A.G. BARR H2 25/26 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 1, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: A.G. Barr delivered a strong FY26 result with 4% revenue growth, a 120bp expansion in operating margin to 14.8%, ROCE at 20.4%, double‑digit PBT growth, >£60m operating cash flow and an 11% dividend increase.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management expects elevated low double‑digit revenue growth in FY27 driven by the Frobishers and Fentimans acquisitions (~£35m revenue contribution) while targeting to maintain operating margin in the 14%–16% range and return to a small net cash position by year‑end.
  • Positive Sentiment: Brand momentum is building: the IRN‑BRU relaunch and campaigns have improved awareness and delivered distribution gains (including Tesco), while Rubicon and Boost have expanded into new formats and grocery listings with several NPDs outperforming initial expectations.
  • Negative Sentiment: Near‑term financial and execution pressures include a CapEx peak of ~£40m in 2026/27, expectation of being net‑debt for most of 2026 while arranging a new RCF, and ~£4m of one‑off integration costs as Fentimans and Frobishers are brought in (initially ROCE‑dilutive).
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
A.G. BARR H2 25/26
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

Skip to Participants
Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the A.G. Barr plc full year results investor presentation. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab that's just situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and will publish our responses where it's appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet Company platform. Before we dive into the live Q&A session, we would just like to play a pre-recorded video covering the results.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Hello, everybody, and thank you for being here and welcome to the A.G. Barr results presentation for the year to January 2026. I'm Euan Sutherland, Chief Executive Officer, and I'm joined today by Stuart Lorimer, Chief Finance and Operating Officer. Over the next 30 minutes, we plan to provide a full review of the 2025, 2026 financial year, covering both financial results and the progress we are making in executing our strategy. We will also provide a summary of the outlook for the business and our expectations for the FY 2026, 2027 financial year, as well as our early perspective on the new brands that we have recently acquired. Mindful of your time, we have a lot to update, so this will take us the full 30 minutes today, and we hope you find this both informative and useful. Turning to page three.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

FY 2025, 2026 was another year of strong and consistent financial progress for A.G. Barr as we are shaping our customer value proposition to be aligned to current and future consumer needs. The business delivered a robust set of results across revenue growth, operating margin improvement, and consistent return on capital employed in line with our commitments. This performance underlines our belief that shareholder values are best delivered with a consistent set of simple financial metrics understood and lived throughout the organization, from factory floor to the boardroom, that also ultimately resonate with consumers and are driven by innovation, culture, and clarity. The A.G. Barr employee value proposition has also seen significant improvement as we align everyone with our goal and create a high-performance workplace. Colleague engagement scores have step changed over the last two years, reaching an all-time high in February this year.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

We have three levers for top-line growth, driving our core soft drinks brands, supercharging innovation in existing and new categories, and executing focused M&A. Overall, the business is stronger and more diverse and better positioned for growth than it was 12 months ago. Before looking at FY 2025, 2026 results in more detail, I wanted to reflect on our longer-term track record. Over recent years, this business has delivered a consistent multi-year growth profile while maintaining rigorous financial discipline. Revenue is 66% higher than it was four years ago. Our 4% growth this year was in line with our long-term target of at least 4% growth per annum. Our core brands are performing well in a competitive market, and with the recent acquisitions, we expect low double-digit revenue growth in FY 2026, 2027.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

In the last two years, we have successfully driven operating margin back up to 14.8%. The 120 basis point expansion in FY 2025, 2026 moved us firmly into our target 14%-16% range and reflects our decisive action on pricing and our relentless focus on supply chain. With this, our PBT has grown double digit in the year for the second year in a row. Our return on capital employed remains strong at 20.4%, even with the significant upfront investments we've made in our supply chain and our recent M&A activity, and we remain within our 19%-21% target range. The takeaway here is that our financial framework is working. By consistently hitting these three KPIs, we create the positive circle you see at the bottom of the slide.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Consistent delivery leads to reliable growth in profits, EPS, and dividends. I'll now pass to Stuart, who will take you through the financials.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

