Heineken shares sink as profits fall short

Dutch brewer Heineken saw its share prices slump this morning after the maker of the eponymous lager failed to quite meet its projected half-year profits.

Shares fell 6% when the results were announced in Amsterdam, the biggest fall the company’s shares have experienced since 2011.

Heineken reported a 0.3% rise in operating profit to €1.78 billion between January and June but was this short of the expected €1.91bn suggested by analysts.

Revenues actually rose across all regions, with double-digit growth in Asia Pacific, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, pushing net revenue slightly ahead of forecasts.

Much of this, however, was offset by rising production costs according to Heineken, which rose 8.5% in the Jan-Jun period, mostly on aluminium.

James Edwardes Jones, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets told the Financial Times that nothing was especially “wrong” with the results, the problem was they weren’t “very good” and suffered in comparison to other companies, not least fellow brewers AB InBev and Carlsberg, which had all recently reported results that were above expectations.

Heineken insisted that, “major unforeseen macro economic and political developments” aside, it was on-track for “mid-single digit growth” in organic operating profit by the end of the year.