12th Nov 2015 07:20
LONDON (Alliance News) - SABMiller PLC Thursday reported a drop in profit in the first half of its financial year as it was hit by unfavourable currency movements against the dollar, which it said will continue for the remainder of the year.
The drinks giant said pretax profit in the six months ended September 30 fell 18% to USD2.32 billion from USD2.82 billion in the same period the year before, as revenue decreased 12% to USD9.99 billion from USD11.36 billion.
SABMiller said that results were hit by the depreciation of major operating currencies against the dollar and that it would have demonstrated earnings growth on an underlying, constant currency basis.
SABMiller will pay an interim dividend of 28.25 cents, a 9% rise on the 26.0 cents it paid the prior year.
"We expect that growth will continue to be principally driven by our developing markets and through our focus on premiumisation across all markets. We anticipate that we will continue to be impacted by the depreciation of key operating currencies against the US dollar in the current financial year, which has materially impacted our reported results," SABMiller said in a statement.
On Wednesday, SABMiller revealed that it has reached an agreement to be acquired by bigger rival Anheuser-Busch InBev in a deal valuing the Anglo-South African brewer at around GBP71.0 billion, bringing a close to months of talks between the two on creating a company which will be by far the biggest beer business in the world.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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