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03 Mar 2021
AB InBev : Plenty of growth levers - Buy

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AB InBev : Plenty of growth levers - Buy
- Published:
03 Mar 2021 -
Author:
Alicia Forry, CFA | Anthony Geard -
Pages:
6 -
The market is overly focused on the margin outlook comment, but we see several reasons to be optimistic about the absolute level of sales and EBITDA that ABI can deliver in 2021. These are: 1) as the on-trade re-opens, ABI benefits from higher price/mix and margins in this channel, 2) premiumisation remains a strong trend in Beer, so price increases to offset inflation are feasible, 3) good early momentum in Jan & Feb, with Brazil volumes up c. 10% despite tough comps, 4) the new B2B digital platform allows for better net revenue management and is already a meaningful contributor to the group, and 5) continued rollout into new points of distribution in Mexico during the year.
ABI is trading at an EV/EBITDA discount to both Heineken and Carlsberg (both N/R), despite greater scale, higher margins and broader geographic diversification. ABI is also favourably exposed to the resilient US market (c. 30% of sales) and less exposed to the weak W. Europe region (c. 9% of sales). Our DCF reveals a fair value of €76/share. We leave our €63 target unchanged, as we modestly downgrade our numbers; our TP implies FY21E EV/EBITDA of 12x.
Our FY21E EBITDA falls 3% to $19,033m (organic +9.7%, with margins -10bps y-o-y) and our FY22E EBITDA falls 1% to $20,604m (organic +8.5%). On our forecasts, net debt/EBITDA should fall to 3.7x by the end of the current year, helped by the $3bn in asset sales already executed earlier this year; we assume the Board will hold the dividend flat at €1.00/share for another year to accelerate debt reduction.
For us, ABI remains a top pick in large cap Consumer for 2021. We believe it is well positioned to benefit from both the on-trade re-openings as well as the continued shift to e-commerce. We believe the share price does not take account of the longer term cash generation potential of the business.