Thank you, Euan. Today, I will start with a review of what the business delivered in 2025, 2026, a year of strategic transition, disciplined execution, and strong financial delivery. I will conclude with an outlook for the year ahead before handing back to Euan to provide an update on the delivery of our strategy and the integration of our recent acquisitions. This is our financial scorecard. We will cover many of the metrics on subsequent slides, so I'll only call out a few headlines here. As Euan has covered, we delivered another year of profitable growth, making further progress across all three of our core metrics. Revenue growth, operating margin, and return on capital employed. Looking at the broader financial KPI set, 2025, 2026 was a year focused on transitioning to our new higher growth strategy.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

The transition was characterized by core brand pricing realignment and operational efficiency improvements. Together, these delivered 120 basis points of margin expansion, double-digit profit growth, and an 11% improvement in EPS. We continue to be a strongly cash generative business, delivering over GBP 60 million operating cash flow in the year. We ended the year with just over GBP 40 million in the bank, GBP 22 million lower than the prior year, following strategic investment in both our asset base and M&A, which I will cover later. Shortly after the year-end, we invested a further GBP 40 million in acquiring the Fentimans brand. Reflecting the strong financial performance, the good progress in executing our strategy, and our highly cash generative model, the board is proposing a full-year dividend of GBP 0.1871, an 11% increase on the prior year, delivering GBP 21 million to shareholders.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

I believe the scorecard underlines a very credible financial performance and a strong commercial delivery that provides momentum as we go into 2026. Euan will provide more depth and flavor on our brands shortly, their current performance and future plans. From a financial perspective, I would highlight a pleasing 4% overall revenue increase with growth across the portfolio. IRN-BRU, which was 38% of the company revenue three years ago and is now 32%, has grown revenue 16% over this time. Rubicon has grown 40% over the same time period. As we flagged last year, the aim for both brands in 2025 was to price reposition key formats ahead of major brand redesigns and in advance of significant media investment going into 2026. This was successfully delivered in line with expectations.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

The price changes had a negative impact on H1 performance which unwound in H2. Both brands exited quarter four with good sales momentum and strong media campaigns, IRN-BRU with girders and Rubicon with big flavor. The new IRN-BRU branding is now in trade and delivering encouraging results. It's pleasing to note that Boost delivered a standout performance with fantastic double-digit revenue growth following its own similar pricing repositioning and brand refresh in 2024. Our portfolio brand segment, representing 35% of revenue, delivered an aggregate growth of just over 5%. The impact of continued revenue declines in our Funkin on-trade business and the disposal of the Strathmore brand were more than offset by strong performances from KA, MOMA, Simply Fruity, and the mid-year acquisition of Innate-Essence. These brands benefited from a combination of innovation, distribution gains, and improved supply.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

In addition to delivering commercial top-line growth, we remain intensely focused on the bottom line. We pride ourselves on our disciplined cost control. The successful management of our GBP 370 million-plus cost base is fundamental to both our margin expansion this year and for creating the conditions for future sustainable growth. We have delivered efficiency improvements in our operations while invested in future growth through a deliberate upweight in marketing investment, talent refresh, and longer-term innovation. Input cost prices had generally stabilized after the peak inflation of 2023, 2024, with the notable exception of aluminum, which has seen its price rise significantly in H2 2025. We experienced an element of mitigating relief from other key commodities like sugar and PET as they moved out of their cyclical peaks. We have good cover across all commodities for much of calendar 2026.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

Aluminum price pressure is a combination of industry capacity, sustained demand growth, speculators, and now conflict-related energy spikes. The Iran conflict is a fast-moving situation, and we can't predict its intensity or duration. However, the direct operational and financial impacts have so far been limited. We have no revenue exposure to the Middle East, no supply security concerns, and any logistics impacts appear manageable. Looking forward to 2026, 2027, we expect operational efficiencies to continue from a combination of capital investment benefits and the financial elements of our Boost insourcing program. Our robust brand performance and strong cost controls translate directly to profitability and specifically the makeup of our 120 basis points expansion in our operating margin that takes us from 13.6%-14.8%. The capital program is a key enabler of the operational efficiencies, including our margin improvement.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

