We incorporate Britvic into our estimates and re-evaluate our investment thesis The proposed acquisition of Britvic marks a significant expansion in soft drinks and opens up the possibility of Carlsberg becoming the go-to Pepsi bottling consolidator. Combinations of bottling territories typically generate material cost synergies Many investors are sceptical on the idea of Carlsberg potentially pursuing more acquisitions (Pepsi territory deals) over share buybacks over the mid-term. But if Coke bottler deal precedence is a good guide, each of these deals is likely to inject credible and material cost synergies. We scan our European Pepsi bottling territory map for potential future deals While de-leverage and Britvic integration will be the priorities in the near-term, we look to future Pepsi bottling territory expansion options. Poland, Greece and Italy look good candidates. A deal driven by the CEO, or CEO hire driven by the deal? Investors have expressed concern that the Britvic deal was pushed by (relatively) new CEO, Jacob Aarup-Andersen, given his investment banking background. While we cannot rule this out, we believe it is equally possible he was hired partly with Pepsi bottling deals in mind. We expect Carlsberg to recover its multiple off the new higher earnings base After incorporating Britvic (and related cost synergies) we forecast FY25e/26e EPS growth of +18% / +14% and sit +4% / +5% ahead of VA consensus respectively. As the market digests the deal and re-appraises the merits of being a Pepsi bottling consolidator, we expect the stock to recover. On our revised estimates, Carlsberg trades at 15.1x/12.8x P/E and 13.3x/12.6x EV/EBIT (CY24/25e). While we acknowledge risk of weather driven weakness in Q2 (we now forecast -2.8% Western Europe LFL Beer vols. vs. VA cons. +1.0%), after Heineken and CCEP updates we believe this is well known by the market. We maintain our Outperform rating; TP to DKK1,055 (from DKK1,030).