OREANDA-NEWS. August 6, 2012. Revenue growth: Revenue grew 4.7% in 2Q12 and 5.4% in HY12, with revenue per hl growth of 5.7% in 2Q12 and 5.3% in HY12. On a constant geographic basis (i.e. eliminating the impact of faster growth in countries with lower revenue per hl) revenue growth per hl improved 6.4% in 2Q12 and 5.7% in HY12

Volume performance: Total volumes in 2Q12 declined marginally by 0.1%, with own beer volumes decreasing 0.5%, while non-beer volumes grew 4.2%. In HY12, total volumes grew 0.8%, with own beer volumes up 0.4% and non-beer volumes growing 5.3%

Focus Brands: Our Focus Brand volumes grew 1.0% in 2Q12, led by Budweiser globally, Harbin and Sedrin in China, Antarctica and Brahma in Brazil, and the Bud Light Family in the United States. In HY12, our Focus Brand volumes grew 2.2%

Cost of Sales: Cost of Sales (CoS) increased 3.6% in 2Q12, or 5.5% per hl. In HY12, CoS grew 3.4%, or 3.9% per hl. On a constant geographic basis, CoS per hl increased 6.5% in 2Q12 and 4.7% in HY12

EBITDA: EBITDA grew 2.5% in 2Q12 to 3 594 million USD, with a margin of 36.4%, a decline of 80 bp. In HY12, EBITDA grew 4.9% to 7 146 million USD with a margin of 37.2%, a decline of 21 bp

Income taxes: Income tax expense in 2Q12 was 313 million USD with an effective tax rate of 12.6%, which compares to income taxes of 369 million USD with an effective tax rate of 17.3% in 2Q11. The decrease in the effective tax rate mainly results from a shift in profit mix to countries with lower marginal tax rates, incremental tax benefits, the non-taxable nature of gains from certain derivatives related to the hedging of share-based payment programs, as well as the favorable outcome of certain tax claims amounting to 136 million USD. The effective tax rate in HY12 was 14.9% compared to 20.3% in HY11

Profit: Normalized profit attributable to equity holders of AB InBev grew 22.0% in nominal terms to 1 955 million USD in 2Q12 from 1 603 million USD in 2Q11, and 31.5% in nominal  terms to 3 628 million USD in HY12 from 2 758 million USD in HY11

Earnings per share: Normalized earnings per share (EPS) grew by 22% to 1.22 USD in 2Q12

from 1.00 USD in 2Q11, and by 31.2% to 2.27 USD in HY12 from 1.73 USD in HY11

Net debt: Net debt as of 30 June 2012 was 35.7 billion USD, an increase of 1.0 billion USD from 31 December 2011. The net debt to normalized EBITDA ratio decreased from 2.26x at the end of 2011 to 2.24x before M&A activity, and increased to 2.33x on a reported basis, as of 30 June 2012.