It is laying the foundation for future growth. The program, which is now over four years old, is being delivered on time and within budget. Cash CapEx of just over GBP 30 million in 2025, 2026 was focused in Cumbernauld, where we successfully completed the fifth and final phase of our line refresh program with the installation of our new high-speed line can line. The new line replaces an end-of-life asset but also delivers a 50% uplift in capacity as well as additional format capability. It is currently in the middle of commissioning and performing well. The capital program is a rolling five to 10-year plan that has already taken Cumbernauld from a 25 million case output in 2022 to a 46 million capacity in 2026. Looking forward, we expect CapEx to peak at circa GBP 40 million in the coming year 2026, 2027.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

This will fund the final payment for the Cumbernauld refresh program, the infrastructure and capability expansion to insource the Boost sports range in Cumbernauld, the implementation of a second independent can line at Milton Keynes, which is targeting commissioning for early 2027, and support scaling up manufacturing capacity for Innate-Essence. We are also advancing our ESG agenda with heat pump installations commencing in the next nine months to support our net zero initiatives. Beyond 2026, 2027, we expect CapEx to normalize in the range of GBP 30 million-GBP 35 million per annum over the medium term. We recognize that we have a highly cash generative business model. We do not take it for granted. We run a tight operation collecting and protecting our cash, and we operate a disciplined hierarchy when it comes to capital usage. Our capital allocation framework prioritizes organic investment, strategic M&A, and dividend growth.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

All of it underpinned by a commitment to maintain a robust and efficient balance sheet that will deliver returning capital employed in the range of 19%-21%, and a long-term net debt to EBITDA ratio of no more than 2.5x. We started the year with GBP 63.9 million in net cash and generated around GBP 55 million from the business, giving us a pre-allocation cash flow of almost GBP 119 million. We deployed capital in line with our framework, around GBP 30 million in capital investment, GBP 28 million acquisitions within the period, and returning just over GBP 19 million of cash to shareholders via dividends. Our M&A is the combination of our investment in Innate-Essence at the end of H1 and the acquisition of Frobishers' strengths at the end of H2.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

It does not include the Fentimans drink acquisition, which we completed just after the year-end. Euan will walk you through all three of these deals shortly. We closed the year with just over GBP 40 million in net cash, which we invested in the Fentimans acquisition just after the year-end. Our capital program and seasonal cash requirements indicate a net debt requirement for most of 2026. We are currently in the final phase of agreeing medium-term debt facilities, likely to be a two to three-year revolving credit facility. All our relationship banks have expressed their enthusiasm to support the business. Turning to the year ahead and the financial outlook for 2026, 2027. We enter the year with good momentum. We believe that we have the ability to deliver significant, sustainable growth through powerful marketing, strong innovation, and deepening retail relationships across our core brands.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

The recent acquisitions have further broadened our portfolio, taking us into higher growth segments, while supply chain investment and M&A integration should drive incremental margin, further accelerating the flywheel momentum that has been building up in the last year. What this means for 2026, 2027. We are expecting elevated low double-digit percentage revenue growth, supported by around GBP 35 million revenue contribution from our Frobishers and Fentimans acquisitions, while maintaining our operating margin in the range of 14%-16%. The integration of Frobishers and Fentimans is commencing. As anticipated, initially, these will be slightly Return on Capital Employed dilutive, pushing us towards the lower end of our 19%-21% target range, becoming ROCE accretive as the proposed integration completes, firstly, in 2027, with the integration benefits on overheads, and then later in early 2028, with benefits from Fentimans' insourcing savings.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

