A brief year-end trading update with not a huge amount of details. The main point is that post the July 2019 profit warning, the PBT performance through a combination of mix and cost savings has come in towards top-end of market expectations, implying c18% y/y decline. So a c3% beat vs our £36.5m. Revenue decline at -9% however was worse than our -7%. This reflects ongoing challenges with the Rubicon and Rockstar barns and lower Irn-Bru volume due to price realignment. Net, the company had a better H2 than H1 and from our understanding, exits Q4 with good momentum. Looking ahead to 2020, the comps are easier and the company is expected to get back into growth mode (albeit 3% at the PBT level). The main cloud on the horizon is the Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland, and we understand the Scottish Parliament will provide an update on plans in the next few weeks. We view this as short-term negative for AG Barr and hence have a y/y profit decline for FY22. Post today’s update we nudge our current year PBT up by 2% and FY21 by 2% also. There will be some investor relief this morning but given the anaemic growth outlook and ongoing headwinds we feel an FY21 P/E looks full. We stay at Hold.
