Soft drinks supplier Britvic (BVIC) saw adjusted revenue nudge up 1.4 per cent to £699m in its first half, with operating profit climbing up 11.7 per cent to £62.8m. But the group has been hit hard by coronavirus across all its business units and expects a £12m-£18m impact on adjusted profits per month with normal trading conditions curtailed.
Markets in the UK and Ireland have fared the worst, where exposure to ‘out of home’ products is highest. However, analysts at Barclays have noted that Brazil is behind many other countries in the pandemic and expect conditions ‘to get worse before they get better’.
Britvic has frozen non-essential and non-committed capital expenditure and has deferred its decision on the dividend to later in the year when the impact of coronavirus on the business will be clearer.
Analysts at JP Morgan forecast adjusted earnings before interest at £161m and adjusted EPS of 44.52p for September 2020, compared with £226m and 59.8p in FY2019.
| BRITVIC (BVIC) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 752p | MARKET VALUE: | £2.01bn | |
| TOUCH: | 713-761p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 1,079p | LOW: 536p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2.9% | PE RATIO: | 23 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 162p* | NET DEBT: | 154%** | |
| Half-year to 31 March | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2019 † | 769 | 45.2 | 13.2 | 8.3 |
| 2020 | 699 | 14.7 | 14.7 | nil |
| % change | -9 | -67 | +11 | - |
| Ex-div: | na | |||
| Payment: | na | |||
| *Includes intangible assets of £400m, or 149p a share; **Includes lease liabilities of £87.8m; †28-week period to 14 Apr 2019. | ||||