We're expecting one-off integration costs of around GBP 4 million in 2026-2027 as we rationalize and integrate Fentimans and Frobishers. As I have said, our CapEx cycle will peak at around GBP 40 million in 2026-2027. Finally, following the completion of our strategic M&A and our growth investments, we expect to return to a small positive net cash position at the end of the financial year. The 2026-2027 plan, and indeed our whole operating model, are designed to deliver consistent top and bottom-line growth today while ensuring we have the brands, capability, and capacity to sustain this growth over the longer term. With that, I will hand back to Euan, who will update on our strategy progress.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Thank you, Stuart. We'll now explain in a bit more detail the progress we have made towards our overall strategy and the priorities that offer considerable growth opportunities ahead. We've a clear and ambitious strategy which we outlined at last summer's Capital Markets Day and is grounded in our long-standing capabilities. We are building on the strengths of our business model and focusing our energies on five clear growth platforms that together can deliver our ambition. Firstly, more from core. We're driving higher penetration in our three core soft drinks brands. IRN-BRU, Rubicon and Boost all have significant headroom for growth across the U.K., and we're using refresh marketing, bold brand development, and customer channel growth opportunities to capture that. Secondly, excellence in sales and marketing. In the last 12 months, we've upweighted our talent and commercial capability.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

By strengthening our sales teams and the tools they are using, we're ensuring higher quality execution across all channels, from major grocery to local convenience stores, and we will cover more of that later. Next, leveraging our supply chain. We're investing ahead of the curve in both assets and people to absolutely drive operational efficiency and effectiveness. This is key to achieving our operating margin target, and we will have completed the Cumbernauld factory by this summer, and we have already begun work in Milton Keynes. We have significantly strengthened our innovation capability and pipeline. We're moving faster to meet evolving consumer preferences across all categories to ensure our brands are at the forefront of market trends. Finally, M&A.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Our recent acquisitions, Innate-Essence, Frobishers, and Fentimans, demonstrate our intent to access higher growth segments and broaden our market through a targeted and meaningful M&A strategy. We believe that these five platforms, when they fire together, will consistently drive revenue and profit growth and increasing returns for investors. Overleaf, as we've previously set out, we are targeting growth across three specific areas of the market. Today, I want to show you the concrete evidence of our progress in each. The majority of our business remains in the large and growing soft drink segments, where we're focused on accessing significant headroom growth. We're currently rolling out major rebrands for IRN-BRU and Rubicon, and we're expanding the product range with these brands through new product development.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Critically, we are seeing these core brands start to win in the grocery channel, where we still have significant under-penetration compared to our impulse heartlands. Secondly, we've recognized a step change in consumer desire for functional drinks and have added to this. We move beyond simple refreshment into functional healthy hydration, both expanding our existing brands within Rubicon and Boost and also acquiring a majority stake in Innate-Essence, which we'll cover later. Finally, we're broadening our reach in premium socializing soft drinks, capturing the opportunities from lower alcohol consumption. By adding Fentimans and Frobishers alongside Funkin and Bundaberg, we now have a comprehensive premium ready-to-drink and social portfolio. There is minimal cannibalization across these three segments. Each pillar accesses a different consumer needs, effectively broadening our total addressable market and driving incremental revenue. Moving on to covering our soft drinks brands.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Over the next four slides, I provide an update on the progress being made on our IRN-BRU, Rubicon, and Boost brands, along with an update from our core channels, Retail, Impulse, and Out-of-Home. In 2025, 2026, we upweighted our above the line creatives for IRN-BRU. Our first major milestone was achieved in the summer through the award-winning Made in Scotland from Girders TV campaign and outdoor media. Post the campaign, spontaneous awareness increased significantly, and one in five nationwide consumers exposed to the campaign either bought IRN-BRU for the first time or increased their purchase frequency. In the year ahead, we will build on the success of the MISFG campaign and are excited about our World Cup plans that are being finalized to support the first time Scotland has been in the World Cup for the last 28 years.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Flavor extensions are a key part of the IRN-BRU strategy. In March 2026, we launched Ice Cream and Raspberry Ripple in Tesco, landing a combined 787 stores, with Ice Cream being ranged in 376 England and Wales stores. Total grocery distribution growth on IRN-BRU flavors across all customers now exceeds 2,500 new distribution points. Relaunching IRN-BRU with the refreshed packaging and a focus on driving zero sugar is a core building block for 2026, 2027. We have already secured new listings in Tesco stores for zero sugar and across the market have added additional new distribution points with further confirmations of distribution growth expected in the months ahead. Turning to slide 17. In 2025, we also refreshed our above the line creatives for Rubicon.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

