British business supplies company Bunzl still keen on UK acquisitions despite Brexit

(Adds CEO, analyst comments, details, shares)

By Esha Vaish

Aug 30 (Reuters) - British business supplies distributor Bunzl Plc (LSE: BNZL.L - news) is still looking for smaller businesses to buy in the UK as Britain had not become any less attractive since it voted to leave the European Union, the company said on Tuesday.

Bunzl, which supplies supermarkets, hospitals and hotels with products ranging from carrier bags to toilet rolls, has been snapping up small companies, with more than 125 acquisitions globally since 2004 with a total spending of around 2.3 billion pounds ($3 bln).

Chief Executive Frank Van Zaten told Reuters that Bunzl had an "active pipeline of opportunities", but declined to specify whether it was currently in talks to buy any UK businesses or whether deal values had been affected by the slide in sterling since the June 23 vote to leave the EU, or Brexit.

"We will certainly buy businesses in the future in the UK and we're quite confident about that," he said.

It announced another three small acquisitions on Tuesday, adding to five already this year for a total spend of 101 million pounds on mostly family owned firms in Britain, Canada, the United States, Brazil, Turkey and Belgium.

Boosted by some of those purchases, Bunzl reported better-than-expected first-half profit on Tuesday, sending its shares up about 2 percent to 2,466 pence by 0849 GMT, one of the top percentage gainers on London's FTSE 100 index.

Van Zaten said he did not expect Brexit to have a significant impact on the company's earnings outlook as it gets only about 15 percent of its revenue from the UK. Most of its revenue comes from North America.

"I think this whole (Brexit) thing is going to take years and that's certainly, when I talk to people here, how they look at it," van Zanten said.

"If it's toilet paper or the cups at Costa coffee... they are low value products ... (and) we sell products every week to customers."

Some data since the shock Brexit vote has shown little immediate impact on consumer demand in Britain. Retail sales rose rapidly last month, and there have also been signs consumer morale has recovered partially from a big fall following the referendum.

Bunzl said adjusted pretax profit rose 13 percent to 210.6 million pounds in the six months ended June 30, coming in ahead of the 204.1 million pounds forecast by nine analysts in a company-compiled consensus.

The company had reported a comparable profit of 187 million pounds a year earlier.

"We continue to view Bunzl as a Biz Services core holding, with resilient growth, impressive cash conversion and excellent opportunities to consolidate its markets," Citi analysts said in a client note.

"Given the likelihood of a prolonged low interest rate environment, which adds power to its bolt-on strategy, we feel Bunzl (Stuttgart: BUZ1.SG - news) (shares) should continue to outperform," they added. ($1 = 0.7645 pounds) (Reporting by Esha Vaish in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair and Susan Fenton)