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Cadbury Schweppes CADBURY SCHWEPPES reported last week that 2005 earnings increased 46%, helped by the disposal of less profitable brands and the fastest revenue growth in more than a decade. Net income increased to £765m, or 36.9p a share, from £525m, or 25.7p, a year earlier. Sales grew by 7% to £6.51bn in the same period. Chief executive Todd Stitzer is using money from last year's $2.2bn sale of Cadbury's European softdrinks unit to invest in fastergrowing chewing gum and diet drink markets. The company is focused on developing less sugary drinks such as fruit flavoured 7UP Plus with added calcium to narrow the gap with larger rivals PepsiCo and Coca-Cola. It will be interesting to see whether Cadbury can narrow that gap this year.
Scottish & Newcastle SCOTTISH & Newcastle reported a strong increase in profit last week after the company spent more money to advertise Kronenbourg 1664 lager and other beers in Britain and sales gained at its Russian business. Profits increased 22% in 2005. Net income climbed to £248m from £203m in 2004. The beermaker which owns brands such as Beamish, is reducing costs and investing in its brands. Other European brewers such as Carlsberg are increasingly looking to emerging markets such as Russia for growth. The amount of beer and cider the brewer sold under its own brands increased 6.1%. The shares are one to watch with volume growth expected from the World Cup coupled with strong growth in eastern Europe.
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YOU ARE HERE: 19 March 2007 / tribune.ie / 2006 / 02 / 26
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