Drinks maker Britvic lifts full-year profit expectations

LONDON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - British soft drinks group Britvic said accelerated cost savings meant annual operating profit would be slightly ahead of the top of its guidance range, despite a fall in sales in its fourth quarter.

In July the maker of Robinsons squash and Tango soft drinks had said it expected full-year operating profit would be towards the top end of its guided range of 148 million pounds ($237 million) to 156 million pounds.

The upgrade came despite the group saying on Thursday weaker summer weather in the three months to Sept. 28 and strong comparative numbers had seen revenue fall 4 percent to 344.2 million pounds.

That followed a 4.1 percent sales rise in its third quarter.

"We anticipate that the prevailing challenging market conditions will continue for some time. Nevertheless, we look forward with confidence to further earnings growth in 2015," said Chief Executive Simon Litherland.

Full year revenue increased by 2.4 percent to 1.34 billion pounds, with both volume and price growth.

Britvic (Other OTC: BTVCF - news) , which also makes and sells PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP - news) brands such as Pepsi and 7UP in Britain, rejected an all-share merger proposal from smaller rival AG Barr in July 2013 in favour of a cost-cutting drive aimed at funding expansion.

The group has since started selling its Fruit Shoot children's drink across the United States, Spain and most recently India.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Britvic were up 1.7 percent to 646.5 pence at 0732 GMT.

The company will publish its preliminary results on November 26.

(1 US dollar = 0.6241 British pound) (Reporting By Ahmed Aboulenein; Writing By Neil Maidment; editing by Vincent Baby)