We focused our communication strategy on big flavor behavior, which is a brand message that translates across the full Rubicon portfolio. Campaign results showed the creative scored in the top 20% of all ads, a major milestone achieved for the Rubicon brand. We saw strong growth in awareness post the campaigns in the summer. In 2025, we focused on expanding the brand into healthy hydration space, launching Squash into Sainsbury's in 600 stores in a brand-new category for Rubicon. During this first launch weeks, two of the flavors launched were ranked in the top 10 Squash SKUs with more distribution planned for other customers through 2026. This was followed by the successful launch of Rubicon Twist as a first to market exclusive in Tesco, a flavored water that we executed across the whole of the U.K.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Rubicon Twist has performed ahead of initial expectations with plans in place to extend the range into other outlets and formats. For the Rubicon brand, raising our presence in core soft drinks fixtures across grocery retailers is a key building block of our strategy. In addition to the innovation we have launched, we have also secured new distribution in core sparkling, tropical, and cherry flavors in Morrisons and Sainsbury's. In the months ahead, we are launching Rubicon Blends, a new still juice flavor within Tesco as we partner on building a more prominent and sophisticated ambient juices category. Combining all of the new wins already secured for 2026, we have significantly stepped forward our distribution in grocery for Rubicon brand in the mainstream soft drinks fixtures. Moving on to slide 18.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

On the back of our success on IRN-BRU and Rubicon, we're refreshing our Boost brand above the line creatives and have created a new partnership with the Rugby Super League to become their official soft drinks partner. We'll be focusing on our communication strategy Boost Straight Up with high levels of social content and outdoor media. Boost brand awareness has grown from the work we've done over the past year, with two out of three people in the U.K. now aware of the brand. In 2025, we focused on expanding the brand into healthy hydration, launching Boost hydration waters into the convenience channel and Boost powders into the e-com channel. Boost hydration waters had an outstanding start, with distribution achieved across the entire symbol and independent sector of the U.K.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

The strength of performance since launch will create further opportunity to expand the range and explore further distribution opportunities in other channels. As part of the Boost growth plan, we aim to build brand presence in grocery retail in the coming years. We now have Boost Energy in Morrisons, and we recently secured listings in Tesco Northern Ireland and Scotland and Asda Express nationally as we deliver on our opportunity to expand Boost into grocery. Moving on to slide 19 and focusing on the channel and customer activity. On the back of the successful IRN-BRU campaigns and distribution wins in Tesco, we also delivered an improved Christmas in the U.K.'s number one retailer, where we outperformed the category over the 12-week Christmas trading period. IRN-BRU distribution in Tesco has increased by 15% since October 2025, with the majority of new distribution landing in England and Wales.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

This is setting us up to win in this key customer going forward. Impulse has always been a strength of A.G. Barr, and whilst we are building momentum in other categories and channels, we have not slowed down our performance in the impulse channel. At the end of 2025, we were outperforming the market and our growth continues into 2026. We've embraced technology within Impulse, and we've recently invested in further technology driving activity that will enhance our support of key wholesale customers and the channel overall. This investment has helped us to unlock significant net incremental distribution gains. In the Out-of-Home channel, we recently secured the Legends Global pouring rights for Funkin cocktails, unlocking 23 venues across the U.K., including Wembley Arena, the AO Manchester Arena and others.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

The partnership also secures digital media across all venues and creates sampling opportunities to help us build the Funkin brand. Now moving on to functional and healthy hydration. Within Innate-Essence, our lead business here, we're focused on structurally growing our brands within health-led categories, where we have a clear right to play and long-term relevance. On slide 21, The Turmeric Company is built on performance and recovery, particularly within sport, which gives us a strong and credible foundation to extend beyond shots into adjacent spaces like hydration and protein. Starting with functional shots, this is a category that is scaling quickly. The U.K. functional shots market is projected to grow significantly over the next decade, and we have a strong, growing brand and a good authority here. We're not entering this space.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

