Drinks firm laments cost of materials

BRITVIC Plc, the maker of Ballygowan, fell the most in almost five years after saying the price of key raw materials is rising at an “unprecedented” pace and operating margins won’t improve this year.

Britvic fell 49 pence, or 12%, to 369 pence at the 4.30pm close in London, the biggest one-day decline since March 2, 2006.

“The escalation in input costs comes after the completion of this year’s price negotiation process, meaning that we do not expect to be able to recover or mitigate in full the additional input-cost increases we expect this year,” the company said in a statement.