26th Jan 2017 07:39
LONDON (Alliance News) - Drinks giant Diageo PLC on Thursday reported growth in profit in the first half of its financial year, boosted by the weak pound, which it said will benefit the full year on the whole.
Diageo, which makes brands including Smirnoff vodka and Captain Morgan rum, said pretax profit in the six months ended December 31 grew to GBP2.07 billion from GBP1.78 billion in the first half of the prior year, as revenue rose to GBP9.62 billion from GBP8.27 billion.
Diageo said it grew sales in each of the geographic markets in which it operates, driven by positive movements in foreign exchange rates when foreign currencies were translated back into sterling.
Diageo added that the recent weakening of the pound against the dollar and euro is expected to add GBP1.4 billion to sales in the full year and around GBP460 million to operating profit.
The company said year-on-year organic growth in the recent half was 1.8% in volume terms and 4.4% in terms of net sales.
Diageo will pay an interim dividend of 23.7 pence per share, which is a 5% increase on the prior year.
"Our expectations of delivering a stronger financial performance this year are unchanged. We are confident of achieving our medium-term objective of consistent mid-single digit top line growth and 100 basis points of organic operating margin improvement in the three years ending June 30, 2019," Chief Executive Ivan Menezes said in a statement.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected]; @KarolinaAllNews
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