Malaysia: Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia to continue to defend its case on bill of excise duty payment

Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Bhd will continue to defend its case on the bill of payment for excise duties after the Customs cancelled its bill of demand claiming for sales tax and penalty totalling RM20.64 million effective Jan 15, 2020, The Sun Daily reported on February 23.

“They (Customs) still expect us to pay the remaining RM36 million excise part but we hold our position that we have a strong case and we’re going to keep arguing our case. That doesn’t change,” Carlsberg managing director Stefano Clini told a media and analyst briefing on February 21 after announcing its financial results for the year ended Dec 31, 2019 (FY19).

“We’re not making provisions or payments because we believe we’ve a strong case,” emphasised Clini, adding that the company will defend its case strongly.

To recap, Carlsberg was slapped with excise duty, sales tax and penalty claims amounting to RM56.34 million in September 2014.

Operationally, the group has adopted a cautious outlook for this financial year ending Dec 31, 2020 following the Covid-19 outbreak.

“If it wasn’t for the coronavirus, we’d be moderately optimistic for the year,” said Clini.

Clini said the company does not expect the stimulus package to be introduced on Thursday to have a direct effect on the brewery industry, but hopes that such stimulus will help to support the industries that are affected by the outbreak, especially the tourism and retail sectors, and this in turn will have a positive effect on the group.

In FY19, Carlsberg’s net profit increased 5% to RM291.02 million from RM277.15 million a year ago, primarily driven by higher profit contributions from Malaysia and Singapore operations.

This was on the back of an expansion of 13.8% to RM2.26 billion for FY19 versus RM1.98 billion in the preceding year.

It also proposed to declare a dividend of 45.4 sen comprising an interim dividend of 17 sen, a final dividend of 23.6 sen and a special dividend of 4.8 sen.

Together with the interim dividend of 54.5 sen declared for the first nine months of FY19, the total declared and proposed dividend for FY19 is RM1 per share, equivalent to a payout of 105.1%.

24 February, 2020