Molson Coors Beverage Co. today (4 November) recorded impairment charges worth almost $4bn in a set of financial accounts that included another quarter of falling sales.

The US giant booked impairments on its Americas unit and on two other sets of assets.

Third-quarter net sales declined by more than 2% amid a 6% slide in “financial volumes” – sales of Molson Coors’ owned or “actively managed” brands.

Recently appointed president and CEO Rahul Goyal said the Coors Light owner’s third-quarter results “largely aligned with our expectations for the second half of the year for the industry and our share performance in the US”.

Molson Coors stuck to full-year forecasts issued in August when the company cut its projections for closely-watched sales and earnings metrics.

The group said it had “identified a triggering event” during the third quarter that “indicated it was more likely than not that the carrying value of the Americas reporting unit exceeded its fair value”. That resulted in a “partial goodwill impairment loss” of $3.65bn.

During the quarter, Molson Coors also recorded “intangible impairment losses” of $273.9m across its Blue Run Spirits asset group and Staropramen brands.

A fortnight ago, the Molson Canadian brewer announced it was it was planning to cut around 400 jobs in the Americas, with Goyal insisting the US giant “must transform even faster”.

The move came just a month after Goyal stepped up to the role of president and CEO from his previous post as chief strategy officer. 

He said today: “We recognise the challenges and opportunities ahead of us and we are moving with a sense of urgency and a clear purpose to address them. Since I assumed the role of CEO on October 1, we have announced decisive moves to the leadership team and our Americas organisational structure that are designed to create a leaner, more agile organisation while advancing our ability to reinvest in the business and return cash to shareholders.”

In the three months to the end of September, Molson Coors generated net sales of $2.97bn, down 2.3% on a year earlier.

Sales in the Americas fell 3.6% and were 2.4% lower in the company’s combined EMEA and APAC division.

The impairment charges meant Molson Coors booked a third-quarter operating loss of $3.43bn and a net loss of $2.93bn. The results compared to a third-quarter operating income of $451.2m and a third-quarter net income of $199.8m a year ago.

Molson Coors posted an “underlying” third-quarter net income of $330.8m, against one of $374.4m in the corresponding period last year.

CFO Tracey Joubert added: “Our underlying quarterly financial results were largely as expected with lower financial volumes driven by a challenging industry and increased competition as well as cycling the prior-year contract-brewing volumes along with continued pressure on our commodity pricing, partly offset by lower incentive compensation costs. Based on these results, we are reaffirming our full-year guidance, but we now expect to come in at the low end of the ranges for our key metrics.”

The Madri brewer expects its net sales to fall by 3-4% on a constant-currency basis in 2025.

Molson Coors sees its underlying income before income taxes decreasing 12-15% this year, once exchange rates are removed from calculations.