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CITIGROUP raised its price target for C&C to 12.90 on the back of strong results released last week and plans by the company to ramp up its sales of Magners cider in Britain this year as well as begin rollouts in Germany and Spain. There is some debate about whether Magners' success is at the expense of Guinness or of lager and how that will affect the ultimate size of its market share in the UK, but the real goal is on the other side of the Atlantic. The company played down speculation that its medium-term objective is to expand in the US market, and media speculation poo-poohed the idea, arguing that cider is traditionally a soft drink in the US.
What the reports fail to account for, however, is that 'hard' cider was . . . by a big margin . . . the most popular alcoholic beverage for most of American history until Prohibition in the 1920s, when the US government paid growers to cut down cider orchards. C&C is thought to be aware of that potentially useful bit of trivia as a starting point for a future marketing push, even if analysts aren't. C&C closed under 12.00 on Friday.
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YOU ARE HERE: 11 November 2007 / tribune.ie / 2007 / 05 / 13
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