FDBusiness.com

Stock Spirits Group, one of Central Europe’s leading branded spirits and liqueurs businesses, has reported double digit organic revenue and profit growth for the year ended December 31st 2010. Revenue increased by 13.3% to Eur308.6m and EBITDA by 16.6% to Eur68.2m.as the company gained market shares across its key markets. During 2010, Stock built upon its clear position as spirits market leader in Poland, where its share was up 10% to 36% against a market decline of 4.7%, and in the Czech Republic, where its share also advanced to 36%.

Stock is one of the top vodka producers globally, and is number one in Poland, Italy and Czech Republic. Stock was created through the integration of Stock and Polmos Lublin in 2007 and is backed by private equity company Oaktree Capital.

With core operations in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Slovenia, Stock also exports to about 50 other countries worldwide.

Stock has now completed its expansion programme, which has increased total annual production capacity to about 350m litres. In the region of Eur34m has been invested in operational infrastructure over past three years, and Stock now operates the largest and fastest single spirit bottling plant in Europe; with a capacity of over 480m bottles per annum.

“In what was a tough year for the Central Europe spirits markets, we were delighted to achieve double digit growth, remain highly cash generative and strengthen our market shares in our main markets. We were particularly pleased to grow profitability despite launching nearly twenty new products in the year and experiencing raw material volatility,” comments chief executive Chris Heath. “We also strengthened our management team further, invested in our manufacturing facilities and sales and marketing capabilities, and expanded our distribution network – all of which delivered this solid growth and reinforced our strong platform for future growth.”