Tuesday preview: A.G. Barr reports half year interims

26th Sep 2016 13:15

(ShareCast News) - Soft drinks maker A.G. Barr reports its half-year results on Tuesday after warning of the impact of difficult market conditions in an August trading update.In last month's trading update, the owner of Irn-Bru and Rubicon said it expects revenue to fall 2.9% year-on-year to £125m in the six months to 30 July.The group said the UK soft drinks market performance has been challenging with continued deflation and volume declines.A.G. Barr cited data from IRI, covering 31 January to 19 June 2016, which showed value of the sector was down 0.8% and volumes declined by 0.4%, weighed down by poor weather in June and July."Consequently trading has been highly competitive but, despite this difficult market backdrop, we have maintained both value and volume overall market share," the company said in the trading statement.The group, however, said it expects to deliver its profit expectations for the full year.Numis, which predicts half year pre-tax profit to rise to £17.1m from last year's £16.9m, said weather since the trading update in August and September had improved."August 2016 as per the Met Office estimates saw a UK mean temperature +0.6 degrees C (vs the 1981-2010 average), rainfall at 99% the average and sunshine at 110%."August 2015 by contrast was a simply appalling weather month vs the 1981-2010 average, the mean temperature was -0.2 degrees C, sunshine was at 95% and rainfall was at 120%."In an effort to offset the challenging market conditions, including the government's planned April 2018 sugar levy, A.G. Barr has launched new products and controlled costs.The company has launched two lower and no added sugar variants for Rubicon as well as IRN-BRU XTRA, its sugar-free version of the Scottish soft drink. Tuesday 27 September INTERIMS Maxcyte (DI/Reg S), NetScientific , Premier Technical Services Group , S&U, Silence Therapeutics, Time Out Group, Toumaz Limited, XLMedia INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE Foxtons Group , Hostelworld Group QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE Total SA INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Consumer Confidence (US) (15:00) Import Price Index (GER) (07:00) M3 Money Supply (EU) (09:00) FINALS Close Brothers Group, Netcall, Wolseley AGMS Arcontech Group, ASA Resource Group , Nimrod Sea Assets Limited, Trinity Capital, United Carpets Group, Versarien TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS Mediclinic International UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS CBI Distributive Trades Surveys (11:00)