We're already a recognized player, which gives us a platform to expand from a foundational position. Hydration is the next natural step. It's a large and established category, but importantly, it's evolving. There's a clear growing opportunity for more natural functional formulations, and that aligns directly with how we will build our products. This isn't about competing in traditional sports drinks. It's about shaping hydration through a new premium health-led lens. Alongside this, we're seeing increasing demand for products that support balanced nutrition and overall well-being. This is being driven by both consumer behavior and wider trends, including the rise of GLP-1 related awareness, which is accelerating interest in protein and fiber-based solutions. As we look at these three spaces together, shots, hydration, and protein, it's a connected ecosystem through our vertically integrated manufacturing capability built around daily wellness, performance, and recovery.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Our strategy is to grow where we already have credibility and expand into adjacencies where consumer demand is growing and our proposition is differentiated. Turning the page. Within The Turmeric Company brand, and our overall vision is to make turmeric a credible everyday health intervention. Something that moves beyond being seen as a supplement and instead becomes part of how people manage their health day to day. When you look at the scale of the problem, the opportunity is clear. There are over 28 million people in the U.K. living with pain and inflammation. That's not a niche issue. It's a widespread and growing health burden that impacts quality of life, productivity, and puts increasing pressure on the healthcare system. This is exactly where we are focused as a brand.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Following tens of thousands of customer testimonials, it is clear that we exist to support pain, inflammation, and recovery through natural, accessible solutions, products that people can integrate easily into their daily routines rather than depending purely on reactive treatment, with clinical research beginning to support our product ranges. Alongside this, we've invested in building real credibility. We've been building a dedicated team of scientists, dieticians, nutritionists, and we're actively working with healthcare professionals, elite sports partners, and pain charities to ensure that what we are building is both effective and trusted. Over time, our ambition is bigger than just selling products. We believe that turmeric can play a role in shifting behavior away from purely reactive healthcare towards more preventative, everyday solutions that empower people to take control of their well-being.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

In summary, we built a product suite that is designed to deliver B-growth both now and into the future. Functional shots remains our core engine. The focus here is executional, continuing to expand distribution across U.K. grocery while accelerating our presence in out-of-home channels. This is about scaling what already works and driving penetration. In hydration, we're at a different stage. This is about unlocking scale in a much larger category. The upcoming brand refresh of Raw Hydrate is a key moment for us, sharpening the proposition, broadening appeal, and setting the platform to drive faster distribution and rate of sale. Within protein and fiber, Earth Protein represents a new growth platform for the business. We're building this category with a clear plan to enter the U.K. grocery market in late 2026, giving us access to a developing growth space with increasing consumer demand.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

When you step back, the strength of this portfolio is in the balance. We have an established category that is scaling, a second category with significant headroom, and a third that creates future upside. Together, this gives us a structured pipeline of growth across short, medium, and long-term horizons, rather than relying on a single product or category to drive our business forward. Now concluding with a couple of slides on outlook. First touching on the two most recent acquisitions of Frobishers and Fentimans. We've already said that we believe the premium socializing soft drink segment is one that will grow significantly as alcohol consumption declines, GLP-1 usage increases, and the wider health agenda expands. Building brands here makes a lot of sense for A.G. Barr.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

It also makes sense where appropriate to utilize our manufacturing capabilities to in-house production as much as we can, in the same way as we did with Boost. This enhances margin, controls quality, and achieves high levels of consistent customer service and satisfaction. We acquired 100% of the Frobishers brand for 1x sales, and we've moved quickly to integrate this smaller business into A.G. Barr. Given our first volumes are smaller, we are not insourcing this yet until we reach critical volume targets. We expect both revenue and profit growth during FY 2026, 2027. Post the year-end, we also acquired 100% of the Fentimans brand for 1.5x sales, and we've entered consultation with the team there to enable integration into A.G. Barr.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Beyond the wider consumer segment growth opportunity, we see opportunities for insourcing significant volume, resetting the brand, and adding higher growth innovation to the range. These opportunities will begin to be captured from the end of half one, but will likely land more significantly in 2027 and 2028. In the meantime, we are right-sizing the international business, and we will rationalize the tail of SKUs in the U.K. to ensure manufacturing efficiency and profitability. Over the medium term, we would expect Fentimans business to deliver significant profit growth from these measures and following the operating margin accretion we're seeing from the Boost acquisition. We expect both of these brands to deliver strongly over the medium term. To summarize, A.G. Barr delivered strongly in FY 2025, 2026, and we have momentum for the new financial year.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

