ecosystem. We are investing to scale our global, innovative technology products to become a tax first FMCG company. Products, such as BEES, Zé Delivery and EverPro allow us to unlock value from our existing assets. This is enabling us to turn customer pain points into opportunities for growth. It is now lies in 16 markets offering our customers flexible delivery and data-driven insights, while empowering our frontline sales team with real time information on customer behavior through our BEES Force application. BEES has seen remarkable acceleration in usage and reach capturing approximately $20 billion in gross merchandising value in 2021, up from $3 billion in 2020. Total monthly active users, more than doubled this year. Now, when we talk about our direct-to-consumer. Our DTC products generated more than $1.5 billion in revenue across 20 countries already contributing nearly 3% of our top line. Our e-commerce net revenue grew by 62% with 66 million online to transactions. That’s 66 million opportunities to capture data and insights to solve real consumer problems. Our DTC tech products are leading beer e-commerce growth by leveraging our ecosystem of brands that consumers love, our proprietary technology and our extensive distribution network. In Latin America, Zé Delivery is already present in roughly 300 cities in Brazil, and we are deploying the stack product across ten additional countries. In Europe PerfectDraft delivered more than $170 million of revenue. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss the third pillar of our strategy, optimizing our business. Fernando? Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I hope you are all safe and well. We aim to maximize value by focusing on three areas, optimized resource allocation, robust risk management and efficient capital instructor. First, let me take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS this year. Our underlying EPS increased by $0.37 cents from $2.51 to $2.88. Normalized EBIT increased by $0.81 per share. In net finance costs, we recorded lower interest expense due to gross debt reduction offset by other finance costs related to Brazilian tax credits. We saw higher income tax expense due to increased profitability, country mix and reduced benefits from tax attributes worth $0.30 per share. We also recorded higher share of results from associates worth $0.05 per share. And higher profit attributable to non-controlling interest worth $0.23 per share. With respect to capital allocation, we aim to maximize long-term value by dynamically balancing our priorities. Our main priority for the use of cash is to invest in organic growth opportunities that fall within the first two pillars of our strategy: lead and grow the category and digitize and monetize our ecosystem. The excess cash generated by our business is then dynamically allocated to our other three capital location priorities, the leveraging, selective M&A and return of capital to shareholders. As you can see here, two times net debt-to-EBITDA is the point at which we maximize value though approximately 90% of the benefits from the leveraging can be captured as we approach three times. This year, we achieved an important milestone in order to leveraging path. With net debt-to-EBITDA falling below four times for the first time, since the SAB combination. In the near term, the leveraging is to the most value accretive opportunity, as we continue to move towards our optimal capital structure, returning cash to shareholders, and pursuing selective M&A opportunities can have a more meaningful impact on the value creation. In balancing the company’s capital allocation priorities and dividend policies while returning cash to shareholders the Board has proposed a full year dividend of €0.50 per share for the fiscal year 2021. We have taken significant steps in recent years to accelerate that reduction. We have reduced gross debt by approximately $34 billion since 2016, with almost $10 billion in 2021 alone. Moving on you see that our debt maturity profile remains well distributed with no significant maturities over the next five years with the weighted average maturity more than 16 years. Let me elaborate further on the characteristics of our debt portfolio. As a reminder, we do not have any financial covenants on our entire debt portfolio, including our sustainability-linked revolving credit facility. The portfolios comprised of a variety of currencies, including the U.S. dollar, Euro, Canadian dollar, pound sterling, and Korean won, diversifying our FX risk. Our bond portfolio remains largely insulated from interest rate volatility as approximately 94% holds a fixed rate with very manageable weighted average bond rate of approximately 4%. Before I hand it over to Michel, I like to highlight the key metrics that reflect how we are optimizing our business. In 2021, we reduce the gross debt by $10 billion total in $34 billion of gross debt reduction since 2016. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio is now at 3.96x, below 4x for the first time, since our combination with SAB. 94% of our bond portfolios fixed rates with a manageable 4% coupon, and we have no near term refinancing needs. I’ll now hand it back to Michel for some final comments. Michel? Michel Doukeris: Thanks, Fernando. I would like to take a few minutes to recap our reflections in learnings and how we are prepared to meet the moment in 2022. The beer category continues to demonstrate strength. We are operating in a big profitable and growing category. Beer is gaining share of throat globally. We remained flexible and agile in a challenging operating environment to deliver strong results. Driven by our leading brand portfolio and our accelerated digital transformation, our volume hit all time high and we gain a share across key markets. Our business has momentum. Looking ahead to 2022, we have already implemented or announced our revenue management initiatives in the majority of our markets. We will monitor how the year develops across all our markets and are prepared to continue to meet the moment. Additionally, this year presents unique opportunities to activate demand, such as continued reopening of the on-premise. In marquee events returning in full forth, such as Chinese New Year, Super Bowl, [indiscernible] and the World Cup. In conclusion, I’m proud of our ongoing transformation, as we position the company to deliver a future of more cheers. I will now like to hand it over to Jesse to begin the Q&A session. Operator: Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from Rob Ottenstein with Evercore. Please proceed. Rob Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much. Obviously inflation is on everybody’s mind, ABI perhaps more than most given the background in Brazil has had tremendous amount of experience dealing with inflation. You’re known for your cost discipline. So kind of two part question, first, how is the organization dealing with greater across the board cost pressures? Are you pivoting it at all? Changing targets, anything special to deal with it. And then second related you do have a different business model today, given the digitization of the business with B2B and D2C how has that impacted your ability to deal with the inflationary environment? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Robert, Fernando here. Thanks for that question. I’m probably going to start and then I’m going to have Michel offer some thoughts as well. So in our outlook, we stated on organic a bit, a growth of 4% to 8% in, we are 2022, which of course, taken into account this dynamic cost environment we are seeing. We are not providing specific cost per hl litter to guidance, but what we mentioned our look is that revenue is going to be growing ahead of a bit. And then Michel, I don’t know if any other additional thoughts. Michel Doukeris: Yes. Thank you, Fernando. Thank you, Robert, for the question. I think that you are right when we think about the very dynamic environment and inflation costs. So, I think that 2022 in a way is going to be very similar to 2021. And what we learned during this pandemic and is something that you mentioned is very core to our D&A is disability of adapt and being flexible, but always focusing on results. If you think about the quarter four 2021, we have already implemented or announced most of our revenue management initiatives in the majority of our markets. And this is consistent with what we’ve been talking since last year, that we were prepared to meet the moment, and quarter four net revenue per hl litter at 8.1% is already a proof of point on how agile the company is being in dealing with that. You know and you mentioned that we operate in very different markets. So, we have inflation now across the board, but we’ve been dealing with inflation for many years in developing markets and our revenue management took it is being very helpful over the years, but it’s almost like if we are in a 2.0 version with data that we have in hands now, because of these, because of direct to consumer, that is much more data. That’s turning not only the way that you go to market more efficient, but also how we manage our promotions activations in a way that’s much more dynamic, but is much more efficient as well. Hence a proven point you think about us achieving all time high volumes in 2021. And then I think that last, but not least our brands continue to perform very well and enhance it by the digital capabilities that we have today. We are very well positioned for 2022. Rob Ottenstein: Sure. Thank you very much. Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from James Edwardes Jones with RBC. James Edwardes Jones: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Well, two questions. Can you say a little bit more about resource allocation between the different product segments, you mentioned that you grew share in mainstream, but my sense is that your focus is more on the premium end of the market. Is that correct? And secondly, your sales and marketing ratio dropped by 120 basis points in the year and it’s fallen by 140 basis points since 2017. Is that one of the things that’s going to change under this new management team? Michel Doukeris: Hi James. Thank you for the question. I’ll take the first one first. First, I’m try to address the second one, if I understood, right you are talking about sales and marketing as a percentage of net revenue, right? James Edwardes Jones: That’s correct. Michel Doukeris: Yes. So the first one, in terms of a location, we have a dynamic way of allocating resources by segment and Fernando mentioned this during our Investor Meeting last year that we improved big time our model, and despite of our focus that we have in growing in accelerating the premium segment, which grew 23% last year. We continue to allocate resources across all segments and trying to be very efficient. And as we rebalance the portfolio, we have clear objectives for each segment, while share of segment in the mainstream business is very important and we are driving innovation and growing with propositions such as double malt. We are also investing in premiumizing and accelerating growth, because it’s very, very important to get to a scale with our global brands where then we can harness most of the benefits. And now our category expansion model is a very good tool, because based on the five levers, we can deploy resources where we have higher chances to win. And this connects very well with the second question, because in a way, looking only into the percentage of sales and marketing versus net revenue, this now really paint the full picture. Let me let put this way, like in one hand, we are becoming much more efficient as we digitize, as we get more data, we can then tailor much better our investments by segment, by region to the tail of cluster of clients that we can through the usage of data be very precise. Combine it with that, our creative work driving the brand is also becoming much more efficient. So, we are driving higher ROI campaigns. You just saw, we shared with you now being recognized by Ken [ph] as the creative market here of the year has a reason, and this creative power drives efficiency. So more creative usage of data, higher percentage of sales going direct to consumer, allows us to really, really improve our efficiencies. On the other hand, as we accelerate growth and our revenues grow 15% last year, the food picture is really more into how much money are we deploying for growth and then just to get the figure from 2020 to 2021, we invested more than $400 million additionally, to continue to drive momentum and power on our brands. So this is, I think that a good explanation, maybe why our business has the momentum that has today, and why we ended up 2021 at all times volume high. James Edwardes Jones: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Please proceed. Trevor Stirling: Hello, Michel and Fernando. So my first question, Michel, as I wonder if you can give us a little bit more color on terms of the components and the elements of your guidance of your 4% to 5% you’re implying a little bit of margin compression going on, but in terms of the top line growth, do you think it’s going to be mainly volume, mainly price mix and some sense of maybe, which geographies you expect to drive the growth in the coming year? And my follow-up question, maybe one more for Fernando. Your EBITDA level is now back to we’re slightly ahead of where we were pre-pandemic, but the tax rate is staying quite high. Is that because of the fundamental change in the country mix or is it because of underlying tax rates in any of your key geographies? Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Trevor thanks for your question. Let me start by taking the second one. And then I’m going to go back to the first one. So on the text outlook is a function of the country mix. You are correct on that. And it’s underpinned by the strong performance of emerging markets like maximum Colombia, which are growing at the faster pace in the rest of the operations. And this translates into an average higher tax rate. But no other reason than that. And then on your question on outlook, our outlook has actually 4% to 8%. And what we said is that the it’s 4% to 8% and with revenues growing ahead of a bit and with a health combination of volume and price. So, this is what we said, and this is as far as we go on kind of making a statement on the outlook. So the important for us to focus on the 4% to 8%. Trevor Stirling: Very good. Thank you, Fernando. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Pinar Ergun with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question. Pinar Ergun: Hi, thanks for taking my question. I have one on the U.S. This is now the third consecutive year of organic sales growth in the country. Has your portfolio shift towards more premium areas got this business to a point now where you would be able to maintain this growth momentum going forward, and it would be useful if you could please also comment on the STRs versus STWs and stock levels, and anything you can share about the U.S. EBITDA evolution going forward. Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Hi Pinar, Michel here. Thanks for the question. I think that we are very pleased with the momentum in the U.S., and if we go back, when we talked about the U.S. strategy, the new commercial strategy and the challenge that we had there in turning around the business and rebuilding momentum I think that we can now say that with the three consecutive years of top line growth, the top line momentum is back in the right direction. And this is a product of our portfolio rebalance. We accelerated a lot, the growth in segments where we had good headroom, great brands to drive this growth and that are growing segments. So we structurally the business is now in better shape and of course we need to earn each and every day, consumers retailers in partnership with our wholesalers. And of course, as this brand is scale, and as we get into a more normal situation, which we hold hope that’s going to be sooner than later, this growth will translate in margins and EBITDA and we’ve being seeing that top line coming, margins are coming. We continue to invest not only behind the brands, but also investing in maintaining our marketing momentum there. And this will translate into EBITDA just to give you one metric, we have today around one-third of our business in the U.S. already in the – both of our segments and this one-third is driving the overall top line growth because the growth is far ahead of what the industry average is. In STRs and STWs I think you remember over the last one year and a half because of full disruptions in supply chain. We ended up in very short inventory, low inventory with our wholesalers. This is more like normalized now. So it’s almost back to the same level of a STR and STW when you put like the last 18 months combined and even residing in a health stage to date there. So as we prepare now to phase towards spring in summer we believe we will have a much better summer in terms of product available this year in North America. Pinar Ergun: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed. Mitch Collett: Thanks. Hi Michel. Hi, Fernando. My first question is on the guidance again I’m afraid. So the 4% to 8% EBITDA growth guidance is I would say relatively narrow range given the current level of geopolitical uncertainty and the scope for further COVID related disruption and even potential for more input cost pressure. So, can you talk about some of the scenarios you’d considered when coming and saying you could come in the medium term guidance range? And then my second question is on Columbia specifically where you’ve been affected by capacity constraints. And yet you also said you hit a 25-year high in terms of per cap consumption. When do you expect to be able to ease the capacity constraints and where do you think per capita consumption can get to when you do? Thanks. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Mitch, Fernando here. So when provided the outlook of 4% to 8%, we provided this outlook based on the other information that we have in our hands, and all the capabilities that our team have. So of course, it’s a dynamic environment, we mentioned that, but given all the different puts and takes and our revenue management capabilities, the strength of our brands, we felt it was the right outlook to provide 4% to 8% for full year 2022. And on the second one country, I will turn to Michel. Michel Doukeris: Yes. Mitch, Michel here. On the second question in Columbia, I think that Columbia is a great example of our market expansion model and technology with BEES and direct consumer working at its full force, right? So we see a market that is grown, industry is growing, it’s premiumizing at the same time. We had double-digit growth there top and bottom line, brands performing very well. Some of the can awards came from Columbia, very good creative work there. Very good integration, commercial speaking, and innovations helping in further accelerate category expansion. Volumes really moved faster than our ability during the pandemic to build up capacity, but we have two trenches of capacity come live this year 2022 that will allow us to service the demand, while we continue to invest to further accelerate growth both in the category and in our portfolio. So two big investments come to life this year in Colombia to help us with more product availability. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Edward Mundy: Good morning, Michel. Good morning, Fernando. Two questions for me please. So innovation delivered 10% of sales in 2021 and double malt was a big success. Can you talk with your degree of confidence that your innovation pipeline could sustain this level of innovation into next year and beyond? And as a follow-up, we’ve seen a big step up in revenue perhaps lead to in the fourth quarter. How sustainable is this into 2022 and could accelerate further as the full benefit of pricing in developed markets drops through? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Ed. Let me start with the first question on innovation. I think that this is a very important topic for us is a journey that we are in the company for some years now, understanding better insights and consumer needs and being able to tailor products, packaging, and even consider expansions beyond beer to address more occasions and drive this growth in category expansion. So this innovation is being great to add to the current brands and segments that we have as well as to allow us to tap into new occasion and gather more consumers around the products and offerings that we have. This is becoming much more mature inside the company as a process. So we are innovating in product development. We are innovating technology products. So BEES is a great example. Zé Delivery is a great example, as well as business models. You think about perfect draft in Europe is more than only a product, is more than only technology, is a new business model implemented in a very innovative way. And we have a strong pipeline. You just think about the U.S. for example, what came to life now this year with hard sodas and seltzers with zero carb in Bud Light with our brands in Beyond Beer continue to power. And if we think about the second question in the revenue product litter, we talked about this during the quarter three last year that we were actively and proactively implementing the actions to meet the moment. Quarter four net revenue was the highest in the year and was, as I said before a consequence of many markets already having the pricing for is in place for this year, or announce it in some other very important markets. And we will continue to monitor as the environment remains very dynamic. And as said before, we are prepared to continue to meet the moment. Edward Mundy: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Laurence Wyatt with Barclays. Please proceed. Laurence Wyatt: Hi, Michel, Fernando thanks very much for the questions. Could I ask on your digital capabilities that you now reiterated that over 50% of your revenues are coming through digital? Could you break that out into the BEES system that you talk a lot about? And we heard a lot about at the Capital Markets Day. So the other digital systems that I think you you’ve had in place in the past, and then building on that within BEES, how much of BEES comes through your own brands and how much is coming from the marketplace? And do you have any potential ideas on, on how big the marketplace part of BEES could get? And on that, I’m just interested on, on what that could do to margins. If you do a lot of market place type work, thank you very much? Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Laurence. I’ll try to tackle the question here piece by piece, but the 50% of our revenue coming from digital is on our sales to retailers. We add on top of that this 3% that we communicated on direct to consumer. So the 50% is very meaningful because it’s kind of a landmark, right? So more than half of our sales now being digital, this proves that the technology, the product that we have it very good product that has the thickness and has performance. And this is the obsession of our team at BEES is deliver a great experience for our customers. And they’ve been doing that. The usage is very high, 2.5 million customers already adopted and use BEES all the time, and they use BEES because it’s convenient, because empowers them to have better visibility on their business, to have better ways to put their orders in place and control and learn things about their business. With that, our business becomes more efficient and becomes a win-win solution for us and customers. And BEES is by far better technology than any other system that we had before. And that’s why the adoption is so fast, and that’s why the usage by customers and by our sales team with BEES force is so big as well. So it’s a great step and we continue to expand going to more countries and gathering more customers to use this. When we think about the second part of the question, which relates to the marketplace, we are implementing marketplace in different markets. Of course, it goes together with BEES as the convenience of that and the logistics reach that we have, and the ability to bring partners on board with great service level to the partners as well. We see that today there is a big amount of our customers already buying in marketplace. We see that they buy a great amount of products. So we have like single-digits is still, when you think about the revenues on BEES being from marketplace, like 5% to 7%, and you see that more customers are joining, which is very good because when you think about the average composition of BEES is more in medium outlets, that we service. Beer accounts anywhere from 20% to 25% of their revenues, their purchase, so therefore we have between 3 and 4 times addressable market that’s no beer for us to tap into with marketplace. The two is good. The service level is very high; adoption so far is being very good because more and more customers are buying beer and other products into the marketplace. And we’ve been partnering with great companies that are joining us in this quest to service with high service level or customers. So it’s exciting. It’s still at the early stage. We will share more with you whenever we have some materiality that’s worth sharing with more details, but at this moment is growing very fast both in adoption and total revenues, it represents somehow 5% to 7% of the BEES revenues across the market, and the opportunity for us to tap into is 3 to 4 times GMV there is more in medium outlook. Laurence Wyatt: That’s great, Michel. Thank you very much. And just to follow up on that, it fits around 5% to 7% of BEES revenue today assuming BEES continues the rate it’s growing, in many years out – sort of five to 10 years out, how big do you think the marketplace could be as a percentage of BEES revenues? Michel Doukeris: We are not speculating about numbers for the future. We are trying to give you facts and data about the numbers that we have on quarter four and full year 2021. But again, it’s growing fast, much faster than the overall revenue of the company. The market opportunity, 3 to 4 times the GMV that we have with beer in this is more in medium outlets, and we are confident in the tool. So technology is great and BEES is a great product. We are confident on our partnership with the small and medium enterprise. And so far all companies that have been joining us, today we have more than 150 partners on BEES across different markets. They’ve been enjoying growth as well on their business. So it’s a win-win-win solution when you think about the marketplace. Laurence Wyatt: Excellent. Michel, thank you very much. Operator: Our next question comes from Tristan Van Strien with Redburn Partners. Please proceed. Tristan Van Strien: Hey, hello. And two questions for me, one Fernando, I just wanted to ask about your working capital inflow, which was quite incredible about 2.5 billion. Just trying to understand, I think that’s the best ever inflow you’ve had. So trying to understand what drove that exactly and how sustainable those kind of inflows are as we think about this going forward? And my second question, Michel, I think this is the first time in 20 quarters that AB InBev has not mentioned the affordability strategy. I think in light of all the inflationary environments, economic pressures where does that sit in your thinking? How relevant is that going forward? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Tristan. Fernando, here. So on your question on working capital, given that we have a negative working capital. Once we have volumes increasing, that’s very powerful on the cash flow line. So that’s one of the effect. The other – the other effect when you look at the working capital, we – when you compare 2020 we increased the CapEx expenses. So that has an impact on payables and also as Michel, Michel pointed out, for example, Colombia in some of our markets that were growing volume a lot, inventories were more on the lower side. And that also have a positive effect on the working capital. So on the long-run as long as you have volume growth, the negative working capital always plays in our favor, but some of the other – the other effects are more temporary and you should not sit it repeating. Tristan Van Strien: Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Tristan, Michel here. Thanks for the question. I will take the second part on the affordability. And in a way we are talking about that, talking a little bit different and we will expand and explain you this. So the affordability part is a very important component on the category expansion model, but we decided when we talk about the five levers, we decided to make this broader, and we are calling inclusive category and why we are talking about inclusive category rather than only affordability, because when you think about inclusive and you think about all the consumers, that beer does not have penetration today, but they are consumers that we can target and grow the category. You include women, you include people with low purchase power, you include people that they are drinking different beverages and the innovations that we have or different formats and impacts can address. So today the affordability part as you knew before, is included as one sub component of what we call now, inclusive category, because there is much more inclusive it than only price. And you are right to say that in the inflationary scenario, we’ll be working smartly with pack, price and innovation. So, we can achieve both our revenue targets, but also our volume ambitions as we continue to lead and grow the category because the taste of this all time high volume is very sweet. And as we work to build a company and create a future with more cheers, we need to continue to develop the category and grow as we lead the category. So we need to include more people into the future. Tristan Van Strien: Thank you. That’s very insightful. Appreciate it. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Simon Hales with Citi. Please proceed. Simon Hales: Thank you. Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. Two for me as well, please. Can I just come back to the issue of pricing and the strong revenue per momentum you’ve reported. As we look forward into 2022, do you expect the price actions that you’ve been taking, we need to recover the cash impact of the COGS inflation you are seeing, and maybe just building on that affordability issue in relation to Tristan’s question in the short term, how do we think about the incremental elasticity impact in 2022 on your volumes from these price moves? So that was the first question. And then secondly, I just wonder in terms of supply chain, supply bottlenecks in the business is there I think, we should be aware of at the moment in any of your geographies and has this glass life situation now normalized fully in the U.S. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thanks Simon. This is Fernando. I’m going to take the question 1a, so out your question. So the first one is on the, when you ask it about pricing and what does it mean for revenue and dynamics on cost. In our outlook we going back to it, we said 4% to 8%, and we said that revenues are growing ahead of EBITDA. So there are some pricing cost dynamics implied in this outlook, but we remain, on the 4% to 8%. That’s why we, we should be delivering this year. Then on the 1b and two, I’m going to transfer to, to Michel. Michel Doukeris: Simon, thank you for the question. Let me try to address it here to you. On the elasticity part, I really think that we can only learn from the past, use the models to project, but of course, as the environment is being very dynamic. We need to continue to monitor the evolution. And if you go back to 2007, 2008, when was the last time that we saw such spike in costs, followed by price and inflation. What we saw was actually that across many categories, including beer, they elastic came and charge of the price. So there was indeed contraction in the market was different developing, developed markets and was also different from today. So, I think that one, there are elasticity is in play there indeed, and still too early, giving the recent price movements for us to precisely say how big the elasticity will be. But the environment today is also different because in many countries, people have enough money giving all these stimulus that were given during the pandemic to maintain purchase power, even with an inflation that we are seeing any other countries will need to be monitoring closely, because in some of these countries, all the incentives and stimulus that people had, they burn out during the pandemic and then people will need to rely on salaries increasing, aligned or ahead of inflation in order to be able to keep purchase power. I think that our brands are in very good position. I think that momentum that we have today in market sharing volume helps us to continue to moving forward. And because most of our markets implemented or announced prices already in quarter four. We are now very focused on activating the demand. And we have this year, this balance of the difficult inflationary environment, combine it with very unique opportunities for demand activation. Think about all the marquee events related to sport, but beyond that, that they didn’t happen in the last two years. And now, as we see Omicron phasing out in many markets and with the best information that we have today, many of these events are coming back. We just moved from Super Bowl two weeks ago, there was a great activation, volumes in the own trade, grew 35% week versus week Super Bowl this year versus last year was up. And we had like a great celebration in the U.S. on the event was, I was there. I saw people on the streets, people on the stadium and high consumption. Think about own trade reopening now in Europe and everything that this can add in terms of occasions, coming back for consumers to enjoy beer. And most importantly, then we have summer, which is going to be, I hope a different one from last year and in the back end of the year, FIFA, which is a global event, right? Because more than 40 countries participating, everybody watching football and soccer. So, I think that we now are very focused on driving consumer demand in activating our brands and in leading and growing the category. So, we need to balance. So there will be of course, challenge as each and every year has its own challenge, but I’m very confident on the opportunities that we have to activate them in this year. Our plans are ready and our team is executing his excellence. On the supply chain, just to finish. I think that you asked about the, the U.S., I forgot that. I think that overall the dynamics in the market continue to be very intense. So shifts are happening across the board. But if you think about the last two years, I think that we’ve been adapting to each and every situation. I’m very proud of our team’s flexibility and ownership and how much they’ve been working hard to deliver this strong results that we delivered in 2021. So, I think that there will be more continuation of flexibility, more adaptation as we address that. And one point that I might highlight on that, is that with the return of the own trade, we see now bottles, glass package is growing. We see returns of kegs. That for us are very good packaging. We have very good spacing lines, less demand on aluminum because of the off trade now not pumping at the same speed, that was during the pandemic because there was the only channel. And this helps us well in getting the supply and demand equation better balance, but it’s going to be another year in which we’ll need to work very hard to deliver. Simon Hales: That’s great. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our final question will come from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question. Sanjeet Aujla: Hi, Michel, Fernando. My question is just on B2B again. I think a lot of your progress has really been in markets where you have direct distribution. How are you approaching digitalization in markets where you have indirect distribution? Is there also a significant opportunity for you here? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Sanjeet. Good morning. Thank you for the question. And I think that you are addressing a point that’s very important. And I would say that we have ways in which the technology will be deployed and the way that we built the product, that our team from BEES, designed their market approach and that expansion strategy, the direct distribution markets are well tailored for us to quickly implement rolling in out country to country. So today we have 16 countries and having fast adoption and fast retention, utilization of the technology with our own teams. But if you think about the next wave, so we are now tackling the U.S. and we have some interesting success cases already, but because of the three tier system that is a lot of product development and adaptation that needs to be done. So we have like a bunch of engineers coding and making sure that, the product to the U.S. deliver the same benefits for our retailers and the same level of performance for our wholesalers. And also we are growing China. So BEES is also being organized and developed for the three tier system that exists in China. And so far growing fasting adoption, very successful. And this is part of this approach of us evolving and transforming to a tech first CPG, where we have great physical products, Corona, Budweiser Stella combined with best-in-class tech products, such as BEES, Zé Delivery and other products that we’ve been developing. So, we are expanding that’s the second wave. And the third wave is investing in the large key accounts where you see today very old, electronic systems, so called EDI across the markets. And we are working on BEES link that’s already been tested and is a modern approach to EDI much more integrated, much more user friendly with great technology that will allow us to tap into the larger accounts now in partnership with them to also optimize their business and our interfaces. So first big wave, 16 countries, 50% of our volume, second wave developing for wholesalers and large markets such as U.S. and China and the third wave is then completing the puzzle with the key accounts where we also have like a huge opportunity in bringing data visibility, service level up and continue to partner with our main customers. Sanjeet Aujla: That’s great color. Thanks, Michel. And just a quick follow up for Fernando, within your SG&A expenses in 2021, I think there was a massive step up in admin particularly linked to variable compensation. How are you thinking about that into 2022? Is that a level of expense where we could see some opportunities to, for that to decline or is this kind of a new base going forward? Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Sanjeet, the best way for you to, to look at this SG&A increase is if you think that in 2020 was a year of no bonus, and this year it was a year of a strong performance. So rather than giving an outlook, I’d rather give the reasons for you to why 2021 was higher than 2020, and then probably you can run the math and then you can get a, what is going to be a, the run rate level that you should be expecting from SG&A. Sanjeet Aujla: Got it. Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This is final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I’ll now turn the floor back over to Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jesse. So in closing, I would like just to reiterate that we are very pleased with the strong performance in our business, with the momentum that we have as we start 2022. We know that, we are delivering on every metric that matters to the business. And as a consequence, we achieve this all time high volumes in 2021. We are well positioned to meet the moment in 2022. Our brands are performing well. Our market share across, most of our relevant markets doing very well. Categories growing, beer is gaining share of throat. And as I said, we have unique opportunities to activate the demand in 2022, and we are prepared with our plans in place. So thank you very much for your time today for your ongoing partnership and support of our business, and please stay safe and well. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investor's tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be opened for your questions following the presentation. Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see risk factors in the Company's latest annual report on form-20F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on 19th of March, 2021. