Barr (A.G.) Regulatory News (BAG)

25 July 2014

A.G. BARR p.l.c.

Pre Close Trading Update

A.G. BARR p.l.c. ("A.G. Barr"), the soft drinks group, will announce its interim financial results for the six months to 27 July 2014 on 23 September 2014.

In the six month period to date, A.G. Barr has maintained strong value and volume growth momentum, despite the increasingly tough prior year comparatives. We anticipate half year sales revenue of c.£135m, an increase of 5.6% over the prior year, which in turn, was 5% up on the previous year's performance. Our growth continues to be well ahead of the total soft drinks market performance that, as measured by Nielsen for the period 26 January 2014 to 12 July 2014, saw value increase by 1.6%, whilst volume declined by 0.3%. Our growth is well balanced across our core brands, all of which have responded positively to increased marketing activities, in the current period.

Promotional price competition in the soft drinks market remains intense however, despite investing in increased promotional activity and our incremental marketing investments, our margins remain in line with management's expectations.

We recently announced our intention to invest further in carton packaging capability at our Milton Keynes site. We can now confirm that following completion of the consultation process we will progress with this investment and the Tredegar site in Wales will close in early 2015. Project plans are now well underway and we continue to work closely with all affected employees at Tredegar.

Our balance sheet remains strong and our capital investment plans are in line with management expectations.

People

We are making good progress in the recruitment of our Finance Director position and expect to update the market in due course.

Outlook

We are now in a period characterised by tough year-on-year comparative trading, however recent and current good weather, as well as the execution of a strong sales programme, continue to underpin our trading.

We anticipate that the soft drinks market across the second half of the year will continue to be highly competitive but we expect to deliver another year of good growth given our sustained investment in brands and innovation, on top of the good progress we are making in executing our annual operating plans.