We have three clear routes to growth: core headroom growth, innovation NPD growth, and M&A capabilities with confidence in integrating businesses and brands. I hope we've evidenced what we said we would do last summer already, and we intend to do more of all three. We've invested in improved capability and capacity in physical and human terms across back and front of the chiller, supply and commercial, and the returns are being evidenced. We are also clear there is a lot to go for in FY 2026, 2027, as you've heard, and the team is really focused on achieving this. Given the acquisitions at the beginning of the year, we expect low double-digit revenue growth percentage in FY 2026, 2027, while maintaining our mid-teens operating margin target and return on capital employed to be within our range of 19%-21%.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

We continue to be focused on and well set to deliver our consistent flywheel of shareholder returns now and in the future, with exciting growth ahead in realizing our long-term ambition of doubling the business. Thank you very much for joining.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab that's situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Euan, Stuart, if we may just dive straight into the questions. The first one that we have here reads as follows. Will you see cost pressures and supply issues resulting from the current Middle East conflict?

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Great question. Obviously very topical. I'll pass to Stuart who can cover that.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

Yeah. Well, first thing I would say is, Luke, it's the war is a fast-moving situation. It's not one that we'd ever try and predict its intensity or its duration. What I can say is, as it stands today, first of all, most importantly, we have no revenue exposure to the Middle East. We have no supply security concerns from the conflict situation. Our exposure is confined to the energy spikes that we're all facing. We have strong coverage across all our core commodities, things like aluminum, PET, sugar, et cetera. And the exposure to logistics fuel is a manageable cost for us. We feel appropriately placed, but clearly we're watching the situation.

Operator

Perfect. Thank you. Just turning to the next question. What are the execution risks to the strategy?

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

I think that we're constantly looking at those. I think that we like to think that we are narrowing down execution risks. We've got the right team in place. We've built credibility, experience, and understanding in our back of the chiller supply chain teams and in the front of the chiller commercial teams. We have proven upsides, and we're taking it step by step. Of course, you can't rule out all execution possibilities and all risks. We think that actually this plan is incredibly simple. It's core to what we've always done within A.G. Barr. It's step by step as we go through the next five years kind of medium term outlook. You know, I guess excusing any kind of world events which are beyond our control, we are minimizing the execution risks.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

You know, I don't have trouble sleeping at night. We're really focused on execution excellence, and step-by-step delivery of the plan.

Operator

Thank you. We have a question here on IRN-BRU, and I know you touched on this during the presentation. Have you tried to penetrate England before with IRN-BRU? Do you believe that expansion there is possible?

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

I absolutely believe it's possible. My thoughts and conviction in that kind of go to the first half of the question, which is, we have never really as a business consistently targeted England and Wales. We've always ended up spending our marketing money and investments in Scotland. We consistently outperform everybody else with significant market share in Scotland. There are no barriers through our major customers to growing IRN-BRU in England and Wales. It has been purely down to our consistent investment story. We now have that in place, and we have a long-term commitment to be able to do that. We're making significant distribution gains in England and Wales. I guess last bit of the answer, I would point to a similar type of brand in Dr Pepper, which has gone before us.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

A similar type of, I guess, non-traditional flavored carbonated soft drink, which has made significant gains in England and Wales, and the U.K., as a whole. I think if Dr Pepper can do it, then IRN-BRU definitely can. I'm encouraged by the early steps that we've delivered. I think over the medium term, we will see a transformation in the penetration of IRN-BRU down south.

