ANHEUSER-BUSCH INTERBREW COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Carlsberg's (>> Carlsberg A/S) new chief executive has to get the business growing again and regain the confidence of its shareholders before he can think about any expansion, he said on Wednesday, after announcing $1.4 billion of writedowns and restructuring charges.
Cees 't Hart joined the struggling brewer in June and must deal with Carlsberg's falling profits, in particular in Russia from where it used to get half of all its revenues.
"The most important thing for us right now is to really move the needle in terms of shareholder value," 't Hart told Reuters in an interview.
The company earlier said the impairment and restructuring costs had led it to cut its profit forecast for the full year but a cost-cutting programme, including job cuts, would reap annual benefits by 2018 of 1.5 to 2.0 billion Danish crowns ($216 to $288 million).
't Hart is due to deliver the results of a strategy review by the end of March next year but Wednesday's announcements gave a taste of what was to come and the company's share price closed up 6 percent at 589 crowns.
Already the Dutchman has given some pointers, telling managers to focus on the triumvirate of profit margin, market share and earnings, rather than following the mantra of market share alone, as the company had done before.
"I would accept, within limits, here and there, market share loss, vis-a-vis an improvement in the margin," he said.
While shying away from giving any hints on where the strategic review might be heading, he said the company was, amongst other things, looking into "how we can break out of the geographical paradigm that we're in".
Carlsberg's largest regions are Western Europe, Eastern Europe, which includes the ailing Russian and Ukrainian markets, and Asia.
When asked whether Carlsberg would be interested in buying CR Snow -- China's largest beer brand which could be up for sale as a result of Anheuser-Busch InBev's (>> ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV) deal to take over SABMiller (>> SABMiller plc), 't Hart said.
"No, we're not fishing for that... First, we need to have this programme on track," he said.
't Hart acknowledged that the Americas left a hole in Carlsberg's portfolio because the company missed out on consolidation there about a decade ago and now, entering the region through acquisitions was too expensive.
"We'd like to be there, but we're not there ... If you ask me, will you be in Latin American in the coming 36 months, I would have difficulties to see how," he said.
($1 = 6.9511 Danish crowns)
(Reporting by Sabina Zawadzki; Editing by Susan Fenton, Greg Mahlich)
By Sabina Zawadzki
