GREECE: Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling reports strong full year

Increased margins offset rising raw material and route-to-market costs at Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling, which today reported a strong set of full year results.

The Greek-based soft drinks bottler said today that it had seen a 13% leap in volumes for the full year 2007 to 1,949m unit cases. More encouraging, however, was the 44% increase in operating profit to €660.4m. Net income grew 58% to €495.5m over 2006.

Doros Constantinou, managing director of Coca-Cola Hellenic, said: "I am pleased to report a strong performance for Coca-Cola Hellenic in 2007. Through our successful execution in the market, we were able to deliver another year of strong operating profit growth, validating our continued ability to deliver on our volume-to-value model. This was supported by significant margin expansion despite higher investment in route to market initiatives and continued raw material cost pressures.

"We also continued to invest in profitable growth throughout the year with the purchase of a new Russian production facility whilst we are also exploring opportunities within the premium ready-to-drink coffee category with illycaffè."

He continued: "Looking at 2008, the uncertain global economic outlook and the surge in commodity costs have given us reason to remain vigilant. However, we believe our proven ability to execute our strategy even under challenging conditions and our balanced geographic presence will enable us to deliver another year of solid performance in line with our long-term growth model, despite cycling a challenging year."

In the fourth quarter the company said its volumes reached 447m unit cases, 8% ahead of the same period in 2006.

Operating profit stood at €79.0m versus €22.9m in the same period in 2006, whilst net income was €71.3m versus a loss of €23.4m in the same period in 2006.