Britvic, the soft drinks company, has announced plans to create a combined Great Britain and Ireland business under a single leadership team, which will see the closure of two factories in Britain and a warehouse in Northern Ireland.
The strategy is expected to save the company £30m by 2016. The news comes as Britvic reports a 27.6% rise in EBITA to £53.6m in the 28 weeks to 14 April (underlying EBITA grew 17.9%). Group revenue grew 0.4% to £639.2m on a constant exchange rate basis.
Adjusted earnings per share up 47.6% to 12.4p and dividend increase of 1.9% to 5.4p. Pre-tax profits increased 50% to £37.5m.
Simon Litherland, chief executive, said: “Britvic has delivered strong first-half profit growth, a material improvement in cash flow and a reduction in net debt. This has been achieved by growing our average realised price, a continued focus on cost and the substantial progress we have made in improving the underlying strength of our business.
“Today we have announced a new strategy which will lead to a step change in performance and improved returns for shareholders. We intend to change our operating model to generate stronger performance in our core markets and accelerate the increasingly attractive international opportunities, underpinned by a reduction in the cost base of £30m per annum by 2016.
“Based on our strong interim results and the exciting marketing activity we will be executing in the second half of the year, we are confident that we will deliver full year EBIT towards the upper end of our previously communicated range of £125m - £131m.”