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call, which are not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Michel Doukeris. Sir, you may begin. Michel Doukeris : Thank you Jessy, and welcome everyone to our Third Quarter 2021 earnings call. It's a pleasure to be speaking with you all today and I hope you and your families are staying well and safe. As the world reopens, I'm looking forward to being able to meet with you in person in the near future. Today, I would like to start with an overview of our third quarter operating performance in key commercial and sustainability highlights. Then, I will hand it over to Fernando, to discuss our financials. After that, we will be happy to take your questions. So let's start with our operating performance for the quarter. When compared to the third quarter of 2020, we delivered top-line growth of 7.9% with a health mix of 3.4% volume and 4.3% revenue per hectometer, driven by revenue management and premiumization. It did increase by 3% with an EBITDA margin of 36.5% versus third quarter of 2019, pre -pandemic levels, we group topline by low pings driven by the consistent execution for the strategy, and a strong underlying consumer demands for our brands. This quarter, we also returned to growth at EBITDA level versus third quarter 2019, as we continue to manage our cost efficiently. Our underlying EPS increased from $0.80 to $0.85, and our normalized EPS was $0.50. We delivered a strong performance in the context of a challenging global operating environment, characterized by ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, commodity inflation and supply chain constraints. Our results were driven by relentless execution, demonstrated by our teams, consistent investments in our brands, and accelerated digital transformation. In light of our continued momentum, we are raising the bottom end of our EBITDA growth guidance from 8% to 12%, to 10 to 12%. Looking ahead to 2022, the current supply chain disruptions will result in higher input costs. We have a proven track records of operating effectively inflationary environments around the world. We will continue to deliver on our best-in-class revenue management capabilities, while relying on the strength of our brand portfolio and enhanced digital capabilities to optimize our performance. In light of discussed headwinds, we continue to meet the moment and we have already taken action. We've increased pricing in several markets, such as Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, China, and Nigeria, among others. Now, I would like to share some highlights from our key markets. In the U.S., both revenue and EBITDA grew by mid-single-digits, that's in 2019. Compared to third quarter 2020, our topline declined by 80 bps this quarter, driven by a lower industry and supply change disruptions resulting in out of stocks. we remain focused on consistent execution of our commercial strategy in re-balancing our portfolio towards faster growing above core segments. In Mexico, we delivered high single-digit top-line in mid-single-digits, bottom-line, sustained 19 fueled by ongoing portfolio development, digital transformation, and continued channel expansion through . Our biz platform continues to expand now, comprising nearly 70% of our revenue. In Colombia, we delivered record volumes this quarter, growing top and bottom line ahead of pre -pandemic levels, supported in part by our innovations. BEES share of total alcohol increased by approximately 120 basis points. Year-to-date, August versus the comparable period in 2019 resulting in the country's highest Beer per capita consumption in 25 years. These now represents 85% of our revenue in Colombia with an average in EPS score of 56. In Brazil, we achieved all time high rolling 12 months via volume in third quarter 2021. Growing volumes by 7.3% versus third quarter 2020, and by 35% versus third quarter 2019. We outperformed the industry for the fifth quarter in a row, according to our estimates. All segments of our beer portfolio grew by at least double-digits versus the same period in 2019 with the premium and core-plus segments leading the way. BEES, now covers more than 85% of our active customers across the country. Our business in Europe grew revenue by low single-digits and EBITDA by mid-single-digits versus the same period last year, supported by premiumization, operational efficiencies, and additional revenue management initiatives. As vaccination rates continue to increase in our team markets, and as their own premise recovers, our performance is improving, driven by health distribution and market share gains for our portfolio. In South Africa, our business delivered volume growth in the mid-20's versus third quarter 2020. Compared to third quarter 2019, even though there were 25 fewer trading days, our revenue declined by only low single-digits. Reflecting a strong underlying consumer demand for our products. In China, the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions led to a total industry decline of mid-single-digits according to our estimates. The restrictions disproportionately impacted our key regions, leading to a 7.1 volume decline. Nevertheless, the premiumization trend remains as strong as our super-premium portfolio once again, outperformed, led by double-digit growth of Budgul and . Moving now, let's discuss the key commercial in sustainability highlights from this quarter. We continue to develop a unique and diverse portfolio of brands to reach more consumers in more occasions. As you can see on the Slide eight, our mainstream brands grew revenue by 4%, gained share of segment across most of our main markets. Our premium portfolio, continued to lead the way delivering over 11% revenue growth. Our Beyond Beer brand, continued to add profitable growth, delivering $1.2 billion in revenue year-to-date. Diving deeper into the performance of our global brands the combined revenues of Budweiser Stella Artois and Corona grew by 5% globally and by 9.3% outside of the brand's home markets where they typically command a premium price. Now, let me talk about innovation. Our innovations are meaningfully contributing to our results, making up approximately 10% of our revenue year-to-date. Based on the success of Brahma Double Malt in Brazil, we are expanding the double multi concepts to more than 10 markets, including the launch of Capsule Double Malt in South Africa, this quarter. To address the global trends of health and wellness and moderation, we are developing a portfolio of differentiated offerings. We are ceding Michelob ULTRA, our premium low carb, low calorie beer in the markets. We're also enhancing our non-alcoholic portfolio by expanding Bud Zero to more than 10 markets by the end of the year. We continue to explore and innovate in Beyond Beer space. Michelob ULTRA hard seltzer, is leading the emerging seltzer segments in Mexico, with nearly 50% market share. In addition, Cutwater, continues to rapidly expand, growing triple-digits in the U.S. We are also scaling the Michelob's brand family to more than 15 markets this year. Now, I would like to talk about how we are transforming our business with technology. Our digital B2B sales platform, BEES, is enabling us to turn customer ping points into opportunities for growth. We are in live in 13 markets, with 2.1 million monthly active users, with over $5.5 billion in gross merchandising value this quarter, demonstrating an accelerated growth trajectory in the past 12 months. To give you a deeper understanding of the value we are unlocking with our digital transformation. Let me walk you through the journey in our biz pilot market, the Dominican Republic we chose as the first market for the full rollout of our digital transformation. Launching BEES in 2019, is an ideal candidates to test and captured learnings to inform the global expansion of the platform. First, it is a market of relevant sites which will allow us to understand the potential impact of a full transformation. It is also a market where we have a significant presence. We've got high level of direct distribution, which facilitates rapid expansion and adoption. Lastly, it is a market with lower these top penetration in the high level of traditional trained, which would provide us with learning's on how to address perceived barriers to adoption. We have seen exciting results since we digitally transformed the market with the platform, unlocking incremental growth for our own business and our customers. The digitization of our relative market enabled us to fully execute our commercial strategy. With these now making up over 90% of our revenue in VR. We are reaping the benefits of accelerated revenue growth versus historical levels For these customers, particularly those that are fully engaged, we follow our features offered in our platform. We see accelerated performance across several key metrics with higher revenue per order, higher delivery frequency in more unique SKUs purchased when compared to 2019. We have now rolled out BEES to 13 countries in the last two years. And we are incorporating the learnings we have gained along the way to accelerate the digital transformation across our global footprint. Now, let me talk to you about another pillar of our digital transformation, our own direct-to-consumer business, which generated more than $1 billion in revenue year-to-date and it is growing rapidly. The biggest contributor is our e-commerce platform, which grew by 93% year-to-date. In Latin America, we are building our only new channel ecosystem. We follow e-commerce courier platforms across more than 10 countries. Leveraging a best-in-class physical presence, we follow retailers in brick and mortar direct-to-consumer businesses. In Europe, we are delivering a superior in unique at-home experience through in-home drops in products on our e-store. Now delivering more than $100 million in revenue year-to-date. Now, let me change gears and talk about sustainability. I'm so proud of our journey and our teams in the way we added advancing our ambitious sustainability and channels. We are taking action to decarbonize those footprint. Early this year, we announced our first carbon-neutral brewery, Yuan, China. This quarter, we achieved carbon-neutral for our second brewery in our first small calls in Brazil. As pioneers in sustainable brewing, we continue to pursue innovation in partnerships, in support of the transition to a low carbon economy. Additionally, in September, at the 76th session of the United Nations Global Assembly, we were recognized as one of only 37 Global Compact Lead Companies, for our ongoing commitment to the UN Global Company. It's 10 principles for responsible business in the related sustainable development goals. Congratulations to our teams and partners for these important achievements that are driving our sustainability agenda forward. With that, I would like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss our financials. Fernando. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I hope you are all safe and well. Let me first take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS. Our underlying EPS increased by $0.05, from $0.80 to $0.85. Normalized EBIT, increased by $0.13 per share. In net finance costs, we recorded lower interest expense due to growth debt reduction, partially offset by other finance clause. We saw higher income tax expense, due to increased profitability, country mix, and reduced benefits from tax attributes was $0.05 per share. We also recorded higher share of results from associates worth $0.01 per share, and highest profit attributable to non-control in interest worth $0.10 per share, resulting from higher profits of our lifted subsidiaries, Budweiser, a back and Ambev, along with the issuance of a 49.9% minority stake in our U.S. based metro container operations in December 2020. Moving on to Slide 18, you'll see that our debt maturity profile is well distributed with no significant maturities over the next five years. Let's elaborate further on our debt portfolio shown on the previous light. As a reminder, we do not have any financials covenants on our entire debt portfolio, including our sustainability linkage, revolving credit facilities. Our bond portfolio remains largely insulated from interest rate volatility as approximately 95% holds a fixed rates. Furthermore, the portfolios comprised of a varieties of currencies with 52% denominated in U.S. dollars, 34% in Europe, and the remainder in currency such as the Canadian dollar, pound, sterling, and Korean-won diversifying our effects risks. The weighted average maturity of our debt portfolio is more than 16 years. Finally, we continue to have a very manageable weighted average coupon of approximately 4%. Now let's talk about capital allocation. Maximizing long-term value creation drives how we balance our fourth capital allocation priorities. Our top priorities, for the use of cash history invest in our brands, and to take full advantage of the organic growth opportunities in our business. Our optimal capital structure remains around the two times net debt to EBITDA ratio. With respect to M&A. We will always be ready to look at opportunities when and if they arise. This is subject to our strict financial discipline and the leveraging commitments. Finally, we include return excess cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and not share buybacks. However, in lining for financial discipline and the leveraging objectives there will be no interim dividend. The board's proposal with respect for full-year 2021 dividend will be announced that we followed full-year '21 results on February 24, 2022. I will now hand it back to Jessy so we can begin the Q&A session. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. Thank you. Our first question is coming from the line of Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question. Mitch Collett: Good morning, Michel. Good morning, Fernando. My first question is on pricing. Can you comment on the pricing environment in your key markets? You've been able to take up pricing in Brazil, for example. But perhaps you can tell us what you're expecting for pricing in F22. Secondly, I would like to ask about your direct to consumer growth. And I think the 60 million DTC orders you've achieved in the 9 months implies $21 million in the third quarter, or up 40% versus Q2. Say, can you comment on what's driving the acceleration and how you're benefiting from both the economics of DTC and the additional data it brings to the business? Thank you. Michel Doukeris : Hi, good morning, everyone. Good afternoon. Thanks for the question, Mitch. Michel speaking here. I think that taking on the first part of your question, the one related to price. What we see is input costs going up across the globe. I think that this is not new news. And we see that there is inflation picking up different levels across different markets as well. We continue to analyze everything, and using our revenue management tool kits in order to face this moment and make sure that we are planning accordingly, and taking under consideration our overall business performance. In the markets where we already moved with price this year, some of them more than once, such as Brazil. We see that, the inflation is peaking up, so consumers and consumer demand remains strong. And we have other examples, such as Colombia, Mexico, Nigeria, China, where we are already on the move and taking actions. When we look forward to at this point, it's too early to see what's going to happen and how costs will be next year, commodities and everything else. But we rely on the strength of our portfolio, best-in-class revenue management capabilities, as well as our enhanced digital capabilities to help us and support us in optimizing our business. Then moving on to the second question, direct consumer. This is being a very important journey for us, very relevant, in the way that we've been implementing our to digital transformation, and perhaps one of the most important components of our current strategy. We've been seeing meaningful developments in the direct-to-consumer. COVID, as everybody talked about, accelerated a lot of consumer behaviors in this front. We generated this year more than $1 billion in revenues. Huge presence for direct-to-consumer in Latin America, we are now in 10 countries. We follow Ze Delivery, our international courier platform, delivering beer to 30 minutes, call to consumers at great prices. And in Europe, we have a slightly different approach, also, Omid Stores, but also doing perfect draft, which will be helping us a lot to bring the draft experience between home in Cape for example, we have a huge base of in-home bars now that people are using with our perfect draft. I think that the main mission on our direct-to-consumer is in one hand, best-in-class consumer - centric experiences but also gather more data, understand better occasions, and making sure that we are there when consumers need us. Brazil's that delivery now covers more than 50% of the Brazilian population. more than 280 cities and continues to expand very fast. Not only Brazil, but also they stand in another 10 countries in Latin America. Thanks for the question. Mitch Collett: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Edward Mundy with Jefferey's. Please proceed with your question. Edward Mundy: Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. Afternoon, morning, everyone. Two questions. please. You're a 100 days into the role and you highlighted in your presentation, some of the things that are working well on the category development side and also through digital transformation. As you doubled down on these, to what extent do you think there'll be sustainable leavers to growth beyond the current recovery period? And then my second question is, coming back to COGS. You didn't really have the same digital capability, last time the industry faced these COGS headwinds. How do your B2B and DTC assets make it easier to navigate a rising coax environment. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, please standby, we are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Again, please standby, we are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Thank you for your patience. Michel Doukeris : Hi, Ed. Michel here. Thanks for the question. I think that we were in mute before. So talking about the 100 days, I think that there is a lot to learn in 100 days, it goes by very fast. but when you are focused at the same time you can achieve a lot. I think your question was more in to the digital part, and we are doubling down on that. I think that on digital is, as I said on the last quarter, that is this concept off stepping stones. So we started this journey, five-six years ago, and we knew that as we progress, we will be learning much more, and we will be building momentum with the data that we gather, with the experiences and with the learning along the way. What is very relevant here is that, this is a long-term investment, very strategic. We are doing first and foremost, focusing on consumer and customers. On the consumer front is, reasonable experiences and being there for consumers when they want us, on the occasions that they want, and making us more available in a broad range of occasions and tapping into the digital trends that consumers are really engaging with. On the B2B, this is a very interesting opportunity to digitize part of all context strategy, making sure that we learned more promoted scale through data. And now as we capture this data, and we improve our execution capabilities, our overall strategy gets a much better execution because, we free up time from our people, from our team to focus on what matters the most. The premiumization of our portfolio, the activation of all occasions and this unlocks new revenue stream s for us. And of course, we have 13 countries now with BEES. We continue to expand quickly in this countries. We are going very deep, 70% to more than 80% of our revenues now coming from BEES. And the more we go, the more we learn, and the more we get further opportunities to continue to expand beyond only our own business. So we have examples of marketplace, We have examples of services, we have examples off credits. And when you think about COGS, how does digitalization of our relative market and relative consumer helps that? It gives us more information, that ability to forecast our own volumes and how to adapt and adjust our supply chain to be more effective. So that is a lot of learnings that we are building there. A very unique position given our size and our footprint. And this is also giving us better ability to utilize and maximize our revenue management strategy. Edward Mundy: Thanks, Michel and just -- just coming back to your example on the Dominican Republic on Slide 13, you said that net revenue per delivery, those are getting out -- does it help from a pricing standpoint to have some BEES. Michel Doukeris : Yes. That is again a very interesting market for us was the market where the team decided to take BEES to full execution. The base team did a great job that understanding all consumer pain points, building up the tech knowledge, enhancing all the models that we had. A working beyond two weeks ago, which the team, reviewing everything and all the progress that we're making there. So we're showing here the Beer only revenues on the example and you saw that there was an acceleration. This acceleration, of course, is a product of following entire commercial strategy. Not only BEES, because that is more communization in the market, there is morning innovation, there is more deliveries and there is more availability. And this is helped and supported by BEES. On top of that, we also have now lower marketplace than with BEES. So there is more revenue than the one that we put on this live. And of course, part of our overall strategy is revenue management. So this growth that we saw in this live is, the combination of volume growth plus revenue per hectoliter growth. And they're both enabled by this, but also by our overall commercial strategy that has premiumization, that has digitalization, that has a very strong execution in the marketplace. Edward Mundy: Great. Thank you. Michel Doukeris : Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Trevor Stirling with Bernstein, please proceed with your question. Trevor Stirling: Hello Mitchell and Fernando 2 questions on my side. Mitchell, and Fernando you increased 2 guidance today, but just wondering if you wanted to highlight what went so well in the Third quarter that gave you the confidence to increase the guidance. The second question is, what's coming back to your first 100 days, Michel, what do you think is the biggest changes we've made since you took over as CEO? Fernando Tennenbaum: Thanks, Trevor. On the guidance, in the beginning of the year, we provided our guidance of an EBITDA growth of eight to 12. Now, we already have nine months behind us, so it's natural that we raised the bottom end of our guidance. Now we added 10 to 12 and we continue to maintain there's going to be 10 to 12 and our revenue is likely to grow ahead of which going to be a healthy combination of volume and price. It's fair to say that our teams worldwide has been successfully navigating our quite a complex environment with our customer and consumer - centric approach. And we are confident about the momentum of our business performance. So as a consequence, we are raising the lower end of the guidance and now we're at 10% to 12%. Michel Doukeris : Hi Trevor. Michel here taking on the second part of your question, related to the 100 days. As I said before 100 days, they go by fast, but focus always help and thank you to execute an extract more on what you're doing. I think that the real deal on their 100 days so far was really talking towards team and listening from everybody. I'm very impressed and humbled by their passion and their execution in focus on what we need to do. I continue to learn over this 25 years and really our team has been teaching me and sharing a lot with me. So I shared with you before that my 3 focus as I got started was really about, mid the moment and deliver a great 2021. Make sure that, we are very clear about what's working. And therefore, able to investing and accelerate, what's already working, why you're building this extreme focus on being sustainable leader with consistent financial performance. I think that -- I talked about this on the press release. So what I'm really trying to bring to the team here is, a sense of simplicity and focus, and really focus on relentless execution, invest behind our brands, playing to my strengths and my market here by heart and this is what I like doing. And accelerate our digital transformation. So those are the three points. So relentless execution, focus and investment behind our brands, and accelerate our digital transformation. Trevor Stirling: Thank you very much, gentlemen. Operator: Our next question is coming from the line of Sanjeet Aujla with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question. Sanjeet Aujla: Hey, Michel and Fernando. My question is really looking at many of your markets. Industry demand is well ahead of prepandemic levels. Notably Colombia and Brazil. What do you think is driving that and how sustainable is this? Do you think volumes can continue to grow on this new hi base? Thank you. Michel Doukeris : Hi Sanjeet. Good afternoon, Michel speaking here. Thank you for the question. So I think that when you look at the market demand and the way that the category has been developing, I'm very glad to see markets such as Colombia, Brazil, Mexico. We talked about Canada industry growing the last quarter, and I'm very excited with the category development. I'm even more excited when I think about Brazil and Colombia this quarter, because there's really kept awarding growth all-time, high volumes, so we are unleashing the category growth and we ABI, we are leading this growth. So it's really innovation. The performance of our brands, the execution of our digital strategy in these 2 countries that has been bringing consumers to be closer to our brands. And therefore, we are reaping the benefits of this category developments. When you think about the long term, I think that's in both countries. And moreover, across the globe, the category continues to have a lot of opportunities to develop and now we are learning from the FTD model. In everything that we've been building over the last 5 years and accelerating now, we forward deals of what the category expansion model can do and be for us is very exciting and be it is gaining share of globally this year, and I think that this is very good for the long-term prospects in the category. And in Brazil and in Colombia, is about innovation, is about an incredible execution for our teams new to markets, and is about the pace of our digital transformation. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Simon Hales with Citi. Please proceed with your question. Simon Hales: Thank you. Hi, Michel. Hi, Fernando. Two for me as well, please. Michel, you talked at the beginning about, the pricing you've been taken up late and how they're probably going to be more to come, as we look forward over the next few months. Some of your competitors has been highlighting that, given the broader inflationary backdrop that sitting consumer's pockets, that they've started to see some signs of a slowdown in some markets in terms of consumer offtake for Beer. How do you think and how confident are you, in the beer categories ability really to hold its fair share of the consumers wallet, against that inflationary backdrop as we look into 2022? And then secondly, on the U.S. How do you see the backdrop for the U.S. businesses, as we look into Q4? You clearly had some out-of-stocks in Q3. Is that correcting itself or our ongoing glass and supply constraint is likely to intensify from here into the year-end. Michel Doukeris : Hi, Simon. Thank you for the questions. I think that brought the 2 questions here. I will start to the first one on pricing and category and with specific. I think that the beer category globally has been proving to be very resilient. And they think that it's not resilient over the years but throughout the pandemic, we saw that spike off fall change than shifts in channel lock-downs, the consumer demand was there and continues to be there. And the category continues to grow and as I said before, gaining share of throughout globally, I think that being key markets where we already got the price going, examples, Brazil, China, Mexico, Colombia. The demand for our brands continue to be a better . And this has to do with all investments that we've been doing to our brands and the number of consumers that Lahore brands. This has to do with forward execution, so our teams have been working very hard and has to do as well with the ability to innovate and continue to support and drive the consumer demand. I think that input costs, they continue to be on the rise. I don't think that we have all the data today to be quite honest, we queue on what's going to happen as all categories, as you said, our increasing prices when inflation continues to pick up. But what we see as well is that like shortage in labor, solids are going up, and consumer purchase power continues to be strong. So in facing these inflation scenario, but at the same time, having consumer purchase power, we expect the category to continue to perform well. And on our side, which is very important, we continue to invest in our brands to drive consumer demand, innovation, and enhancing our digital capabilities. Moving then to the second topic, which is U.S., I think that we need to step back for a second, I know that you are doing this. And looking at last year, if we think about third quarter last year was an amazing quarter for Beer, with industry growth in regroup both top-line and bottom line last year. As we cycled, this third quarter, we are faced with tough comps, but also a lot of supply chain disruptions. The disruptions came most as you just said now from glass. There was 2 important events. One was the end of the winter storms in the south that just caused the big crunch in transportation, but also glass availability. In the second one is well normal this point cyber event that also cut in the North of the U.S. this supply chain availability. So we have a lot of trouble together as the industry in the quarter three, our positions in terms of inventory now are much better. We are coming back to a much better supply for our wholesalers in the floor or retailers. We're not over yet, but the position for the quarter four looks to be much better as we got started, October as a matter of fact at the end of September. And now we're forecast with what we know now is that it's going to be better for quarter four this year, quarter one next year. Thanks for the question. Simon Hales: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Olivier Nicolai with Goldman Sachs, please proceed with your question. Olivier Nicolai: Good morning, Michel. Good morning, Fernando. Just one question actually, on the U.S. and the hops of the category, which has been stirring down in the recent months. We have also seen a proliferation of brand and line extensions of any from you or so for many of your competitors? Now do you expect the slowdown to be temporary? And do you think you've got Korea, could accelerate again? And also what's your view on how Tesla outside of Europe, off of the U.S. and thinking about Europe or Latin America? Thank you. Michel Doukeris : Hi, Olivier. Thanks for the Olivier Nicolai: question. So 2 parts here. The first one is in the U.S. category, and they would like to go back to the answer that they just gave. And when we compare the last 3 months or quarter 3. There was really this test comp last year. And if we all just like -- just think about everything that we discussed last year, the U.S. had a very different behavior in terms of industry during the pandemic as compare as the rest of our markets, right? And this difference was driven by 2 things that I would say, many more but 2 things. 1 is the different channels in the U.S. Michel Doukeris : Where the off-trade represents more than 80% of the category. And when you have all the lockdowns, the off-trade was open and there was a lot of pantry loading. The second part was, how quick the government's reacted in the U.S. with the stimulus package, and then people had money, and they had the channels open, and they bought a lot of beer, a lot of products sold there. Industry in the U.S. performed quite well during the pandemic. So much sold that even though business slowed down in the quarter three, the quarter three this year was both quarter three 2019 for the industry, as well as for our top-line and bottom-line. Therefore, I think that there was a typical but the industry overall remains in good shape in the prospects and that our view are very positive for the U.S. On the second part of your question, when we think about self-service, I always go back to this point that self-service and Beyond Beer are very good . And we see industries like the U.S. I always refer back to Canada as well, that has a different Beyond Beer compositions are really self-service. These industries is structurally for long time, they've been, which is low down, have growing revenue, but not in volumes. And in the last 2 years, they're growing. And they're growing because self-serving Beyond Beer. They attract consumers from outside of the category and more than 50% of growth of our Beyond Beer and seltzers, they are from wine and spirit occasions and consumers. Therefore, there is a lot of incrementality there. The manifestation of this Beyond Beer, it came across this markets in different shape and form, right? So what first ciders, then seltzers, then ready-to-drink cocktails. In Canada, there's a very strong ready to drink beverages, but also vodka seltzers. So this is good if in transformation over time. But what is true is that it's very incremental. And we do have capabilities because of the packaging in which the Beyond Beer shows up because of the channels and because of our ability to constantly innovate, to take advantage of this, not only North America, but also globally, we're very well, equipped as we expand Beyond Beer globally. Look at South Africa, the results of flying fish in brutal fruit there. Look at Mexico, how fast we're gaining, sharing the Beyond Beer, and then we continue to expand this in other markets. I think that self-serve and Beyond Beer group continued to grow in North America. Of course, we'll discuss this at the beginning of the year, we said that growth would be around 20 to 50%. As of today growth is around 20%, the bottom end of what we said there, and we continue to grow 1.8 times what the category is growing so happy. We continue to invest, we continue to innovate and we're very excited when it's ready-to-drink . So Cutwater is expanding fast year-to-date triple digit, quarter three triple-digits and we are investing to continue to expand distribution, but also brand preference in growth . Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you for the question. Olivier Nicolai: Thank you very much. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Celine Pannuti with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed with your question. Celine Pannuti: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, good morning, everyone. My first question is on gross margin. I thought that your gross margin was down a bit, 130,140 basis points in the quarter. And is it possible for you to give us a bit of the building block because I would presume you still at some mixed benefit. And obviously your pricing plaque, two liter, where does well better. So if you could help us there. And given I appreciate, you can give and actually for 2022?roe metallization?, but I presume you probably have a view for the first half of the year, does it means that we should expect that kind of triple-digit gross margin appraisal as we look into H1? And my second question is on innovation. I'm pleased that innovation was 10% of your sales year-to-date. How do define innovation like new product launch on how many -- I mean, on what time frame basis. And I saw that you have a plan, a lot of roll out and yet your SG&A in the quarter was flat. So what is the outlook for SG&A as we look into the next year? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thanks Celine, Fernando here. On your gross margin question, I'm going back to our guidance. Our guidance would be to grow EBITDA 10% to 12% and we were saying that our revenues would be growing ahead of forward EBITDA. And the main reason for that, and we discussed it that several times, is even the effects and pressures that would have on your cost of goods sold that will have an impact this year. On 2022, we are not giving any outlook yet. So what we -- we've been seeing is the different forces per Michel 's comment about the input cost pressures. So they -- they are here, they are real. On the other hand, we have a lot of farther initiatives on our revenue management, on our digital capabilities, on innovations to be able to manage through that, okay? In your questions on innovations. What innovation, how they calculate innovation? Innovation is 30 -- is, new products that didn't exist over the last 3 years or 36 months. So that's how we defined innovation on our numbers. Celine Pannuti: And on SG&A? Fernando Tennenbaum: G&A. No, we're not also giving outlook on SG&A. The only outlook that we're giving our EBITDA is 10 to 12%. Celine Pannuti: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nik Oliver with UBS. Please proceed with your question. Nik Oliver: Hey, thank you for the questions. Two from my side as well, especially on Brazil, if you could just share a bit more color on what appears to be a material out performance in the market in Q3, at least versus the production data that we all track. And then secondly a longer-term question. I guess in the past we tended to think about AB InBev as an EBITDA margin expansion story. Is it right to think more about the Company now in dollar profit growth? as opposed to purely FIPS margin, given some of the commodity pressures we've talked about. And also some of the innovations which I guess may be additive from a dollar basis, but not always from a percentage basis. Thank you. Michel Doukeris : Hi Nick, Michel here. Thank you for the question. So starting with Brazil, I think that lots of things, about Brazil, but maybe starting with one general constitute is probably when we look at Brazil and our commercial strategy the also, top line growth, Brazil is one of the countries in reach. our strategy is more developed and the implementation is well advanced, from portfolio re-balance, to innovation, to digital transformation in the consumer end, but also in the retail end. We have a great team in Brazil. That execution, its outstanding and they've being pushing this will, this strategy relentless. Even in face of all the challenge that we had during the pandemic. Prioritizing our people, our communities and our business partners. I think that the store in Brazil, as you can see is really a top-line lead recovery. because there is a locking effects in commodity as Fernando was saying before. And 3 main points in Brazil were balancing the portfolio, reigniting in the accelerating innovation, and digitizing our business in the consumer front but also in the retail front. When we think about the margin question, I think that's an excellent question because we have fundamental drivers, that they give us the leading margins that we have in industries. So do we need portfolio of brands that we have? And the premium price that these brands command in each and every market. Our consumer - centric strategy and digitizing now our right route to consumer. And now our route to market. It only gives us enhanced capabilities to continue to drive our margins. Our leadership position in the key markets, very important industry profits pools. Our operational excellence in the way that we manage our business. And most important of all, our ownership culture. When we think above the low term and just think about this year, for example, our top-line growing ahead of our bottom line is because there is a lot of growth that we're pursuing. And this growth can be incremental in terms of margins in cash flow-generation and therefore we want to pursue growth. And I think that you're right when you say that the dollar growth is far as more important than only the margin growth. As a matter of fact, they will always like 2 examples to build on that. I think that's one we just talked about Beyond Beer and Cutwater, for example. On dollar per hectoliter, each and every case that we sell Cutwater has high year margins per hectoliter. But because there is a lot of costs that go in between the net revenue in the margin. and because we are still building scale on Cutwater the percent of margin that you get on each case is not as good as a case of beer or a case of the Light in the U.S. But it's still total margin, total practical litter is very incremental. When you then deploy your full commercial strategies, the digital progress that we have, example that I just gave in Dominican Republic. You can take a lot of examples where you are managing is on a percentage base much better that because it's a fixed cost is a 1/3 of this type of margin. You get more dollars in a lot of incremental margin from the digital products that you are offering. So the balance of everything is very hard to quantify on a short period of time. But the most important thing is that, you brought the point is, how we are bringing incremental profits and incremental cash flow. Nik Oliver: Great, super clear. Thank you so much. Michel Doukeris : Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our final question will come from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore. Please proceed with your question. Rob Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much. When I look at the global beverage space, in particularly the global alcohol space, I don't think I can remember a time in which the valuations between the beer companies and the spirits companies has ever been this great. And certainly the Diageo 's and the Pruno 's are fantastic companies, they're doing really well. But the valuation differences between them and yourselves and Heineken are really hard, in my mind to get around. And clearly the spirits companies are doing better in the U.S. You mentioned though, throughout the presentation that, globally Beer is gaining share of alcohol. So given the extreme disparities in valuation, can you talk a little bit about how that informs your strategy? And maybe a little bit more details about, what is going on around the world in terms of beers performance versus spirits. And whether, you see opportunities in the spirit space. Obviously, RTD is something you've mentioned. Thank you. Michel Doukeris : Hi, Robert. Good morning and thank you for the question. So I think that there is several pieces of the question. I will try to address in the sequence that you brought to us. But in terms of valuation I'm not going to get too deep on that and know that you all are much better than I am in the work of making the valuation of the companies. I think that there is a couple of points though that are very important for us to highlight here. As I said before, first I think that we all saw how resilient the Beer category was over the pandemic. And I think that these needs to bring us to reflect the fall. The way that we've been thinking and talking about the beer category. And it's true when you look at data or monitor, we've been putting some data together because this data is not really available from one single-source across all countries. But when you combine the different pieces of data, it's very interesting to see that, despite of the narrative that, I don't know how it's built from there. Beer is gaining share of throat globally, right? And I think that is growing, and it has a lot to do with elicit alcohol that is no longer growing. Our beer is capturing because of the moderation and because of the affordability. It has to do with the expansion of the categories, some very important markets. You mentioned China, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico as we just saw it. And then it's much more that we can continue to do. I think that we learned from SAV the model of the category, but the modern itself is just like a picture. The really important thing is how we are now activating the different and soft drink category and the innovating to drive growth. When you think even more mature markets, I assume that this is good for us to remember, always you think about North America, U.S. or Canada. You think about UK. Beer is growing since 2020, since 2019. And Beer is growing by innovating, beer is growing by tackling new occasions. And be it is growing by driving growth with the Beyond Beer. So there is very important intersection between wine, hard of liquid, a beer, where the Beyond Beer. The fourth category as people call it here in the United States, is an incredible opportunity. It's sorts as more than 50% of its growth from wine and from hard the liquid. And because we are well-positioned with ., with our for addiction facilities and the wishing innovation to drive growth in this space. We can continue to drive the category forward, and we can take these learnings down to developing and emerging markets and drive further growth in markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, South Africa. We've been using a lot of data to drive this growth, we've been digitizing our role to market and our role to consumer to understand better, not only the points of sales, but also the consumer occasions. And I believe that we are very well-positioned as ABI to lead this next wave, and to continue to lead the beer category to a better momentum and to further growth. And we see this, I would not take this lightly, but record volumes in Brazil, record per capita consumption in Colombia, those are not small markets. Those are very relevant markets, where it's being proving that, yes, we can do it. We can preimmunize, we can innovate, and we can lead the category. So I'm very excited with that. Rob Ottenstein: Thank you. Michel Doukeris : Thank you. Thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris : Thank you, Jeff. And thank you all for their questions. To wrap up, we had been focused on meeting the moment and delivering a great 2021. We continue to build on our momentum by investing in and accelerating what's already working and focusing on our consumer and customer centric mindset, to drive long-term value-creation. I would like to invite everyone to join our Capital Markets Day, which will take place virtually on December 6th. Additional details in links to register will be available on our website in due course. Finally, I would like to thank the opportunity -- take the opportunity here to thank and express my gratitude to our 106 to 4 thousand colleagues globally for their continued execution, passion, and ownership. Thank you all for your time today and for your ongoing partnership and support of our business. Please stay safe and well, and I'm looking forward to talk to you soon. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.

