Molson delays quarterly earnings report until vote

Modern Brewery Age,  Jan 24, 2005  

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Molson Inc. has announced it will withold its third quarter financial results until after its shareholders vote on the Coors/Molson merger deal. Analysts said the move was unusual and may indicate weakness in the quarterly numbers.

Last week, the company announced that it would postpone the shareholder vote on the merger until January 28th to allow more time to cement support for the merger vote. The financials were supposed to be released January 27th, but the release date is now February 9th.

In a statement, Molson said it made the change "in the context of the merger transaction underway ... The format of such issuance will depend on the outcome of the shareholder vote."

Coors shareholders are to vote Feb. 1, and Coors will also release its latest financial figures Feb. 9.

Analyst Michael Palmer of Veritas Investment Research told the Canadian Press that analysts are expecting poor results for Molson in the period Dec. 31, 2004, and said the brewer had decided early on to hold back the numbers until after the vote. "It was always the intent that they didn't want those numbers out there," Palmer told the CP, "because these numbers are going to be pretty ugly."

Molson has been hit by price discounting in some provincial markets, and analysts say it's likely that there will be more bad news from the Kaiser division in Brazil.

Molson and Coors say they expect that the merger will close on February 9th.

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