By Rhys Jones
LONDON (Reuters) - Soft drinks maker Britvic <BVIC.L> on Wednesday posted a 16.3 percent rise in half-year profit and said it was seeing signs of improvement in the British soft drinks market, sending its shares higher.
Britvic, which has the right to sell Pepsi in the UK and Ireland and makes Tango, Robinsons and Fruit Shoot, reported a pretax profit of 20 million pounds for the six months to April 12 on revenues up 6.3 percent to 483.2 million pounds.
"As we look at the whole market we have begun to see some modest recovery in growth. Carbonates and stills are showing modest improvement on the trend over the last 12 months," Chief Executive Paul Moody told reporters on a conference call.
"Soft drinks has been a resilient category in the face of the downturn, especially the brands."
Shares in Britvic, which have increased in value by more than 10 percent in the last three months, were 12 percent up at 300.75 pence by 10:10 a.m., valuing the group at over 600 million pounds.
"Britvic's results highlight an improving trend in trading across most areas of its business. We are encouraged that the UK soft drinks market appears to have stabilised with volumes showing no deterioration over the past two months," said Altium analyst Greg Feehely.
The group increased its interim dividend by 7.9 percent to 4.1 pence and said it expects its brands to outperform the British soft drinks market in the second-half.
Analysts, on average, expect the company to report a pretax profit of 75 million for the year to the end of September 2009.
Britvic said profit at its British and international business grew 17.7 percent, while its Irish unit only managed to break even.
"Ireland continues to be challenging. Until we see some material improvement in the economy there it's difficult to call an improvement in its soft drinks category," said Moody.
Soft drinks maker Nichols <NICL.L> on Wednesday said sales of its core Vimto brand increased by 11.8 percent in the 12 weeks to April 18, sending its shares 1.7 percent higher.
(Editing by Simon Jessop)