MONTREAL — Molson Coors Beverage Co. beat expectations even though COVID-19 lockdowns caused its net income and sales to plunge in its most recent quarter.
The Montreal-based company, which reports in U.S. dollars, says its net income decreased nearly 41 per cent in the second quarter to $195 million.
That equalled 90 cents per share for the three months ended June 30, down from $1.52 per share of $329.4 million in the second quarter of 2019.
Excluding one-time items, underlying net income increased 2.3 per cent to $337.3 million or $1.55 per share, compared with $329.6 million or $1.52 per share a year earlier.
Revenues fell 15.1 per cent to $2.5 billion, from $2.95 billion in the prior year’s quarter, with most sales coming from retail locations rather than bars and restaurants.
Molson Coors was expected to report 68 cents per share in adjusted profits on $2.45 billion in revenues, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.
“As expected, we experienced a significant adverse volume impact in the second quarter of 2020 resulting from the closure of the on-premise channel in nearly all of our markets for most of the quarter,” stated CEO Gavin Hattersley.
Molson said it provided about $16 million in “thank you” pay for some essential North American brewery employees that ended in the quarter as well as a paid leave policy and voluntary paid leave.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2020.
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