Solid performance in carbonated drinks lifts Britvic profit

Profit and revenue at drinks maker Britvic rose in the 53 weeks to 2 October as the carbonated drinks division put in a solid performance.

Pre-tax profit rose to £151.9m from £137.6m the year before on revenue of £1.43bn, up from £1.3bn, while adjusted earnings per share increased 6.5% to 49.3p.

Shore Capital had been expecting revenue of £1.39bn and adjusted EPS of 47.8p.

The company recommended a final dividend of 17.5p per share, taking the full-year dividend to 24.5p from 23p the year before. ShoreCap had pencilled in 24p.

Britvic said the GB Carbs carbonated drinks business – which includes both PepsiCo brands – had an “outstanding” year, with like-for-like revenue growth of 5.3%. The group said its continued focus on no and low sugar resulted in Pepsi Max, 7UP and Tango all delivering growth.

However, the performance in the stills business remained challenging, although it improved in the second half. Robinsons declined year-on-year following the company’s decision to remove added sugar from the range and due to very competitive own label pricing in the dilutes category. Meanwhile, J2O had a weak Christmas and the limited-edition flavours performed poorly.

Chief executive officer Simon Litherland said: “Britvic has delivered another strong set of results in challenging market conditions. In our core markets, we continued to take market share with a particularly strong carbonates performance. Internationally, we have had an excellent first year in Brazil and Fruit Shoot continued to grow in France, USA with the launch of multi-pack, and latterly in Brazil following its recent launch in Sao Paulo.

“We are confident we will mitigate inflationary input costs through a combination of revenue management activities and internal cost saving initiatives. The new financial year has started well and although 2017 will be another challenging year, we expect to deliver pre-exceptional EBITA in line with current market expectations."

At 0937 GMT, Britvic shares were up 5% to 575.25p.