Operator: Welcome to Anheuser-Busch InBev Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Michel Doukeris, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today’s call, please visit AB InBev’s website at www.ab-inbev.com, and click on the Investors tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today’s webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jesse, and welcome everyone to our second quarter 2021 earnings call, and my first as CEO of AB InBev. It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you all today, and I hope you and your families are all staying well and safe. Before we move through the agenda for the call, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge Brito’s accomplishments and to wish him the very best. I know I speak on behalf of my colleagues when I say how we miss working with such a great leader, mentor, partner and friend. As I reflect upon the last few months, I can best describe this time as a celebration of our culture and a great example of our unique Dream, People, Culture platform working at its best. At AB InBev, we believe that having diverse experiences and perspectives drives growth and value-creation. Throughout my 25 years at the Company, I’ve had the privilege to lead our business across different regions of the world, working alongside the industry’s most talented and passionate colleagues every step of the way. Stepping into this role, I look forward to working together with the team to collectively drive our business into this next chapter. As we position the business for the future, I’m focused on the following priorities. First, we will continue to meet the moment and build on our current top-line momentum. Our business and the beer category have been proving resilient and reliable in times of crisis. Despite an ongoing challenging environment, we’ll continue to lead with our customer and consumer-centric approach. Secondly, we’ll continue to invest in and accelerate what’s already working. This includes category development, premiumization, health and wellness, Beyond Beer, and our digital transformation initiatives with our BEES platform and direct-to-consumer. Finally, we are confident in the future growth prospects of our business in the beer category. Our commercial strategy combined with our fundamental strengths, which include our people, leadership across the world’s largest beer craft brewers, balanced exposure to both developed and emerging markets, operational excellence and a culture of ownership, provide a unique platform to unlock growth and value-creation from our ecosystem. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thank you, Michel. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I hope you are all safe and well. Let me first take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS. Our underlying EPS increased by $0.35 from $0.40 to $0.75. Normalized EBIT increased by $0.68 per share. Net finance cost, we recorded lower interest expense due to gross debt reduction offset by other finance costs. We saw higher income tax expense due to increased profitability, country mix and reduced benefits from tax attributes worth $0.26 per share. We also recorded higher non-controlling interest worth $0.09 per share, resulting from higher profits of our listed subsidiaries, Budweiser APAC and Ambev, along with the issuance of a 49.9% minority stake in our U.S.-based metal container operations in December 2020. On slide 17, you’ll see that our debt maturity profile is well distributed across the next several years with no significant maturities over the next five years. In the first half of the year, we redeemed a total of $5.8 billion of bonds. Combined with redemptions of commercial paper, we reduced total gross debt from $98.6 billion at December 31 to $90.6 billion at June 30th. Furthermore, we redeemed an additional $565 million of bonds in July. We continue to reduce debt while maintaining a strong liquidity position of $16.9 billion at the end of the quarter. Let’s elaborate further on our debt portfolio on slide 18. As a reminder, we do not have any financial covenants on our entire debt portfolio, including our sustainability-linked revolving credit facility. Our bond portfolio remains largely insulated from interest rate volatility as approximately 95% holds a fixed rate. Furthermore, the portfolio is comprised of a variety of currencies with 51% denominated in U.S. dollars, 36% in euro and the remainder in currencies such as the Canadian dollar, pound sterling and Korean won, diversifying our FX risk. The weighted average maturity of our debt portfolio is more than 16 years. Finally, we continue to have a very manageable weighted average coupon rate of approximately 4%. Operator: Our first question is coming from Trevor Stirling with Bernstein. Trevor Stirling: Good morning, Michel and Fernando. Just one question from my side is relating to North America. Very strong price mix in the quarter, over 4%, and yet EBITDA margins compressed 280 basis points. Could you just give us a little bit of color about what drove that? And how much of that pressure you expect to persist into the second half of the year? Michel Doukeris: Hi, Trevor. Good morning, and thank you for your question. I think that as you said, we delivered top-line growth of 6.8% in the U.S. in this quarter. It was driven by volume as well as net revenue per hectoliter that came very strong. We made a strategic decision to prioritize service levels to our consumers and customers during the year. And as you know, last year, we had a lot of disruptions in the supply chain. And as you can imagine, when we went last year from full markets to servicing only the off-premise, you have like bigger package leading one channel, bigger drop size. As the market and the economy reopen because of consumer mobility, you can imagine that the channels, they will open gradually and you go from concentrated volumes in off-premise to then seen convenience stores in different packages, lower drop size, to a subsequent on-premise reopening, even more packs and even more drops for you to do with your distribution network. And this, of course, is something that you have the shutdown and the reopening, almost like a reset. If you get straight, there are like two costs impacting big time the quarter in North America. One is imported cans in order to maintain surge level because the canned market in the U.S. was very tight last year and first half of this year. We are importing cans from several other markets and as well as, as we described in the press release, the accruals of variable compensation, which I can then hand over to Fernando to talk a little bit more because this is one impact that we’ll see across different markets. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Trevor, Fernando here. So, building up on what Michel just said, variable compensation is going to come across not only the U.S. but across all zones. As you know, the compensation structure that we have is closely linked to business performance. And in 2020, most of our people, including the senior leadership team did not receive a bonus because we had, given -- especially what happened in the first half of last year. This quarter, given that we -- the performance was strong, our EBITDA grew 22%, so we had variable compensation accruals, which we recorded quarter-by-quarter at some level and it depends on the operational performance. So, if you look at second quarter, we grew even more than we grew in the first quarter. So that comment is on variable compensation accrual. So quarter-by-quarter, this might change. But it’s one number for you to have in mind that whenever we posted strong growth, there also commands higher variable compensation accruals. Michel Doukeris: And bringing this to one point for you to have in mind, the underlying trends in the U.S. reflected in our top-line remain very strong. Trevor Stirling: If I could just ask a follow-up, particularly one around bonus accruals. Your guidance implies that -- second half EBITDA growth for the group will be significantly less and flat, maybe down, maybe up slightly. Presumably then, the bonus accruals will be much lower in the second half than maybe in the first half. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Trevor. We are not giving any guidance on how we accrue. But it’s fair to say that the growth of our business has an impact, the growth on a given quarter on how we accrue bonus. So -- and it’s also a fair statement, the one that you made, if you look at our guidance of 8% to 12% that since we grew ahead of that on the first half of the year, our guidance, if you do the math, you are going to grow at a lower pace than we do in the first half. So, that is a component to take into account to a new accrue bonus. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Simon Hales with Citi. Simon Hales: Can I ask you a little bit about marketing spend, please? You’ve clearly been upweighting spend again through the period. Where are we now in terms of the level of support that’s going behind the business, especially in key markets, like the U. S. compared to where you were pre-pandemic? And more generally, Michel, when you look forward in your new role, do you see a need to perhaps significantly further upweight over the next two to three years, overall levels of marketing investments, or is it more about maximizing the efficiency on the existing spend that’s there? Michel Doukeris: Good morning. And thank you for your question. So, I think that the first message there is that we continue to be positive and confident on the momentum of our business with our top-line growing ahead of pre-pandemic levels. And we are supporting this growth, investing in both sales and marketing, but also CapEx as we continue to drive this growth and this momentum forward. When we think about our ability to continue to drive the business and organic growth, we’ll continue to invest and accelerate things that are already working for us. And we see several opportunities in this area, category development, premiumization, Beyond Beer, our digital transformation and innovation. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Pinar Ergun with Morgan Stanley. Pinar Ergun: How do you expect your commercial strategy in Brazil to evolve over the next year in the context of increasing capacity in the industry? And by that, I would love to hear how much of the market share gains you’ve had are sustainable, you think? And how would you think about pricing going forward? Michel Doukeris: Good morning, Pinar. So Brazil, as we highlighted in the main highlights is with very strong momentum. Our volumes grew double digit, outperforming the industry. We have our premium portfolio and our global brands also growing double digits, very strong performance. Our innovation is leading the way. Brahma Duplo Malte now is the leader in the pure malt segment and continues to grow, very strong momentum. And our core brands throughout the pandemic have shown a lot of resilience. So, the core segment remains performing very well. And you know, our history and heritage in Brazil with good operational performance, we’ve been proving this and unlocking a lot of opportunities with new technology, so digital transformation in Brazil with this, the way that we serve our customers and our direct-to-consumer, which is that delivery, they continue to strength the beer business that we have there, giving us opportunities to go Beyond Beer and have also good performance, and the power of our brand is responding together with the momentum that we have. So, we are closer to consumers. We are closer to customers, and our brands are gaining momentum. So, we are very confident and positive on the outlook in Brazil. Operator: Our next question comes from Priya Ohri-Gupta of Barclays. Priya Ohri-Gupta: Michel, welcome. And Fernando, I think these questions will be geared a little bit more towards you. First, I was hoping that you could talk a little bit about the leverage. You showed good progress improving about 0.4 times over the first half. As we consider the second half, given sort of the implicit cadence reduction in EBITDA, I wanted to get your thoughts on whether there’s scope to see a similar level of improvement and how we should think about the different pace of recovery that’s occurring in various markets, as a result of the delta variant and vaccine rates affecting that? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi, Priya. Thanks for your question. So, you’re right, with the leverage, like 0.4 turns in the first half of the year, we are not giving any specific guidance on that is going to go moving forward. But, if you look, like we had an EBITDA increasing that helped. Net debt was pretty much flat, which is normal. It’s part of the seasonality of our business. And normally, we tend to generate a meaningful amount of cash in the second half. So, in the second half, not only we have EBITDA component, but you also have the debt paydown component. If I could highlight one point was actually the gross debt reduction, which is a very important one, and it talks a little -- it talks somehow to your question about our business. Our business has proven to be very resilient and very reliable. Last year, in the beginning of the year, we decided to increase cash balances, which was important given how uncertain the environment to us, especially in the first two months of the pandemic. As we keep going and our business has proven over and over again to be resilient, reliable and predictable, we started reducing this cash balance. So, a number that I’d like to highlight is the $8 billion reduction in cash balances in gross debt that we have this year. We still have a very healthy liquidity position, but this connects directly to our interest expense, which was reduced by almost like $100 million in the second quarter. Priya Ohri-Gupta: Okay. That’s helpful. And just following up on that last point with regards to interest expense. Given the progress that you’ve made on addressing the debt maturities that you have over the next five years or so and pushing out the maturity profile, how are you thinking about opportunities to further improve your interest expense, particularly with some of the long-dated or higher compound debt that you have outstanding? Thank you. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thanks, Priya. Probably, we are going to continue to generate cash and continue to reduce debt. That is going to be the focus. So, the interest expense reduction is likely to come from reducing, paying down debt rather than any other initiative. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Sanjeet Aujla with Credit Suisse. Sanjeet Aujla: Michel and Fernando, three questions from me, please. Firstly, can you just talk a little bit about how the channel and package mix of your portfolio is evolving as the on-premise is reopening across many markets? Are you seeing that channel pack mix quickly go back to kind of prepandemic levels, or are we still lagging there? And secondly, Fernando, I was just wondering if you’d be able to quantify, of the 18% increase in SG&A in the first half of the year, exactly how much of that was driven by bonus accruals? And then, I know still it’s quite early to be talking about 2022, but clearly, with recent commodity cost moves, the industry is likely to face pressure on input costs. Do you have a view on how significant that could be? And how you’re thinking about pricing across your markets to manage through that? Thanks. Michel Doukeris: Hi, Sanjeet. Good afternoon. Let me take the first one here, and I will hand over to Fernando to talk about the second and maybe come back to talk about the third. I think that I was trying to describe early on the call to Trevor. As you can imagine, when the markets were locked down, you had this huge migration that was from on-premise, convenience store, all consumers going to the large off-trade. And large off-trade, what we saw was a lot of concentrated volume that was concentrated in large packs. As we reopen, what we’ve been seeing in majority of markets, okay, not everywhere, but in majority of markets, is that, first you start with consumer mobility. And then, the first channels that are impacted are the small off-trade and convenience stores. And then, the difference when you go to the large big packs, you start having more small, medium packs in a lot of variety, which is the third in the convenience store. And the last one to pick up is then on-trade and the on-trade is generally starting with bigger brands and a lot of bottles, but quickly then transitioning to more brands and draft as well. And then, you go from very large volumes, concentrated packs toward bigger variety packs and then a third wave that brings much more variety and smaller packs as well. Of course, as it was at first, is a onetime setup, right, because things tend to be normal after that. And you’ve been seeing markets that are more normalized now. I can use examples that are very close to me in the U.S. If you think about Florida, that was already operating for somehow 3 months in a more normal, we are back to normal pace. And overall, you see around 90-plus percent of the on-trade coming back, convenience stores are fully operating and the off-premise continues to keep some of the strengths before, which I assume related to occasions, a lot of in-home locations that came to play. Let me then hand over to Fernando to talk about SG&A. Fernando Tennenbaum: Thanks, Michel. Sanjeet, we’re not giving split guidance or quantifying the bonus accruals. But probably, the best way for us to think about it, and I know that sometimes you have some kind of in-quarter volatility or phasing, but normally the best way for you to try to model sales and marketing is always a percentage of revenues and maybe you can use that as a proxy, with some variability up and down, but it’s a good proxy. And then, if I could make a statement, probably the highest increase that we had in our administrative expenses was the variable compensation accrued. So, that’s probably a good way for you to look at that. With that, I’m going to hand back to Michel, so he can comment on the cost pressures for 2022 and beyond. Michel Doukeris: So, I think if I got your question right, Sanjeet, you’re talking about pricing and costs, how these two things come together, right? I think that I would like to start by thinking about our H1 revenues per hectoliter, we grew 4.7%. While in the quarter two, we grew 5.8%. And when I think about our price decision, of course, they take under consideration several elements that include the local market situation, local market competition but also inflation. And because of our hedging policy, and our industry-leading profitability, we do have time to react as we plan for what’s coming. And on our long-term strategy for price, there’s no change. We continue to look at CPI inflation and how we price. But, we do have in-house capabilities, track record and a lot of experience in operating in different inflationary environments. Therefore, we are confident on the way that we look forward and our ability to continue to drive momentum while we are cautious and looking at the cost, so we can further tailor our price movements for next year. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Mitch Collett with Deutsche Bank. Mitch Collett: One big picture one for Michel. As a global leader in beer, I’d love to get your perspectives on the health of the category overall, and specifically, its competitive position relative to other segments. It seems, in particular, that your competitors in spirits are investing more. So, does that require a competitive response from you? Thanks. Michel Doukeris: Good morning, good afternoon. Thanks for your question. So, I think that if you allow me to step back for a second, and we put this point there several times during the call today in the press release, the beer category globally has proven to be very resilient, and our business, very reliable, even in the context of the pandemic. And on top of that, when you look into global beer category, beer is growing. Meaningful markets such as Brazil, China, Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, you name it, beer is gaining share of throat. And our top-line growth that was ahead of pre-pandemic levels, demonstrates not only the resilience but the reliability of our business and our momentum. When you think more mature markets, if that would come as a question to you, like U.S., UK, Canada, even France, beer is growing in the last few years, and what is driving growth is both, premiumization and innovation. Think, for example, on the Beyond Beer and the impact that seltzers, for example, had in the U.S. or the ready-to-drink cocktails are having in a very mature market, such as Canada. When we think about the capabilities we have, the brands that we are working with and the innovation that we can drive, we do have an opportunity to increase our addressable market and grow. I can give another example. Cutwater, our ready-to-drink brand in the U.S. is growing triple digits and is growing ahead of a segment now in the industry that is very healthy and growing triple digits as well. We do have here a big opportunity. We have the right capabilities to win at scale, profitably and globally in these Beyond Beer opportunities, addressing more consumers, more occasions and building on the strength of our route to market and the platform that we built over the years in beer. So, we see confident outlook there for the beer industry, which is growing globally, but as well as further opportunities for us to build and unlock value by going Beyond Beer and taking advantage of what we built over the last several years. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Rob Ottenstein with Evercore. Rob Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much. And congratulations again, Michel. You talk about a number of places in the press release being consumer and customer-centric. I was just wondering what that means to you, and how you look at that? And whether that is different than how the Company operated in the past? Thank you. