Heineken, the world’s third biggest brewer, expects that its cost-saving plan will enable it to save 500 million euros by 2014 as a sequel to its earlier Total Cost Management program, which brought about savings of 614 million euros over three years. Heineken said that beer-making cost is likely to rise further this year, making the outlook for Europe not very optimistic. Almost half of the company’s earnings come from this region. 

 

Analysts feel that Heineken’s results provide a good starting point for 2012. Heineken said that input costs per hectoliter are expected to rise 6 percent in 2012 and the price of malting barley has also increased substantially. The company plans to focus on more efficient global purchasing of commodities and services and to reduce employee numbers this year. Heineken’s Ebit last year went up 1.4 percent, excluding acquisitions, disposals and currency moves, compared to 0.4 percent growth forecast by analysts. Its total revenue grew 6.1 percent to 17 billion euros.