MillerCoors profits up on cost control measures
MILLERCOORS, the second-biggest brewer in the US, yesterday reported a 28 per cent rise in third-quarter net income as it found an extra $200m (£121m) of cost savings resulting from its 2008 merger with SABMiller.
The combined operation, which produces Miller Lite and Coors Light, said underlying net income in the quarter was $244.4m with net sales up 3.1 per cent to $2.01bn in the July-September quarter.
The company, formed in July 2008, had said it would make $500m of annual cost savings by the end of the third year of its combined operations, but now expects to make an extra $200m by the end of 2012, to give a total of $700m of savings over the first four and a half years of its merger.
MillerCoors has a market share of nearly 30 per cent behind Budweiser-brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev which sells one in two beers in the American market.