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Robert. Very thoughtful question, and I appreciate you giving the chance to talk about that. I will try to be very brief here. But I think that there are three points when you think about customer and consumer centricity. The number one is really a mindset change in the Company that here I can best describe as instead of looking inside out, so what we want to achieve and execute things, you really need to look outside in. And fortunately, I think that over the last few years, this transformation is already taking place in the overall company, while some pockets of our company have been in this journey for a much longer time. Think about China and everything that we built in China. The second one is a very deliberative initiative of investing behind the insights, getting much more data and analytics to work in our favor, and with that, reorient the entire company on this outside in perspective and the company portfolio to be more oriented to where consumers are moving to and where the opportunities of growth for the future will be. So, I know that you are very familiar, and we have shared this in previous investors’ meeting, I have twice with you, our 10 YP idea in China, our 10 YP idea in U.S. and understanding very clear growth opportunities for us, so we could ruthlessly and very confidently invest in the future, not only the portfolio, but also in capability that we need to win in the future for the company. Examples of these capabilities are the high-end company, our Beyond Beer company and something that I’m very focused now, our digital transformation. And I would like to expand a little bit on the digital side. The digital transformation that we are going through now has one single-minded objective is really accelerate our capabilities in terms of how we can grow and expand our top-line. And the way that I like talking about that is really an opportunity for us to leverage the good of our reach, of our scale and our investment capacity. With more data, with forward route to market in this platform that we have globally, we can quickly expand more best practice. Just think about the 6 million customers that we have and the 10 million transactions that we have each and every week. And all the data that is sitting there on a city-by-city basis, where people are trying on their Excel spreadsheets, take the best of our analytics capabilities there. Now, through this, we can consolidate all this data in one single database. We can then better understand this data, we can better use this data and create much more value by using this and connecting with our customers, offering different services, offering even different products, which we are doing in some markets, we are expanding our ability to sell other products within this platform and serves our customers. When you think about the consumer side of that, with our direct-to-consumer, that delivery is proving that we can get much closer to consumers and consumer occasions and learn much more and use much more one-to-one marketing and then fully leverage and unleash the power that we have with draftLine. I can go on and on here and give you much more examples, but maybe you will understand, if I just use one metaphoric example, which is, think about this concept of stepping stones. Each time that we get 1 more customer or one more consumer data on our data link, we learn more, and we start testing more things. And we become much more agile, and we can implement at large scale one-to-one initiatives that before we were not able to do. And we are doing this with BEES as we expand, today 12 markets, $4.5 billion in GMV. We are doing this with B2C, doubled net revenues now in this quarter, and we expanded to several other markets. And this journey is just at the beginning, and I believe that we can unlock a lot of value and resources for us to fund our growth journey. Operator: Our next question is coming from Edward Mundy with Jefferies. Edward Mundy: I was interested in your sort of innovation angle and some of the early customer feedback on the rollout of the Duplo Malte segment into Colombia and Mexico and some of the other markets. Sort of how quickly have you moved from inception to launch? I know that you sped up the innovation process in the U.S. And beyond pure malt, do you think there are opportunities to bring a bit more excitement into the beer category, is my first question. My follow-up is one for Fernando. You banked a pretty decent first half from an EBITDA perspective. Are you able to provide a bit more of a framework of how you think about the range of scenarios into H2, some of the puts and takes to get to that 8% to 12%? Michel Doukeris: Thank you. Thanks for your question. Let me take the first one on innovation, and I will then hand over to Fernando to complement on the H2 EBITDA. So, in terms of innovation, we’ve been investing behind innovation, and we’ve been delivering on very sustainable and strategic innovations. And I just mentioned, for example, the innovations and the products that we are creating digital, and just imagine how fast we are able to create a new digital brand. BEES is scaled up to $4.5 billion in one single quarter in Gen Z and all the opportunities, once we connect these 1.8 million customers that we have for us to build and unlock and monetize this platform over time. In products, Duplo Malte is a true success story in Brazil. We built this brand in Brazil, our team built this brand and delivered an incredible product that is leading the malt segment in Brazil, the pure malt segment and is leading with product quality and with product taste and with product attributes. These travels so prove and move is what we are doing. And in other markets, this class to lager innovation is also proving to be true. So, that’s why we have now Colombia. We have now Mexico and other markets, and that was all done in a period of less than one year from the launch in Brazil to this scale up. But I just mentioned during the webcast that seltzer, Michelob ULTRA Seltzer, for example, in Mexico, was less than two months and is now leading the seltzer segment in Mexico and is a meaningful size of the Beyond Beer in Mexico, more than 10% already is seltzer. And when we think about delivering to consumers, it’s all about the quality, the experiences and our ability to continue to innovate and learn again from the good of our scale. And that’s why operating in 50 different markets gives us an advantage. But then, we have product innovation that goes straight into beer. We have products and capabilities innovations in Beyond Beer. And what I’m very excited about are our innovations in products that we are creating now in the digital space. I mentioned here BEES, but Zé Delivery is another brand that was created in a very short period of time and is already massive in Brazil as one of the main apps for people to order and having beverage being delivered at home, a very loyal consumer base and continues to scale up very quick in Brazil, and now it’s coming up in another 12 different countries. So, when you think about innovation on our side, think about products in beer, products Beyond Beer and the capabilities that we have and our ability that’s been proving now to create digital products that we will unlock a lot of value for our ecosystem. Fernando Tennenbaum: And on your question on range of scenarios or the guidance, the best way to put it, Ed, is like we gave our guidance on the -- after the first quarter. We continue to stand behind our guidance. The business is very reliable, very predictable. So, we knew starting that first half would be stronger, just because of -- that’s where the kind of the biggest hit of the pandemic last year happened. So, we knew that the first half would be stronger. We also knew, and we talked a lot, there will be some headwinds from effects on commodities. That’s our hedging policy. But if there is one takeaway that I would have is that we continue to be confident on the business. Very predictable, very reliable, even in the challenging environment that we are in. And the mention that we had that we should have revenue growth ahead of EBITDA because the top-line is performing very well and expect to continue to be strong. So, very, very happy with the business momentum. Operator: Thank you. This was the final question. If your question has not been answered, please feel free to contact the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the floor back over to Michel Doukeris for closing remarks. Michel Doukeris: Thank you, Jesse, and thank you all for your questions. To wrap up, I would like to say that we continue to be focused on meeting the moment and deliver in 2021 and building on our current top-line momentum. We will continue to invest in and accelerate what’s already working and explore future growth opportunities and further unlock value from our ecosystem. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to our 164,000 colleagues globally for their continued resilience, passion and ownership. Thank you all for your time today and your ongoing partnership and support of our business. Please stay safe and well. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s earnings conference call and webcast. Please disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.

Company Representatives: Carlos Brito - Chief Executive Officer Fernando Tennenbaum - Chief Financial Officer Operator: Welcome to the Anheuser-Busch InBev, First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from AB InBev are Mr. Carlos Brito, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Fernando Tennenbaum, Chief Financial Officer. To access the slides accompanying today's call, please visit AB InBev's website at www.ab-inbev.com and click on the Investors Tab and the Reports and Results Center page. Today's webcast will be available for on-demand playback later today. At this time all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. [Operator Instructions]. Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that AB InBev's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect AB InBev's future results, see Risk Factors in the company's latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on 19 March 2021. AB InBev assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Carlos Brito. Sir, you may begin. Carlos Brito : Thank you, Lorie, and good morning and good afternoon everyone. Welcome to our first quarter 2021 earnings call. I hope you are safe and well. Before discussing our results, I’d like to take a moment to address our other announcement. As most of you probably know by now, today we announced that after 32 incredible years at the company and 15 years as CEO, I'll be stepping down from AB InBev at the end of June. Starting July 1, Michel Doukeris who has very successfully led our North America zone for the past three years will become AB InBev’s new CEO. Throughout his carrier at AB InBev Michel has consistently delivered strong results, while serving in key leadership roles in Brazil, China and the U.S., three of the company's largest markets. I have the utmost confidence that he is the right person to lead our company through its next phase of growth and value creation. I wish Michel the very best as he begins his new role. When I joined Brahma in 1989, I never imagined the journey our company and I would embark on over the next three decades. I’m immensely proud of what this team has accomplished together. We’ve built the leading and most powerful global brewer, with the best brands and more importantly the best people. We grew the company both organically and inorganically through industry defining combinations. To-date we have an unparalleled portfolio of brands, including the most available beer brand in the world Budweiser, and our two other leading global brands Stella Artois and Corona. We became one of the top – one of the world's leading FMCG companies with operations in nearly 50 markets, our brands sold in more than 180 countries and selling more than one out of every four beers in the world. I want to thank all 164,000 colleagues of mine who made this all possible through their energy, passion, commitment and resilience. It has been an honor and privilege to work with such a talented group of individuals as we build this global company based on strong values and our unwavering commitment to excellence, quality, consumers and communities. I want to thank our shareholders and our analysts for the time devoted to AB InBev. I know you’ll enjoy getting to know Michel. Now, let me take you through our agenda today. I like to start with how we at AB InBev are doing our part to support the global economic recovery. I’ll then take you through our first quarter results, including highlights from our key markets. Next I'll walk through our Beyond Beer strategy. I will then hand it over to Fernando who will take you through our financials. We’ll then be happy to take your questions. Let's start with what we're doing to support the recovery. Beer has always been a strong engine of economic activity. Our beers are almost entirely sourced, brewed and enjoyed locally, deeply connecting us to the communities where we live and work. The beer industry generates local jobs upstream in farming, brewing, bottling and recycling and downstream supporting local retailers, bars and restaurants. For instance, for every job in a brewery in the U.S. over 30 jobs are created in supply chain. This multiplier is much higher in developing economies. We have an opportunity to recover from the pandemic in a way that’s both environmentally and socially sustainable. Our strong value chain can positively impact the economy, given its breadth and depth, putting us in a unique position to support the recovery. Across operations we continue to invest behind our business, expanding our facilities, production capacity, and most importantly, creating jobs. For example, in the U.S. we invested $1 billion over the next two years in manufacturing and sustainability across 26 States. In China we are investing our brew footprint and capabilities with the new Smart Green Brewery in Wenzhou. In the U.K. we announced a GBP160 million investment in two major breweries to increase capacity and efficiency. In Mozambique, we recently opened a new 2.4 million hectoliter brewery representing the biggest investment ever in the brewing sector in that country. We believe the fastest way to bring people together again is through its safe and effective global vaccine rollout. Using our marketing expertise, we developed a tool kit in partnership with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, UNITR, to create the successful vaccination campaigns through public, private, partnerships. We are also leveraging our scale and reach to accelerate the vaccine rollout across all markets. In the U.S., Budweiser donated its Super Bowl air time to raise vaccine awareness. In Colombia we led COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in partnership with the Ministry of Health. In Argentina we set up a vaccination site, administering 1,000 vaccines per day. We are committed to supporting communities and doing our part to accelerate the safe and sustainable recovery. Now let me take you through the results of the quarter. Our business is up, with a very strong start in 2021. We delivered balanced top line growth of 17.2% comprised of 13.3% volume growth and 3.7% revenue per hl growth, driven primarily by favorable brand mix from the outperformance of our premium portfolio. Our beer volumes grew by nearly 15%, while our non-beer volumes grew by 4%. Total volumes were ahead of pre pandemic levels as well with beer volume growth of 2.8 % versus the first quarter of 2019. Healthy revenue growth and ongoing cost discipline translated to an EBITDA increase of 14.2% and an EBITDA margin of 34.7%. Positive brand mix and ongoing cost discipline was somewhat offset by anticipated pressures from transactional FX and commodity headwinds, channel and packaging mix, and an increase in our SG&A as a result of higher variable compensation accruals, which are recorded by quarter at the zone level, depending on operational performance. Our normalized EPS increased to $0.51, while underlying EPS increased to $0.55. We are reaching more consumers than ever before to support full year approach. This quarter we gained share in the core and value segments across our markets. Our premium portfolio grew by double digits and our Beyond Beer business grew by over 40%. Our additional platforms continue to gain scale as our B2B platform BEES capturing over $3 billion in GMV and our old e-commerce business quadrupling in size. Now let me take you through some highlights from our key markets. In the U.S. we delivered top and bottom line growth, driven by the consistent execution of our consumer first strategy. We continue to strengthen our industry leading portfolio by rebalancing towards faster growing above core segments. In Mexico, we delivered top line growth of high single digits with both volume and revenue per hl growing by mid-single digits outperforming the industry. Our business in Colombia continued its strong momentum, delivering top and bottom line growth above 20% with robust performance across all segments of our portfolio. Our business in Brazil delivered a strong start of the year; our Beer business again outperformed the industry according to our estimates, growing volumes by nearly 16% in above pre-pandemic levels. In Europe, our business continues to be impacted by significant COVID-19 restrictions. Our own beer volumes excluding third party volumes were flat year-over-year as we delivered double digit growth in the off-premise channel powered by our Premium Portfolio. In South Africa our business was significantly impacted by a one month government-mandated ban on alcohol sales, which resulted in the volume decline in the quarter. Once the ban was lifted we saw solid underlying consumer demand for our brands. In China, our business delivered over 90% revenue growth, surpassing pre-COVID-19 levels, driven by ongoing premiumization. Volumes grew 85%, estimated to be ahead of the industry. Now, I’d like to spend some time highlighting our premium portfolio. Premiumization of the beer industry remains one of our most significant opportunities for growth. We have been investing to build a diverse portfolio of global, international and crafts and specialty premium brands across our markets, making us the largest premium brewer in the world. Our Premium portfolio now represents more than 30% of our total revenue, an increase of more than 6 percentage points from 2017 and grew by 28% in the first quarter. This growth is accretive to our bottom lines as our Premium brands carry a higher dollar profit per hectoliter than our core brands. Our global brands continue to lead the way in premiumization, with global revenue up by 29.5% and by 46.4% outside of their brands home markets, where they typically command a premium price point. All three of our global brands; Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona, grew by double digits versus the same period in both 2020 and 2019. Now I’d like to take you through our strategy to drive growth in Beyond Beer. The lines between established segments within alcohol, beer, wine and spirits continue to blur. A fourth category defined as the intersection between the segments has emerged as a relevant player with significant growth potential. We call this category Beyond Beer, and it includes products such as Ready to Drink Beverages like Canned Wine and Canned Cocktails, Hard Seltzers, Cider and Flavored Malt Beverages. This segment is expected to grow by 45% between 2019 to 2024. It is estimated to grow to $58 billion in global sales by 2024 according to Euromonitor. We believe we have the right strategy and capabilities to win in this space, by leveraging our agile innovation process, diverse geographic footprint, global supply chain and extensive route market. As markets mature, consumer needs and occasions evolve. It is critical to offer a portfolio of options to our consumers to drive growth. Beyond Beer products can offer functional benefits or attributes that are not offered by traditional beer, wine or spirits. When exploring this space, it's key for us to understand and map the specific opportunities where we have the capabilities and the right to win. Our team stayed closed to emerging trends in the Beyond Beer space and are empowered to invest in both organic and inorganic growth opportunities. Each of these opportunities goes through a seasonal launch phase designed to test to learn and they need the growth and scale or to pivot fast. Successful organic ventures include BEES in Brazil, Brutal Fruit in South Africa. On the inorganic side, we added brands such as Cutwater, [Inaudible] and Neutral [ph] to our portfolio as well. We are building a strong enough portfolio beyond beer products globally. We're launching Mike's Hard, a brand we own everywhere outside of the U.S., across our footprint. It will be available in more than 20 countries by the end of this year, in both the Mike's Hard Lemonade and Mike's Hard Seltzer variance. In the U.S. our largest Beyond Beer market that represents approximately half of our global Beyond Beer volume, we have significantly enhanced our presence in the Hard Seltzer segment with Bud Light Seltzer into more recent launches of Michelob ULTRA Organic Seltzer and Cacti. We're expanding products like Hard Seltzer to new geographies. A great example is the launch of Michelob ULTRA Hard Seltzer in Mexico, where it has already captured approximately 45% market share of the developing Seltzer segment, more than the next three brands combined. Our portfolio is already global, with around 90 brands in approximately 40 countries. Our Beyond Beer portfolio is growing fast. The business delivered $1.2 billion in revenue in 2020 and grew over 40% in the first quarter ‘21. This incremental growth is also a credit to our bottom line. On average, our Beyond Beer products have a 20% higher gross profit per hectoliter than our traditional beer portfolio. With that, I'd like to hand it over to Fernando to discuss our financials. Fernando. Fernando Tennenbaum : Thank you, Brito. Good morning, good afternoon everyone. I hope you are all safe and well. Let me first take you through the drivers of our underlying EPS. Our underlying EPS increased by $0.04 from $0.51 to $0.55. Our strong performance in the quarter drove an increase in EBIT that equates to $0.15 per share. We also recorded lower net finance costs; it was $0.06 per share. These benefits were partially offset by higher non-controlling interests worth $0.08 per share, resulting from higher profits of our listed subsidiaries, Budweiser 8 pack and [inaudible] along with the issuance of our 49.9% minority stakes in our U.S. basis metal container operations in December 2020. We also saw high income tax expenses due to country mix and reduced benefits of tax attributes worth $0.07 per share. On slide 22 you will see that our debt maturity profile is well distributed across the next several years, with no significant maturities over the next five years. We maintained more than $24 billion of liquidity at the end of 2020. As a reminder, we do not have any financial covenants on our entire debt portfolio, including our sustainability-linked revolving credit facility. Our bond portfolio remains largely insulated from interest rate volatility as approximately 96% holds a fixed rate. Furthermore, the portfolio is comprised of a variety of currencies, with 51% denominated in U.S. dollars, 37% in the euro and the reminder in currencies such as Canadian dollar, pounds sterling and Korean won, diversifying our FX risk. The weighted average maturity of our debt portfolio is more than 16 years. Finally, we continue to have a very manageable weighted average coupon rate of approximately 4%. I will know take you through our capital allocation priorities, which remained unchanged. The first priority for the use of cash is to invest behind our brands and to take full advantage of the organic growth opportunities in our business. Second, deleveraging to around 2x net debt-to-EBITDA ratio remains our commitment, and we will prioritize debt repayment in order to meet this objective. Third, with respect to M&A, we’ll always be ready to look at opportunities when and if they arise, subject to our strict financial discipline and deleveraging commitments. Our fourth priority is returning excess cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and/or share buybacks. Before handing back to Lorie to begin the Q&A session, I would like to announce changes to our Investor Relations team. Lauren Abbott or current Head of Investor Relations will be assuming a new position as the Global VP of Economic Policy and continue reporting to me. [Inaudible] who has been the company for 10 years will succeed Lauren as our Global VP of Investor Relations. And now, over to Lorie to begin the Q&A session. Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from a line of Trevor Stirling of Bernstein. Trevor Stirling : Good morning, Brito and Fernando. So first no questions, but just a big thank you from me for 15 years of patients going through earnings calls, 15 years follow-up sessions. You have been uniformly polite and patience with all our questions, and thank you very much and best wishes for whatever the next chapter holds. Carlos Brito: Thank you, Trevor. It’s been a pleasure. Trevor Stirling : Thank you. Now, on to the questions. Brazil, there is a phenomenal price mix in beer Brazil. I think it was 12.6% in the AmBev accounts. Can you give us just a little bit of color about what combination of prices reduce promo, travel pack mix, premium branded etc., drove that very, very strong price mix. And then just longer term bigger picture question, you quoted on Bloomberg as saying that Michel is more intrigued with the next phase in what's needed. And I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about what you think and clearly its Michel’s decision ultimately, what that – tell how that phase will be different from the recent past. Carlos Brito: Well, thanks for the question, Trevor. So to your first question about price in Brazil, yeah indeed, I mean revenue per hectoliter in Brazil grew by – revenue per hectoliter grew by 10.7% in Q1’21, primarily due to positive mix from beer growing faster than non-beer. So that’s the first thing, and revenue management initiatives in both our beer and non-beer business. So the Brazil beer net revenue growth was due to a combination of factors: Promotional activity strategy like you mention, price increases carryover from last year and a positive brand mix portion of pack mix. So brand mix in Brazil was a big factor here. So that was a bit of the explanation for the net revenue in Brazil, net revenue per hectoliter. In terms of Michel, what I said is that Michel and I have very similar – we’re very similar in many ways, and that we both believe strongly in our culture, in our values and our principles. We both prioritize people above all things and we both believe that our internal colleagues are our greatest assets and strengths, so no change there. But Michel has had a different career within the company. I came from Brazil and to Canada, to Belgium you know and then global. Michel went from Brazil to China to U.S. any he loved those markets. And in China he saw a consumer that was very digital; a market that was very fast in terms of innovation, everything was about innovation. The business of ours in China that was all about Premium and Super Premium, very different than other markets of ours, in which we lead the profitability of China, the profitability in China we lead by far even if you add the next three to four competitors as you know Trevor, so we saw that in China. When he came to the U.S., he was quickly to build a very diverse team, a very talented team and he understood the U.S. market where consumers are going, the trends, insights, a pre-COVID, after-COVID, during-COVID and he was able to come up with a strategy that was simple, effective, worked and that has been consistent. So I think he brings a new set of experience within our company and you know a fresh pair of eyes. And right now as you know, we're very big on our business transformation enabled by technology. You’ve seen our B2B platforms, B2C platforms, direct-to-consumer platforms and imagine our company’s delivering transformed. So if you look at our business, the last year travel, the second half, this year, it’s on a very strong momentum; gaining share, growing volumes, you know numbers, you know P&L make sense, beautiful shape and so we're delivering and at the same plan which was fun [ph]. If you look at our BEES business, it's – you know it has already 25% of our customers are already in BEES. GMV is growing very fast. If you look at our B2C also growing very fast. Our B2C had almost 20x as many orders in 2020 as it had in 2019 and despite that strong raise; we grew again in this first quarter 50% on top. So I think it's a very strong momentum we have in both delivery and transform and Michel is very tech savvy and I think he'll continue on that journey. So the world is changing fast. We have a new combination of levers going forward as you know between delivery and transform and it shows we’re in-tune. He was part of the strategy elaboration. He was part of my team, so a key member in elaborating that strategy, so he’s very supportive of that strategy. Thank you. Trevor Stirling : Beautiful! Thank you very much Brito. A - Carlos Brito: Thanks Trevor. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Pinar Ergun of Morgan Stanley. Pinar Ergun: Hello! Thanks for taking my question. Brito and Lauren, all the best for the future and congratulations to Michel and Sean [ph] for your new roles. I had a question on pricing and commodities. Are you confident about ABI's ability to pass through rising input costs prices as you look ahead to the remainder of 2021 and even ‘22 or should we perhaps be more cautious about the margin evolution going forward? And if you're planning to raise prices, how would you go about managing the volume response to that, particularly in markets like Brazil which are facing some tough comps later in the year. Now this question is about the whole group globally, but it would be very helpful if you could please also comment on Brazil specifically. Thank you. A - Carlos Brito: Yeah, hi! So yeah, going to this question first, I mean our one strategy; our long term strategy has not changed. Our price is in line with inflation and we also pass tax increases to the consumer, so that's a long term strategy as always been. It doesn't mean that it's true every quarter, every year. At the end, the magnitudes have changes, but that’s long term where we’re headed. With respect to pricing, we take many factors into consideration. At the local level, pricing is a very local thing. So to try to strike the right balance as you said between volume and price, so we take into account inflation, not only CPI but beer inflation, general CPI but also the inflation and we look at the health of the consumer. We look at affordability relative to beer prices to other substitutes, taxes, the better environment, so lots of things go into making a decision about pricing and it's a local decision. You're right, we’re currently seeing inflationary environment across some of our main markets, including the cost of raw materials. This will be a relevant consideration for sure for our pricing decisions. It's also true that in light of our 12 months rolling hedging policy, we're facing this year impacts that were born last year in terms of transaction affecting commodity headwinds that we had last year. On the other hand our hedging policies give us time to plan and to react and to work on initiatives to offset those impacts. So this year 2021, top line growth is expected to come from a healthy combination of borderline prices as said before. And last point is that our industry leading profitability gives us flexibility to weather short term volatility, preventing us from having to make any short term decisions that could be detrimental to the business long term. So a long answer, but to just give you a framework on how I think about prices and Brazil’s no different, Brazil’s no different. Brazil will fall in the same kind of guidelines in thinking about pricing. Pinar Ergun: Thank you. Very helpful. A - Carlos Brito: You're welcome. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Olivier Nicolai of Goldman Sachs. Olivier Nicolai: Hi! Good morning. First to follow-up on Trevor’s questions and the revenue factors that increased in Brazil internally, so that’s actually strong. I was just wondering how sustainable is that kind of growth and for how long do you think that this reduction in promotion will last? And then the second question is actually on Nigeria. You mentioned a supply constraint. I was just wondering if it was relating to capacity, you being at full capacity and when do you think this would be resolved? Thank you. A - Carlos Brito: I’ll start with Nigeria. So Nigeria, your main issue is with supply for various reasons and we have a disadvantage that is going to be fixed, which [inaudible] have much warehousing at the port level and that gives us a disadvantage compared to other competitors there in and chances are we’re having more stuff in-house. And when the ports get congested, we don't have that buffer, so that's going to be corrected. The other one is that we had a fire in our Licher brewery and that impacted one of our production lines, so that was also something that was a problem. And the third one was that we started the year with very low inventories, because we had such a great fourth quarter and we also had those protests last year, that also because of some basic production. So you combine low inventories with supply chain challenges, and with the fire in our brewery, so yeah, that's the explanation. But all those things are transitory in nature. What's important to say in Nigeria is that our brands are very strong. We have the strongest brand in the country and you know as soon as those things are fixed, we’ll resume our momentum, I have no doubts. In terms of pricing in Brazil, we have historically taken you know prices every year pretty much. We continue to look at prices. We just took a price increase in June, right. So when we announced that we're going to take a price increase in June, that is the same and so again our pricing performance in Brazil into Q1 has been because of the carryover we had, also because of premiumization, also because of innovation, right, so all those things were very important. We are of course looking at the inflationary environment that is happening in Brazil and we tend to keep in that balance between sharing that revenue, but of course that will be a very important component in our price increase decisions. So again, not very different from how we do it on a global basis, but yes Brazil, we are alert because every inflation pressure is there as well as in other countries. Olivier Nicolai: Thank you very much Brito for your time over the years and congratulations. Thank you for implementing, bringing people together for a better world agenda , which I’m sure. Over the last 15 years of you as the CEO, there’s a massive impact on millions of people. A - Carlos Brito: Thank you, Olivier. Thank you very much. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Simon Hales of Citi. Simon Hales : Thank you. Hi Brito! Hi Fernando! Can I also just echo with everyone else’s comments; thank you for your time and wish you all the very best! A - Carlos Brito: Thank you. Simon Hales : I had a couple of questions if possible. I want to firstly – thanks for providing the EBITDA guidance to-date. Could I just sort of clarify the EBITDA base in 2020 you're using to make that assumption of 8% to 12% organic growth from. I think it’s Fernando you reported I think $17.3 billion of EBITDA last year, but that did include almost $500 million in Q4, what I think was one-off tax credits in Brazil. I just want to just make sure we're starting off with the right sort of feds. And secondly, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the distribution agreements with Sazerac and Red Bull you’ve signed in China. You report the strategy you said and could be seeing more of those sort of distributions, part of it is premium spirit suppliers in other markets or was it really just to China, a specific initiative? Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi Simon! Fernando here and I’m going to get this first one and I’m going to turn over to Brito. On the first one, it excluded the hidden tax credits. We excluded last year from the organic performance and we are excluding that from the guidance as well. So it's organic in this growth guidance 8% to 12% excluding the hidden tax credits. Carlos Brito: And in terms of the second question, in terms of the second question, I mean this partnership is totally connected to our premiumization strategy in China that has always been our strategy. It'll further enhance our portfolio of Beyond Beer, the segment that is growing so fast. We are very excited to include these premium spirits including Fireball and the premium energy drink on a global basis, Red Bull for our Beyond Beer portfolio. So we are going to be the exclusive distributors in mainland China. It'll start on June 1, and it'll include Fireball, [inaudible] Southern Comfort and other premium spirits from Sazerac. This will allow us to input the high end spirits market in China, so very excited. And it will allow us to capture different drinking occasions, different diverse drinking occasions which are complementary to beer. And in terms of Red Bull, its great to have that national distribution partnership knowing that Red Bull is well-known as a leading premium energy drink, and that again will enable us to target broader drinking occasions. It’s important to say that both portfolios are margin accretive and both industries are expected to grow as consumers have stronger buying powers. It will be focused on the regions we apply consumer demand, based on our market maturity model. And just the last point, many of our premium wholesalers which are already operationalized like in Western bars, they are interested in expanding into premium spirits business. So those two brands are – two brand portfolios being added can create positive synergies with our existing portfolio and route-to-market, so it’s a win-win big time. Simon Hales : That’s good. Could you guys just come back on the guidance again and its just – I was wondering if you could just sort of share a bit about the shape of margin developments through the remainder of the year. Clearly lots of moving parts going on with the transactional FX headwinds in the first half in Latin America, particularly [inaudible] are probably easing into H2, because that helps as we go into Q2. You should have easy margin comparatives in overall Mexico and South Africa given the issues last year. How should we just think about H1 versus H2 margin development overall? The full year margins are still going to be negative, but the amount is going to be worse in the second half and therefore in the first half at the group level do you think. Any color you can give us to help us with our modeling please? A - Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi Simon! We are not being so precise about quarter-on-quarter, but as we would expect probably we have the easier homes [ph] on Q2, given that was the quarter that was mostly affected by COVID last year, and also we know that the first half of the year, especially Q1, we’re seeing less pressure on FX than we are going to see towards the end of the year. And H2, you are going to have a slightly more commodity pressure. So, but that’s a given, given our 12 months policy, so you just look at how these two, both FX and commodities behavior last year and you can extrapolate that for 2021. But not being so precise of how it's going to be the impact in every quarter. Simon Hales : That’s really helpful, thank you, and thank you for sharing. All the best! Thanks. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Sanjeet Aujla of Credit Suisse. Sanjeet Aujla: Hey, Brito and Fernando, a couple of questions from me please. Firstly, on middle America's, you know pretty exceptional volume performance, you know particularly looking against pre-pandemic level. What’s really driving that, and is there any Easter timing benefit maybe helping that? My second question is on BEES. Based on your learning so far, what are the biggest opportunities here? Is it category extension? Is it revenue per hectoliter? Is it a combination of both? I’d love to get your thoughts on that. Thank you Carlos Brito: Yeah, hi Sanjeet. In terms of Mars, I mean Mars has been always for many years now a source of the amazing value creation and this quarter was no different. The portfolio is growing because we have, we understand consumers, we have a portfolio that is a winning portfolio. All our brands are gaining brand power. We have an amazing execution in the marketplace. We are also developing the platforms of BEES and also B2C, Direct-to-Consumer, [inaudible] stores that will be a big help to develop faster, the last mile to consumers and our B2C efforts, and we have the OXXO expansion. It is true to say that two-thirds approximately of the portfolio of our share gain in Mexico is due to our internal factories and one-third to OXXO, so – and OXXO is still, there is lots of OXXO to come, but again it's also interesting to say that our portfolio continues to grow even outside of OXXO. So it's about taxes and operations; it's about understanding consumers, investing the right brands, have your portfolio that appeals to the segments, to the locations pre-COVID, during COVID and we are thinking the new normal innovation, but it’s really all this together. In terms of BEES, BEES brings a whole bunch – it’s a whole bunch of possibilities. If you think about this, in the old days there was a sales rep that would go to a part and that sales rep would sometimes churn, either leave the company for some reason or get promoted and there'll be somebody else. So BEES is an investment in customers interested in our parts, and its capturing data that won't go away. Because with a sales rep, if the sales rep would leave, they would away a part of it. With BEES every transaction there is, we have more data points and with these data points you have optimization engines in terms of pricing, assortment, promotion, suggested orders, all those things that are behind the platform and we get to know our customer better and as you get to know our customer better we offer them things that are more relevant to their business, and make them more successful, and as they grow, we’ll grow as well. So BEES, in answer to your question, yes its driving incremental revenue growth through the acceleration of our base business and expanding into new offerings like marketplace. BEES captured over $3 billion in GMV in the first quarter, which is equivalent to the GMV it captured for the whole of last year. So a growth of more than 50% for the fourth quarter is already live in 11 markets, in the Americas mostly. In seven markets out of 11, so more than 50% of our net revenue through BEES and we continue to expand and we now have 1.5 million users, monthly active users in our platforms, and that's a 60% increase versus December last year. So BEES is not about cost reduction. It’s about elevating our relationship with our customers by dressing their pin points, enhancing their business performance. If they win, we win. So a big transformation initiative, hence we are defining the way our sales operation works. Sanjeet Aujla: Great! Thank you for your time over the years Brito and best wishes for the future. Carlos Brito: Thank you, Sanjeet. Operator: