First Read: European Spirits "Negative read-x from Becle Q2 26 results -..."

Research evidence excerpt

First Read: European Spirits "Negative read-x from Becle Q2 26 results -..."

Global Research

24 July 2026ab

First Read

EquitiesEuropean Spirits

Negative read-x from Becle Q2 26 results - Global

Tequila price war well underway Beverage

Sanjeet Aujla

Analyst

sanjeet.aujla@ubs.com

Read-across from Becle Q2 results - Weak tequila category and margin pressure +44-20-7567 4529

to intensify with price war

Arnaud Autier

Last night, Mexican-listed Becle (US$ 3bn market cap) reported Q2 results, and hosted a Associate Analyst

conference call this afternoon. Overall, tequila category in the US remains weak with arnaud.autier@ubs.com

some margin pressures. However, group reaffirmed its guidance of -LSD% org. sales +44-20-7901 6849

growth for FY26 on the back off sequential improvement in org. sales trends on the

back half of the year with gap between sell-in and depletions narrowing in the US as

disruption from distribution transition fades, which may explain the positive share price

+3% vs +1.5% for spirits. Beyond this, the key learning from the conf-call is on the

pricing environment within the tequila category in the US in our view. Becle has

outlined several times that tequila industry was affected by aggressive price adjustments

form competitors, and especially in the control states (tracked by NABCA) where we

have recently witnessed some more negative price/mix trends on several key products at

Diageo as per our proprietary tracker (link). This includes includes Casamigos which has

been under price repositioning since the end of 2024 with a notable acceleration in the

control states since end of 2025 (see our report on Diageo price repositioning). Becle

also explained that they were making some tactical price adjustments to cope with the