Business in brief: SABMiller | National Express | Alcatel-Lucent | Intertek

FOOTBALL fever helped global brewer SABMiller to return to growth in Europe as the Euro 2012 tournament boosted Polish beer sales and saw its overall quarterly beer volumes beat analysts’ forecasts with a 5 per cent rise.

Big games boost beer at SABMiller

The competition lifted Polish sales by 11 per cent in the brewer’s first quarter and saw its European sales, heavily weighed to the east, rise 7 per cent following several quarters of decline.

Volumes in Romania were up 15 per cent, helped by product launches, with smaller rises in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

14% drop in profits at National Express

PROFITS hit the brakes at bus and train operator National Express, after its East Anglia rail franchise ended and its C2C commuter service in London came under pressure.

The firm, which also has operations in Morocco, North America and Spain, posted a

14 per cent drop in first-half profits to £82 million, on the back of a 17 per cent slide in revenues to £934.1m.

But the company still increased its interim dividend by 5 per cent to 3.15p.

Meanwhile, chairman John Devaney revealed he would retire from the group next year.

Alcatel-Lucent to cut costs and jobs

TELECOMS equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent has said it will slash costs and cut 5,000 jobs after posting a net loss for the second quarter of €254 million (£200m).

The Franco-American group unveiled a restructuring plan yesterday that it said would take €1.25 billion off its bottom line by next year. Some of that sum includes cuts that had already been announced. The 5,000 posts equate to about 6.4 per cent of the global workforce.

The company said the economic slowdown and heightened competition were hitting profits.

Intertek confident of revenue growth

HALF-year profits at FTSE 100 industrial services firm Intertek – which last month appointed Scottish Enterprise chief executive Lena Wilson as a non-executive director – rose by almost a third to £122 million after growth in its commodities and energy businesses.

Wolfhart Hauser, chief executive at Intertek, which tests products for other firms, said: “Global economic conditions are becoming increasingly uncertain. However, with the group’s balanced industry and geographic portfolio, we expect to grow revenue at high single digits for the full year.”