Irn-Bru pays £1 for loss-maker Taut

Published on Thursday 24 January 2008 21:31

IRN-BRU maker AG Barr is pushing further into the specialist drinks market, snapping up a sports drink company fronted by Olympic gold medal winners Sir Matthew Pinsent and Darren Campbell.

Irn-Bru said it had paid a nominal 1 for Taut International, which owns a range of sports drink brands, also endorsed by the Harlequins Rugby Club.

Launched in 2003, Taut made a loss of 1.3 million on sales of 1m in 2006. But chief executive Roger White believes performance of the brands could be improved as part of a larger group.

The acquisition was not expected to have a "material" impact on trading for the next financial year.

Over the past two years, AG Barr has developed an increasingly diverse portfolio of brands, launching and buying a range specialist drinks to complement the core Irn-Bru product.

In 2006 it launched Irn-Bru 32, a highly caffeinated energy drink, and bought Strathmore, a premium bottled water company which sells strongly in restaurants.

Late last year it launched Rockstar, a US energy drink for which Barr bought the UK rights and a fortnight ago it announced the purchase of sports water brands Vitsmart and Vitaminsmart from Edinburgh-based Chartered Brands.

White said the company was seeking to develop a balanced portfolio "fit for the future" and if other brands could be found with the right potential at the right price, more acquisitions would be forthcoming.

"Customers are tending to purchase good quality brands, and in some cases they're going into smoothies or fruit juices or sports and energy drinks. Our objective is to be able to offer our customers something in every sector," White said. "The traditional core carbonated soft drink is still going to be the very largest and by definition of biggest interest. But areas where there's larger growth from a lower start point are of great interest to us."

The latest purchase was announced as AG Barr told the market that results for the year to 26 January would be in line with expectations – despite 2007 being a colder, wetter summer than the previous year, hitting sales.

Analysts at Altium Securities said the performance was "admirable" when set against a market that was reported to have been 20 per cent down during the key summer months on the previous year.

The brokerage is forecasting a 2m rise in pre-tax profits to 20.8m on sales of 148m.

Shares in AG Barr, which have been weak in recent months, climbed 6.4 per cent, or 68p to 1,137p.