Coca-Cola HBC 1st Half Net Profit Rose Above Pre-Pandemic Levels; Performance Beat Expectations

By Jaime Llinares Taboada

Coca-Cola HBC AG on Thursday reported its first-half net profit rose from a year earlier, when the Covid-19 pandemic hurt revenue.

The FTSE 100 Coca-Cola bottler, which is 23% owned by Coca-Cola Co., made a net profit of 233.1 million euros ($273.6 million) in the six months ended July 2. This was up from EUR124.0 million in the first half of 2020 and from EUR195.1 million in the first half of 2019.

Operating profit increased 73% to EUR350.1 million, beating the market consensus of EUR292.1 million--taken from Vuma and averaged from 15 analysts' estimates.

Revenue was up 15% at EUR3.25 billion, as volumes rose 14% to 1.13 billion unit cases, the company said.

"We are encouraged by the strength of the performance, and while conscious of the risks as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact our markets, we continue to expect a strong recovery in FX-neutral revenues and now believe that we can achieve a 20-30bps EBIT margin expansion this year," Chief Executive Zoran Bogdanovic said.

Write to Jaime Llinares Taboada at [e-mail]; @JaimeLlinaresT

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 12, 2021 02:33 ET (06:33 GMT)

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