Adnams PLC AGM Statement (4302W)

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RNS Number : 4302W

Adnams PLC

28 April 2016

28 April 2016

Adnams PLC AGM Statement

The following comments were made at today's AGM:

Underlying trends remain good with strong growth in key products such as Adnams Ghost Ship and Adnams Copper House Gin. Our operating profit was slightly ahead of expectations at the end of the first quarter.

We see further opportunity to grow our businesses and are investing strongly to realise this potential. We have trebled our distillery capacity to deal with the very strong growth that we have seen in spirits sales. 2014 and 2015 were record years for Adnams beer sales, and sales remain particularly strong for high quality bottled, canned and kegged products. To cater for this growing opportunity we are midway through a GBP7 million project in our brewery which will create the capacity and the flexibility to produce the drinks that consumers are demanding.

In our hotels business, plans for a substantial further investment in the Swan in Southwold are progressing well and within our Retail business we are looking for new sites in East Anglia and plan to open in Felixstowe in the near future.

We are also investing heavily in our brand, exemplified by our support of the University Boat Races where we have agreed a six year sponsorship deal which started with the races this March. These additional investments will add to the costs that we face in the first half of 2016 and we are not anticipating an advance in our profits at that point. This is in line with our expectations and we aim to reap the returns from our investments in future periods.

The uncertainty created by the forthcoming EU referendum means that we need to be cautious in our assessment of the economic outlook, but Adnams has a firm commitment to the long term and we will continue to invest on that basis.

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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April 28, 2016 06:00 ET (10:00 GMT)