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Report on the audit of the financial statements for the year ended December 31
2023 included in the annual report
Information in support of our opinion
Independent Auditor’s Report
Introduction
We believe the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.
Sustainability
Review
Other
Information
Financial
Statements
Report
of the
Supervisory
Board
Report
of the
Executive
Board
Our opinion
We have audited the financial statements for the year ended December 31,2023 of Heineken N.V., based in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The financial statements comprise the Consolidated Financial Statements and
the Company Financial Statements.
In our opinion:
- The accompanying Consolidated Financial Statements give a true and fair view of the financial position of
Heineken N.V. as at December 31,2023, and of its result and its cash flows for the year ended December 31,
2023 in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the European Union
(EU-IFRS) and with Part 9 of Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code.
- The accompanying Company Financial Statements give a true and fair view of the financial position of
Heineken N.V. as at December 31,2023, and of its result for the year ended December 31,2023 in accordance
with Part 9 of Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code.
The Consolidated Financial Statements comprise:
- The Consolidated Statement of Financial Position as at 31 December 2023.
- The following statements for 2023: the Consolidated Income Statement, the Consolidated Statement of
Other Comprehensive Income, the Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows, and the Consolidated statement
of Changes in Equity.
- The Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements comprising material accounting policy information and
other explanatory information.
The Company Financial Statements comprise:
- The Company Balance Sheet as at 31 December 2023.
- The Company Income Statement for the year ended December 31,2023.
- The Notes to the Company Financial Statements comprising a summary of the accounting policies and other
explanatory information.
Basis for our opinion
We conducted our audit in accordance with Dutch law, including the Dutch Standards on Auditing. Our
responsibilities under those standards are further described in the 'Our responsibilities for the audit of the
financial statements' section of our report.
We are independent of Heineken N.V. in accordance with the EU Regulation on specific requirements regarding
statutory audit of public-interest entities, the Wet toezicht accountantsorganisaties (Wta, Audit firms supervision
act), the Verordening inzake de onafhankelijkheid van accountants bij assurance-opdrachten (ViO, Code of
Ethics for Professional Accountants, a regulation with respect to independence) and other relevant
independence regulations in the Netherlands. Furthermore, we have complied with the Verordening gedrags-
en beroepsregels accountants (VGBA, Dutch Code of Ethics).
We have performed audit procedures ourselves at Heineken N.V., corporate entities, and certain operations in
the Netherlands. Furthermore, we performed audit procedures at group level on areas such as consolidation,
disclosures, impairment testing for intangible assets (including goodwill) and non-current assets held for sale,
joint ventures, financial instruments, acquisitions, and divestments. Specialists were involved amongst others in
the areas of treasury, information technology, forensics, tax, accounting, pensions, and valuations. For the
selected component audit teams, the group audit team provided detailed written instructions, which, in addition
to communicating our requirements of component audit teams, also detailed significant audit areas and
information obtained centrally relevant to the audit of individual components, including awareness for risks
related to management override of controls.
We designed our audit procedures in the context of our audit of the financial statements as a whole and in
forming our opinion thereon. The following information in support of our opinion was addressed in this context,
and we do not provide a separate opinion or conclusion on these matters.
Materiality
Based on our professional judgement we determined the materiality for the financial statements as a whole at
€220 million (2022: €210 million). The materiality is based on 8.7% of profit before tax from continuing
operations using also net revenue as supporting benchmark and 6.5% of profit before tax from continuing
operations when normalized for impairments and CTA recycling of the Russia disposal. We have also taken into
account misstatements and/or possible misstatements that in our opinion are material for the users of the
financial statements for qualitative reasons. The increase compared to 2022 is predominantly the result of the
increase in operating income before the effects of the impairments recorded during the year and the loss from
the sale of the Russia disposal group.
Audits of group entities (components) were performed using materiality levels determined by the judgement of
the group audit team, having regard to the materiality of the consolidated financial statements. Component
materiality for our two largest components was €77 million (2022: €65 million), and our materiality for other
components did not exceed €69 million (2022: €45 million).
We agreed with the Supervisory Board that misstatements in excess of €11 million, which are identified during
the audit, would be reported to them, as well as smaller misstatements that in our view must be reported on
qualitative grounds.
Because we are ultimately responsible for the opinion, we are responsible for directing, supervising, and
performing the group audit. In this respect we have determined the nature and extent of the audit procedures to
be carried out on the entities. Our group audit is mainly focused on financially large entities in terms of size and
financial interest or where significant risks or complex activities were present, leading to full audits performed for
27 (2022: 27 components) components, including 2 non-consolidated components.
Furthermore, we developed a plan for overseeing each component audit team based on its relative significance
and specific risk characteristics.
Scope of the group audit
Heineken N.V. is at the head of a group of entities. The financial information of this group is included in the
Consolidated Financial Statements of Heineken N.V.
To the shareholders and the Supervisory Board of Heineken N.V.
Heineken
N.V.
Annual
Report
2023
