Britvic toasts 20 per cent profit rise

21st May 2014 07:06

- Half-year profit up 20 per cent- On track to deliver 30m pounds in annual cost savings by 2016- Confident of future trading, dividend up 13 per centSoft drinks group Britvic served up a 20 per cent increase in interim profit, as it continues with its cost saving programme, and underlined its confidence in future trading with a 13 per cent hike in its interim dividend.Pre-tax profit jumped 20.8% to £45.3m for the 28 weeks ended April 13th while revenue increased to £670.7m from £639.2m the same time a year earlier with volume growth of 3.9% and average realised price (ARP) growth of 0.8%. Half-year adjusted earnings per share were 14.5p, up 16.9% on last year.The group, whose brand portfolio includes Robinsons, Tango, J2O, Fruit Shoot, Teisseire and PepsiCo brands such as Pepsi, 7UP and Mountain Dew Energy, under exclusive PepsiCo agreements, said its focus has remained on building sustainable profit and margin improvement.Strategic cost initiatives are on-track to deliver £30m annual cost saving by 2016, it said.Across its geographical regions, GB revenue rose 5.0%, in France revenue increased 7% but Ireland revenue fell 5.2% as the consumer environment remained difficult.Chief Executive Officer Simon Litherland commented: "This has been another period of solid progress for our business, as we continue to implement the strategy we announced last year. Our international business is progressing well and the nationwide distribution of Fruit Shoot in the US is an important milestone as we seek to exploit the international potential of our brands.""Whilst we anticipate that the consumer environment is likely to remain challenging across our core markets, we remain confident of delivering earnings before interest and tax in the range of £148m to £156m for the full-year."Britvic has recommended an interim dividend of 6.1p, up 13.0% on last year.CJ