Operator

Thank you. Just turning to the next question. What is your current M&A pipeline like?

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

It's pretty good. Obviously, I can't divulge exactly what's on it. The M&A pipeline is good. It tends to be a low barrier to entry into the beverage market and soft drinks market. It's quite difficult for brands to scale beyond a certain level. It's more difficult for brands to create a profitable business. They can create a reasonable sales base. The benefit that we offer is that because we're a vertically integrated business, we can insource the brand, maximize the margin, use that extra margin to then drive more marketing and supercharge the sales. Not only do we get the sales growth, but we get the margin accretion as well. Given that backdrop, there's quite a lot of innovation of smaller brands coming in and around the market.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

About 50% of total soft drinks growth in the last five years have been driven by brands that were not around five years ago. That's hopefully a strong indicator of the level of innovation in the market and the ability for us to be able to pick up very interesting consumer growth brands and make them much more profitable and supercharge their growth.

Operator

Thank you. We have someone here, asking, how are you balancing core brand investment versus newer higher growth segments like functional beverages?

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

I guess it comes back to our returns focus. Everything that we do tries to deliver over the returns hurdles that we've talked about in our simple kind of three-step financial model. We have strict allocation of marketing budget based on that, which makes it quite easy to look at where the incremental opportunities are. We do separate our brands into what we call core brands, so IRN-BRU, Rubicon and Boost, which we believe have the biggest opportunity in quantum and then some of the biggest headroom. Having said that, we've got some very interesting smaller brands and some of the newly acquired brands that have got very rapid growth trajectories. It all comes down to what's the best return, to be honest. We're very economically rational here, which I hope everybody would want us to say.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Therefore, we think we get the balance pretty much right.

Operator

Thank you. Where do you expect margins to land next year, given integration costs and ongoing investment?

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Do you want to do that?

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

Yeah, sure. I think we've been fairly consistent with the whole three core metrics of revenue growth, mid-single digits, margin of 14%-16%, and ROCE of 19%-21%. On margins, we are confident that we can deliver as good as this year, 14.8% or slightly better with, as you say, M&A dilutive impact initially as we integrate the two new acquisitions being offset by continual efficiency through our CapEx program and our operational initiatives to improve performance.

Operator

Thank you. Is 2.5x a target level for debt to optimize the balance sheet? What is the maximum M&A deal size that we can expect?

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Go on.

Stuart Lorimer
Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc

I wouldn't say it's a target. We don't target, but what we're seeing is the capacity that we would have. If you look at our EBITDA today, it would be around GBP 80 million. If any deal we did, it would obviously bring hopefully EBITDA with it. But based on that, you'd be talking something, you know, GBP 150 million-GBP 200 million of dry powder capacity, but it's not a target.

Operator

Perfect, guys. That actually concludes all of the questions that have come in this afternoon. Thank you very much indeed for addressing those. Of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended. Euan, perhaps before really now just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself, and to the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments just to wrap up with, that'd be great.

Euan Sutherland
CEO at A.G. Barr plc

Great. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining the call. We hope you found it informative and helpful. We have an incredibly simple strategy. We work hard to keep it incredibly simple. We are focused on delivering the three financial metrics we've talked about consistently over time, developing a flywheel of shareholder value accretion. We're very committed to that plan. We're very confident in the execution of that plan. With short and long-term external factors, such as the activity in the Middle East, I think this stock provides a safe harbor for really interesting growth in the short term and obviously accretive growth as we go through. Very happy to take your questions offline or to meet up with anybody who wants more information. For today, thank you very much for joining.

Operator

That's great. Euan and Stuart, thank you once again for updating investors, this afternoon. Could I please ask investors not to close this session, as you will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback? On behalf of the management team of A.G. Barr p.l.c., we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. Good afternoon to you all.

Analysts
    • Euan Sutherland
      CEO at A.G. Barr plc
    • Stuart Lorimer
      Chief Finance and Operating Officer at A.G. Barr plc
Powered by Quartr