Molson Coors Beverage (TAP 2.42%) stock dropped 5% through 1:45 p.m. ET Thursday after reporting mixed earnings last night.
On the one hand, analysts forecast Molson would earn only $1.15 per share, but Molson reported $1.21 per share in Q4 instead. On the other hand, analysts thought Molson's quarterly sales would be more than $2.7 billion -- but they ended up under $2.7 billion.
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Molson Coors Q4 earnings
Sales declined 2.7% year over year at Molson, and GAAP earnings dropped 6.9% at the beer company. For the full year, Molson reported a 4.2% sales decline to $11.1 billion, with a disappointing loss of $10.75 per share.
Molson blamed a "non-cash partial goodwill impairment charge" for turning what should have been an annual profit into a big GAAP loss.
CEO Rahul Goyal lamented that 2025 was a "tough year" for Molson, but insisted his company has the "brands, infrastructure and people, and a strong balance sheet to weather this macro volatility."
NYSE: TAP
Key Data Points
Is Molson Coors stock a sell?
This "weathering" may take some time. Turning to guidance, company CFO Tracey Joubert warned of "rising commodity input costs pressuring our bottom-line" in 2026.
2026 sales are expected to be basically flat against 2025 -- about $11 billion. Combined with rising costs, though, the company forecasts an 11% to 15% year over year decline in "underlying" earnings (i.e., non-GAAP, not counting the 2025 write-downs).
The good news is Molson still expects to generate about $1.1 billion in positive free cash flow this year. On Molson's $9.6 billion market capitalization, that works out to a price-to-free cash flow ratio of only 8.7. Molson shouldn't have to grow much at all to justify that valuation.
But it does have to grow at least some.
