USA: Anheuser-Busch highlights improved results and outlook

Anheuser-Busch Cos., the country's biggest brewer, announced Tuesday, November 28th that company’s sales and earnings results rebounded during the first nine months of the year compared to 2005 and the company’s earnings outlook remains positive, company management told investors and analysts at a presentation in New York today.

“While volume growth for Anheuser-Busch and the industry has slowed in the second half of this year, improving revenue per barrel and cost of goods sold results have contributed to an acceleration in domestic beer profit growth,” W. Randolph Baker, vice president and chief financial officer of Anheuser-Busch Companies, told investors.

Implementation of the company’s 2007 pricing plan is underway, with the majority of price increases scheduled to take place early next year. The company expects revenue per barrel growth to be somewhat greater in 2007 than in 2006, while cost of goods sold per barrel is expected to be up less than in 2006, due in part to lower energy costs.

Anheuser-Busch Cos. said that higher prices are accelerating profit growth from domestic beers, outweighing a slowdown in volume in the second half of this year. Anheuser-Busch, in a statement Tuesday, reaffirmed its long-term target of increasing earnings per share by 7 percent to 10 percent a year, STLtoday.com published November 29.

The company is raising prices per barrel as much as 1.7 percent in 2006, Chief Financial Officer Randolph Baker said on a webcast of an analysts' conference in New York.

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