Britvic announces third £75m share buyback as interim profits rise

Drinks company Britvic posted a jump in interim profit and revenue on Wednesday and announced a £75m share buyback, as it highlighted "strong" customer demand for its brands.

In the six months to the end of March, adjusted earnings before interest and tax rose 17.7% to £100.4m, while pre-tax profit increased to £78.2m from £69.3m. Revenue was 11.2% higher at £880.3m

Adjusted earnings per share rose 18.5% to 27p and the company declared an interim dividend of 9.5p a share, up 15.9%.

Britvic said volumes grew 4.4% during the half, with "robust" growth and all three business units achieving revenue, contribution and margin expansion.

In particular, it hailed standout growth from Pepsi MAX, Ballygowan, MiWadi, Fruit Shoot and Lipton.

The company also announced its third share buyback of £75m over the next 12 months, "reflecting our strong earnings, free cashflow generation, and positive outlook".

Chief executive Simon Litherland said: "As expected, our market-leading growth comes from the combination of another strong performance from our scale family favourite brands, coupled with accelerated growth in Brazil and across multiple new growth spaces, such as London Essence, Aqua Libra and Plenish. We have increased the investment behind our brands by over 38% in the period.

"Looking forward, I am confident that we will deliver a strong full year performance. In the medium term, I firmly believe the continued execution of our strategy and growth drivers will allow us to sustainably outperform both the market and our historical top-line growth rate, leaving the company poised to continue our long-standing track record of delivering outstanding returns for our shareholders."