Nichols plc Regulatory News (NICL)

Nichols plc

John Nichols, Non-Executive Chairman of Nichols plc, the soft drinks group, will make the following statement at the Group's Annual General Meeting to be held later today:

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"I am pleased to report that the Group's profit performance after the first four months of 2013 is in line with management expectations and ahead of the prior year. This has been achieved in a challenging UK market and against strong comparatives from last year.

In the UK, our core brands continue to perform well, with double digit sales growth in the Still category. In the Carbonate sector we have consciously reduced our participation in this heavily promoted sector, in line with our strategy of focusing on value generation. We expect this will result in a marginal decline in revenues for our UK business in 2013, but this will improve our overall operating margin and profitability.

Sales into our export markets are in line with management expectations, with sales to Africa ahead of last year and sales to the Middle East broadly at the same level as 2012.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our outgoing Chief Executive, Brendan Hynes, for his outstanding contribution to the business during the last 10 years and wish him every success for the future. Marnie Millard takes over as Chief Executive with the business in good health and, at this early stage of the year, we are very pleased with the Group's continuing progress and are confident of delivering results in line with full year expectations."

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Notes to Editors:

Nichols plc is a highly focused soft drinks business. Its brand portfolio includes Vimto, which is sold in over 65 countries and Levi Roots, Weight Watchers, Sunkist & Panda which are sold in the UK. The Group has a leading market position in both the "Still" and "Carbonate" drinks categories and also in the soft drinks on dispense market, where its brands include Cabana & Ben Shaws.