Britvic plc announced its interim results for the 28 weeks ended 13 April 2014, with Simon Litherland, Chief Executive Officer commenting:
“This has been another period of solid progress for our business, as we continue to implement the strategy we announced last year. We have delivered strong revenue, profit and margin growth in the first half of the year and our cost saving programme continues to gain traction across our business.
“We remain on track to meet our target of £30 million of annual cost savings by 2016. In addition, our international business is progressing well and the nationwide distribution of Fruit Shoot in the USA 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 EBIT in the range of £148m to £156m for the full year.”
Financial highlights:
- Revenue growth of 4.7% to £670.7m, with volume growth of 3.9% and ARP growth of 0.8%
- GB revenue up 5.0%, outperforming the GB take-home soft drinks market
- France revenue up 7%, with both volume and ARP growth
- Ireland revenue down 5.2% as the consumer environment remained difficult
- Group EBITA of £60.5m, up 12.9% on last year, driven by revenue growth and tight cost control
- Half-year adjusted EPS of 14.5p, up 16.9% on last year
- Interim dividend of 6.1p, up 13.0% on last year, reflecting confidence in future prospects
Strategic highlights:
- Focus has remained on building sustainable profit and margin improvement
- Strong progress on strategic cost initiatives: on-track to deliver £30m annual cost saving by 2016
- New operating model established with significant change programme nearing completion
- Nationwide distribution of Fruit Shoot in the USA secured through additional PAB territories and new independent bottler agreements
- Fruit Shoot India launch on track, with in-market production to commence imminently
For more information click here