Shares in C&C Group were in freefall this week after the Magners and Gaymers maker revealed difficult trading conditions had dented its sales and profits. Poor weather in Ireland and Scotland over the key summer trading period didn’t help matters at the Irish group.

Operating profits fell 9.5% to €62.6m (£44.9m) and sales were down 2.6% to €358.6m in the six months to 31 August, with the US business also performing below expectations. It followed a pre-tax loss of almost €68m in the 2014-15 financial year. The one bright spot in the interims was significant growth in the export business - 31% earnings growth fuelled by the Magners, Tennent’s and Shepton brands - and a “resilient performance” by the branded business generally.

CEO Stephen Glancey called the performance “disappointing” but added many of the factors were one-off or transitional. Glancey also announced a buy-back programme to repurchase up to €100m of shares by July 2016.

“The business remains highly cash-generative,” Investec analyst Ian Hunter said. “While on first take, consensus FY16 earnings per share may be pared back by 5% to 7%, our ‘buy’ call remains.”

C&C’s stock was already down 3.8% ahead of the half-year announcement on Wednesday and has continued to fall since. The stock is, at the time of writing, down 7.5% for the week to €3.58.

In contrast, Heineken’s share price shot up 4% on Wednesday to €83.35 as the brewer comfortably beat expectations with global revenues increasing 8% to €5.51bn (£3.95bn) in the third quarter on the back of strong volumes in Europe. This helped raise net profits for the first nine months of the year by 62.8% to €1.78bn. Chairman and CEO Jean-François van Boxmeer attributed the growth to Heineken’s “well-balanced global footprint, excellent portfolio of brands, combined with a powerful innovation agenda”. Bernstein analyst Trevor Stirling downgraded the stock to ‘market outperform’ as he felt the recovery at the business over recent years was now fully reflected in the share price.

Topics