Catering and coffee group Campbell Bewley has reported after-tax profits of £5.3 million (€6.73 million) for 2000, up 36 per cent on 1999. The profits come on the back of a year of substantial restructuring for the company, including a number of US acquisitions and an international strategic alliance with catering giant Aramark.

Campbell Bewley said this alliance, completed last October, has allowed it to enter the lucrative leisure business in the US. Through a $36 million (€39.3 million) investment from Aramark, Bewley's coffee will be sold at 500 large leisure and educational facilities over the next five years. Campbell Bewley said the deal consolidates the group's US position, following the $16 million acquisition last November of Java City, a Californian-based coffee producer and outlet chain. Campbell Bewley also spent $1 million on the "fire sale" of a small cafΘ chain in Chicago last year. The company has been profitably operating Rebecca's CafΘ, a chain of coffee operations on the east coast, since 1997.

"Within the next two years, we'll be represented nationally," said Mr Dan Cronin, Campbell Bewley chief executive, who suggested acquisitions in a further five US cities could be on the cards. "To some extent, we've been quietly nibbling and growing," he said.

Mr Cronin said the performance of Bewleys Irish cafΘs had improved last year and was back on track after uncertain years. The group also opened two new hotels last year. Mr Cronin said the company had no interest in any part of the Ryan Hotels portfolio. It has previously been suggested that a couple of that group's hotels might be sold.