Britvic upbeat as Brits drink more

20th May 2009 07:41

Soft drinks supplier Britvic shrugged off a profits collapse in Ireland to lift underlying interim profits by over 16% as sales in the UK gathered momentum.Excluding one-offs, profits rose by 16.3% to £20m, from £17.2m, in the half-year to March. Pre-tax profits were £7.2m against £51.8m. The figures this time included one-off charges of £12.1m versus a big gain last year.Group revenues rose 6.3% to £483m with an acceleration of growth in the second quarter especially in the Great Britain region with further volume and value share gains, Britvic said.GB operating profit was up 17.7%, with a 70 basis points margin increase and revenue growth of 7.6% to £382.1mRobinsons, Fruit Shoot, Gatorade and Drench lifted UK stills volumes up by 6%, outperforming the stills market by 12.0%, while strong performances from both Pepsi and 7Up,and an improving performance from Tango, lifted carbonates volumes up by 7.5%, outperforming the market by 7.3%.Ireland was different story. Operating profit fell by £4.3m to zero driven by challenging market conditions. Revenues were up by nearly 2%, though in underlying euros, fell by 13.8%." Revenues in our second half so far continue in line with our first half performance and we have also started to see modest improvements in the British soft drinks market," chief executive Paul Moody said."All of this gives us confidence in meeting full-year expectations," he added. The interim dividend per share is 4.1p, up 7.9% on last year.