Your next question comes from a line of Laurence Whyatt of Barclays. Laurence Whyatt : Hi! Thanks very much for the questions; a couple for me as well. Firstly, on your guidance of 8% to 12% EBITDA growth organically, I was wondering what are your assumptions on the various external factors that are going on globally, say particularly around COVID and the various reopening plans potentially happening in Europe this quarter. And what are your internal expectations on those with the government restrictions in order to hit that guidance? And secondly on BEES, you gave a number of geographies that were particularly successful, but where do you see the next rollout taking place for that software. Thank you very much. Carlos Brito: So I mean in terms of our guidance, let's talk about what would have changed, because the basic guidance is to tell the truth, because we said that we expect top line growth from a healthy combination of volume and price, that’s true. We said that we expect our top and bottom line results to improve meaningfully versus 2020, so everything we said there it’s true, but we added to it. So why we added? Because we had a very strong start of the year, and because of the global development in the fight against COVID-19, so we decided to specify that we expect our EBITDA to grow between 8% to 12 % and our revenue to grow ahead of EBITDA from a healthy combination of volume and price. So as you see, this numbers is two meaningful numbers. So we didn’t change anything. We just decided to specified and why we did that, because of two things; the strong start of the year and the new news in terms of vaccinations and openings that are now more current. This guidance as you said is based on some assumptions. First assumption, is the reopening rates, particularly beyond premis channel that they continue at the current pace, that's our assumption. Second, no full operational shutdowns in our markets as we saw in South African in January. So we are not assuming anything of that sort going forward. Third, that the transactional effect in commodity costs will as you know be worse than 2020, so that’s in there. Fourth, with the channel package mix improvements throughout the year, we'll continue to improve than in 2020, but still worse than 2019, so somewhere in the middle between ‘19 and ’20 our situation continues to improve and restrictions are eased. And the last but not least, year-on-year increase in variable compensation driven by improved operational performance as compared to last year where most products didn’t receive a bonus. So that's also something to think about. Our compensation system is connected, is directly connected to value creation in what new investors fuel. So if you have a good year, we have a good year, you have a bad year, we’ll have a bad year, and last year was a bad year, so we also had no bonus. So this year given the strong start, given our guidance, we are beginning to build the provisions for our variable compensation and that is something that of course impacts SG&A and of course the payout will depend on the final year achievements and also depend on cash flow revenue growth and organic EBITDA that are our targets. But given the strong start the year and the fact that we have in our specific guidance for EBITDA, we also require more bonus, which impacts SG&A, which impacts margin. In terms of BEES, as I said before BEES is a transformation activity for us. We are very excited. It's amazing if you compare it to two, three years. Its starts you know writing code, code that’s useful to our parts, that’s why we are adopting. We are not forcing them to adopt. They are adopting because it makes their life easier, their business more successful, because it's more relevant to them, because the platform knows more and more, every transaction about what's interesting for them, what mix shift is for them and we're pretty much in the Americas at the beginning to branch out to other countries. They are not public yet, but will continue to roll out, but of course specific markets would be communicated in due course. Laurence Whyatt : That's great. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. And I'll echo everyone else’s comments. So best of luck with the next stage and the journey! Carlos Brito: Thank you so much. Laurence Whyatt : Thank you very much. Carlos Brito: Thank you, Laurence. Thank you so much. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mitch Collett of Deutsche Bank. Mitch Collett: Hi Brito! I’ve got two questions please, and one I think is for Fernando. Can you perhaps provided a bit of color on the tax guidance of 28% to 30%, and I appreciate there’s probably a lot of moving parts, but that price is a lot higher than the ECR in 2019. Can you perhaps give some guidance on what sort of level we should expect for tax in the long term and then just a broader question on margins. Clearly this isn't a normal year, but your guidance obviously suggests that margins will be down versus 2020. I think margins peaked, EBITDA margins in 2018. Can you see a route back to that level of profitability long term and can you talk about the drivers to get you there? Fernando Tennenbaum: Hi Mitch, Fernando here. So let me start on to the tax plan. So our effective tax rate is a function of the countries where we operate. So we should look at the weighted average tax rates of the counties we operate and the account, and because actually we produced and paid tax locally in each one of the counties and our effective tax rates is somewhat similar. We decided to see that we are redeeming the organic EBITDA growth. We decided it was appropriate 2.25 and as far as the guidance for this year, that we expect to be in the range of 28% to 30%. So we are not giving any guidance further out, but probably you can always refer back to what I mentioned in the beginning, that our current tax rates is similar to the weight average tax rate on the countries in which we operate. Mitch Collett: I was just going to follow-up and say, does that imply that you know if you get back to the geographic split you had in 2019, it's more likely to be closer to 2019 than the guidance you‘ve given from 2021, longer term. Fernando Tennenbaum: No, no, we had a difference geographic spilt in 2019 than the one we have now, and we have different counties growing at different rates. What I'm saying is that our current tax rates and the one we are guiding is very closely related to the weight average tax rate from the countries we need to operate in and we need to pay taxes locally. So we are giving this guidance for this year, but we are not giving any guidance so far further out. Mitch Collett: Okay. Carlos Brito: In terms of second question about EBITDA margin recovery, right Mitch? Mitch Collett: Yes. Carlos Brito: Yes, so in terms of the EBITDA margin, first you have to look at EBITDA margin in the context of many other things, but we’ve talked already about this in some of the calls. But I think what's important to, in terms of EBITDA margin recovery is that a couple of things will make our margin go back, okay. So right now we are being pressured for all the things we know, right, emerging market currencies, dislocations by COVID in terms of brand, channel, mix, package, you know all those things that are creating that kind of pressure on the margins, and also just the volume deleverage as volume went down. So what’s going to recover margin? It's going to be volume growth as we resume growth like we have now, as we resume growth that's going to be very important for margin, because then you have to have volume, you know the bottom leverage coming back to play, which has always been a part of our margin structure. Beyond freight reopening, we'll get the RGB, the Returnable Glass Bottles back in place, which has always been important in our margin structure. The growth of core plus and premium portfolio, including Beyond Beer, that will continue to positively impact our net revenue and dollar margins, that would be clear as well, okay and that’s something new that was not present in the structure in the past. The innovation pipeline that we are getting better and better at as we grow Beyond Beer included, as we grow to other locations within beer, as we expand our portfolio for foreign consumers, because that's where growth is, and again that's going to be key and a lot of innovation is in the core plus and above. As we invest strategy CapEx in things like technology, B2B, B2C, those margins are interesting, very interesting when this business gets to scale. As we correct footprint, the efficiencies we have as a source the supply chain, bottlenecks we have, and as we continue to invest in getting closer and closer to consumers and customers with more information. That would make our marketing dollars more efficient as well. In our strong financial discipline around costs and expenses in general, that has always been a hallmark of the company. So a lot these things I said were part of the old margin construction; some are present year, some are new you. But what I can tell is that that reference you have in mind and I have in mind will continue to be the high water mark that we all intend to get to and go beyond. So that hasn't changed, but when you think about emerging markets in the last few years, it has been a tough ride in terms of currency, FX and also commodities. When you think about COVID, our industry was one that was the hardest hit together with the hotels and travel and things like that. Why? Because we’re dependent on the channels that were one-third of our business that was shut down, like the entre, and we had businesses of ours like in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador in South Africa that was shut down for two months of more, and we continue to have restrictions. The only country that still is without restrictions today is China, all other countries of ours have some kind of curfew, some kind of mandated closing hours, some kind of restrictions. So we are not there yet. So as you recover all that, we have in mind what you had in mind, which is to go back to the kind of margins EBITDA margins we had prior. On the other hand, I think it's important to see that as our business grows more and more into other categories, we need to think also that dollar margins as opposed to just EBITDA margins. Thank you. Mitch Collett: Thank you, Brito, and thank you for all your help and patience over the years. And best wishes for the future! Carlos Brito: Thank you, Mitch. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Edward Mundy of Jefferies. Edward Mundy : Good morning, Brito and Fernando. Two questions from me. The first is just a point of clarification on the guidance. I think the guidance of 8% to 10% reflects your current assessment on the scale and magnitude of the pandemic. i.e., it’s a snapshot based on what you're seeing today. I appreciate you don’t have a crystal ball, but if underlying conditions improved further, and you get a further reopening or the entre comes back quicker, is that reflected in the guide, is the first question. And the second is really around BEES and to what extent this is a facilitative and improving application. I mean you've been pushing portfolio, the portfolio gain for several years now, since the transaction of the cash expansion model, but you are starting to see some pretty decent results in terms of volume picking up, market share, premiumization and really getting the portfolio moving in the right direction. The question is, to what extent is BEES the real facilitator of this improving execution? Fernando Tennenbaum : I have some numbers here, so I'm going to take the first question. So just a clarification, our guidance is not 8% to 10%, its 8% to 12% organic growth EBITDA. And this is our current assessment to-date. On the next part, for whatever reason we see the conditions moving to another direction, then we’ll give further updates, but for now this is our best judgment, best assumption... Edward Mundy : [Audio Gap]… in three, six months. Fernando Tennenbaum : Yeah, it’s based on the data that we have today, which is the current status of the market, and our assumptions on how the markets will evolve, the re-opening rates, what is going to be the place of reopening of the different markets own brand and so other restrictions that are out there. These are current assumptions and that is what is embedded into the 8% to 12% guidance. Edward Mundy : Okay, thank you. Carlos Brito: And Ed on the second one, if I understood correctly, you are asking about category expansion framework, right. The framework we’ve been using since 2017. Edward Mundy : It’s more a question of to what extent BEES is really accelerating the market share performance as well as the revenue guide you need to step up. Carlos Brito: You mean BEES? Edward Mundy : Yeah, BEES yeah. Carlos Brito: Okay sorry, I misunderstood your question. No, no for sure. I mean BEES is something that – think about this, every time there's a transaction with the block, BEES captures everything about that transaction. How the customer navigated the different screens in the app, what made him or her stop, what kind of things we offered that he or she didn't click on. So I mean you start having an idea of what kind of customer you have on the other side of the app. And because of that you have a whole bunch of algorithms that are optimizing for different functions, and in terms of assortment, in terms of premium or less premium offerings to this thought given its profile, in terms of pricing, in terms of promotion, in terms of new launches, so – and this is learning every day. This is not dependent on human being that leads to more rep or a kind of civilization [ph] that forgot to put something on the screen as an observation. This captures every piece of data that we get for every interaction, so the more interactions you have, the more this AI, the machines and the optimization engines become better. They also help given the profile of the part, they help execution drivers in the part. So they say okay, for this part, education driver is one, two, for this one it’s three, four. So we’ll continue to have a BDR, Business Development Rep that will continue to visit less frequently. So whenever this person goes, the algorithm will also tell what can increase sales in that park compared to the neighbor park. So all this driven by algorithms that are smart, that are trying to optimize functions. So yes there will be incremental revenue growth, enables better execution, gets premiumization up, expands our assortment, deals better with out-of-stock, because the optimization algorithm will say “hey, I know” the algorithm knows the calendar, so it knows there is a football game coming next week and maybe the order that came was a suggested order that’s already implicit or it already has that implicit that the game is coming up, so the suggested order will be higher. And we see every time that these, every data goes past, we see more and more customers adhering to this suggested order, because this suggested order, knowing everything about the customer is being more relevant and more tailored to the customer. So that's taking time for them, because we offer them in terms of new news is more tailored to what they need, and what we offer in terms of suggested order is very close to what they needed. They don’t need to check inventory and do the whole thing. So lots of benefits that will come from BEES. Edward Mundy : Got it, thank you. And equally many congratulations on all your achievements this part 32 years. Carlos Brito: Thank you so much Ed. Operator: Your next question comes from a line of Laurent Grandet of Guggenheim. Laurent Grandet : Hi everyone, and congrats Brito for an extraordinary carrier, leading what ABI is today. Carlos Brito: Thank you, Laurent. Laurent Grandet : Yes, so another kind of follow up BEES if I may. Its moving some of our profitability, what like you understand, how much incremental there is? I mean it is right now to your distribution network. The way you see this expanding and see that your leveraged, that you can get by getting this business bigger, so that’s my first question. And the second one is really more on the [inaudible]. You’ve been launching some sprite base in that Seltzer, I mean that got the idea in the U.S. and Cutwater and some nice vodka base. Do you think it’s a good avenue to disrupt basically the two leading brands in the U.S. or elsewhere. So I’d like to understand a bit your view of spirit base in that Seltzer? Thanks. Carlos Brito: Yeah, in terms of, I think your first question was about BEES, right. Laurent Grandet : Yes correct, profitability. Carlos Brito: Yes. So again at this point we are not really giving much numbers in terms of incremental revenue growth that’s been generated for assortment or delta premiumization, because this is all competitive sensitive and we believe BEES is a big transformation initiative of our company. But we are seeing things like you know seven of the 11 markets where BEES is today, more than 50% of our net revenue or sales is already there. We are seeing that 25% of our global base of customers is already connected and that 60% above what it was December last year. So we are getting some data points there, and in terms you’re other questions, in terms of the spirit space, this is very much the right buy, country specific consumer insights. In some countries depending on the competitive environment, depending on what people use to drink, we see more fit for their malt based beverage, for more distilled based beverages, but this is something that can be adapted you know. We see it even here between Canada and the U.S. some beverages have different basis. It just has to do with some local habits and our belief that will be more successful if we take those into account. Laurent Grandet : Thanks Brito, and I wish you well for whatever will come next. Thanks bye. Carlos Brito: Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Operator: The next question comes from the line of Robert Ottenstein of Evercore. Robert Ottenstein: Great! Thank you very much, and of course you know congratulations Lauren and Brito for great accomplishments and Brito for a phenomenal career and building an unbelievable company. You know we are kind of long in the call now, so I was wondering maybe if you could reflect on your tenure as CEO and the two or three things perhaps that you are most proud of in terms of your accomplishments and that will really, you know put the company in very good position going forward, and maybe you know highlighting or accenting things that you don't think may be fully appreciated by investors along those lines, but you know are very important to you. Thank you. Carlos Brito: Thank you, Robert for the nice words and let me say that, I mean a couple of things. So first, [inaudible] platform. You know we build the principal company, a company that has principles, drinkable culture in good times, bad times, COVID, per-COVID, after COVID. We abide by those principles and that's what how we built the company, so I'm very proud of that. Second, my proudest moments in the company has been really to see our people develop, blossom and business develop. Another one Robert has been the consumer centricity. We always put consumers first, our customers first, quality of our products, doing the business the right way, no short cuts, that's connected to the culture as well, but always having consumers in mind and we grow, our consumers grow, because that's where the business is. And I think the other thing is that we're very self-critical of ourselves. So in some years ago we saw that the world was going faster than we were going, we created ZX. ZX is investment in ventures that proved the right one in terms of B2B, B2C, in terms of crafts specialties. So they even did an amazing job with their teams, but there is doing BEES and [inaudible] so different people involved, but was all stated with ZX. And when I look at our transformation agenda, that tells me something about our culture, you know. Sometimes that we are not perfect, sometimes we are behind the curve, but when we say we are going to do sometimes, we do it. And we said we are going to start getting the transformation agenda accelerated, that's exactly what we're doing. And today Robert, I will leave the company feeling that we are ahead of the curve. And that is, you know we have momentum and we're transforming the business. So as [Audio Gap] having more hair than I do, so I mean you see physical and you know – and he’ll get along very well. He’s widely respected in the company. 25 years, led the three most important markets we have together with Mexico of course and Columbia and South Africa, and yes, it’s been a great ride and no regrets. Robert Ottenstein: Terrific! Thank you very much again. Congratulations to everybody and looking forward to seeing where Michel takes this company. Thank you. Carlos Brito: Thank you, Robert. And again thank you everybody. In summary, we remain focused on doing our part for the recovery through meaningful investments in local economies and by supporting the global vaccine rollout. Our business is off to a very strong start in 2021. We delivered double digit balanced top line in EBITDA growth, given the context of ongoing COVID-19 related restrictions. Our industry leading portfolio of brands is connecting us with more consumers in more occasions as demonstrated by volumes ahead of 2019 levels. We are solving real customer and consumer needs with our digital platforms, connecting us more closely to those we serve worldwide. As the world overcome COVID-19, our purpose of bringing people together for a better world is more relevant than ever. Thank you for joining the call today and thank you for your partnership over the last 32 years. I wish you all the best. Stay safe and healthy, and thank you very much for your support and time. Have a great day! Thank you. Operator: Thank you. That does conclude the Anheuser-Busch InBev First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day!