Strong First Half Performance by C&C Group
C&C Group has reported net revenue of €838.7 million and operating profit of €58.4 million, including the acquisitions of the Matthew Clark and Bibendum businesses in April 2018, for the six months ended 31 August 2018. On a constant currency basis, net revenue for existing C&C operations increased by 6.4% while operating profit rose by 4.0%.
Headquartered in Dublin, C&C Group produces and distributes branded beer, cider, wine, spirits, soft drinks and bottled water. C&C Group brands include: Bulmers the leading Irish cider brand; Tennent’s, the leading Scottish beer brand; Magners the premium international cider brand; as well as a range of superpremium and craft ciders and beers. C&C Group also owns and manufactures Woodchuck, a leading craft cider brand in the United States and manufactures and distributes a number of third party international beer brands in Scotland and Ireland. C&C is also a leading drinks wholesaler in the UK and Ireland, where it operates under the Matthew Clark, Bibendum, Tennent’s and C&C Gleeson brands. C&C Group has a minority investment in the Admiral Taverns tenanted pub group, which owns over 800 pubs across England and Wales.
Stephen Glancey, chief executive of C&C Group, comments: “Trading through the first six months has been strong driven by favourable summer weather and the impact of the World Cup. Encouragingly, our key brands have all delivered market share in their key markets and year on year revenue growth. In our core business, wholesale and wine also performed well with +11% revenue growth, shipping 0.56 million cases of wine a 2% increase from last year.”
He continues: “We are reporting revenue growth of 186% and earnings growth of 16%. This includes the recently acquired Matthew Clark and Bibendum businesses. Core earnings (excluding these acquisitions) were up 4.0% in the half. Since the acquisition of Matthew Clark and Bibendum our absolute focus has been the stabilisation of the businesses. By the end of September we settled £129 million of monies owed to suppliers, paid taxes owed of £31 million and collected £146 million of monies due from customers.”
