The largest Chilean brewer CCU warned yesterday that the continued crisis in Argentina and the resulting fall in value of Argentina’s peso currency has hit its 2002 results.
However the company did record an increase in preliminary fourth-quarter sales of 5.4% to 3.238m hectolitres.
CCU is expecting a fall in full year profits similar to the first nine months of the year.
CCU legal adviser Dirk Leisewitz said in an interview today: “Today in Argentina we sell beer at $19 per hectolitre to retailers. Before the devaluation we sold the same amount at $51.”
Sales in Argentina are close to 16% of the estimated 10.2 hectolitres the company sold in 2002. And the first nine months saw CCU record a 60.8% drop in its nine-month profit to September 2002 year-on-year to 10.582 billion pesos.
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By GlobalData“Full year profits ought to follow the same line as those in September, though probably will be slightly better,” said Leisewitz.
However, 2003 is looking slightly better. The company said it was predicting a recovery in the strength of the Argentine currency, deflation and better prices, which could lead to improved results, but not necessarily profits in Argentina.
