Lindt & Spruengli: What's Left When Pricing Melts Away?

Research evidence excerpt

Lindt & Spruengli: What's Left When Pricing Melts Away?

Barclays | Lindt & Spruengli

innovation, continued premiumisation and market share gains. The key conclusion from the

print is that pricing has remained more resilient than expected, but at the expense of a much

sharper volume deterioration, particularly in Europe.

The outlook for H2 OSG is more reassuring, but we still see FY26 landing closer to 4% than

6%. Europe volumes should improve in H2 with LDD Christmas price reductions in Germany,

revised promotional mechanics, smaller pack formats, easier comparison and relisting in

Leclerc in France and Migros in Switzerland. Taken together, these initiatives support the view

that Group volumes should stabilise during H2, with Europe returning to positive volume

growth. The bigger question is not whether volumes improve, but rather how much pricing

needs to be sacrificed to achieve that improvement. We expect Group pricing to remain positive

in H2 through carry-over effects in the LSD to MSD territory.

Margins were better than expected, although the quality of the beat was flattered by the

US tariff refund. Reported H1 EBIT margin of 11.2% was well ahead of both our estimate (BARC

10.0%) and consensus (10.1%). However, this included a CHF11.7m reimbursement of

previously paid US tariffs. Adjusting for this one-off, H1 margin would have been closer to

10.6%, still ahead of expectations but significantly less dramatic than the headline suggests.

The tax rate was also unusually low at 19.8% versus our 22.0% estimate. Encouragingly, the

underlying margin improvement was supported by efficiencies across logistics, manufacturing

and supply chain, while H2 should benefit from lower cocoa costs. As a result, the FY26 margin

target now looks relatively secure.