FDBusiness.com

Coca-Cola Hellenic, which is one of the largest bottlers of Coca-Cola products in the world and the biggest in Europe, has reported stable net profit of Eur201m for the six months ended 2nd July 2010, despite a tax charge of Eur21m related to the ‘Extraordinary Social Contribution Tax’ in Greece, imposed as part of the country’s attempts to get to grips with its debt crisis.

Volumes at 1,009m unit cases were 2% below the first half of 2009 although net sales revenue was up 1% to Eur3.30b. On a comparable basis, operating profit (EBIT) rose 3% to Eur320m.

Doros Constantinou, chief executive of Coca-Cola Hellenic.

Coca-Cola Hellenic’s operations span 28 countries, serving more than 560 million people. The company is headquartered in Athens and listed on the Athens, New York and London stock exchanges.

“The broad geographic spread of our business enabled us to deliver a robust operating performance in the first half of the year, with the effects of increasingly challenging conditions in specific key countries being offset by improving trading performances in other markets, particularly in Eastern Europe,” comments Doros Constantinou, chief executive of Coca-Cola Hellenic. “We continue to focus successfully on identifying further efficiency improvements and cost savings which are expected to support future profitability. Our group-wide focus on strong cash flow generation continues to yield results, while we are increasing our investment in marketing in countries where signs of recovery are more evident.”