British brewer Scottish & Newcastle reported a lower-than-expected first-half profit today.
The company said that hitting its trading targets for the full year would be very challenging, blaming underperformance on its weather-hit west European markets.
S&N, the biggest brewer in Britain, posted a 5.5 per cent rise in its first-half pretax profit to £191 million (€148.33), on revenue up 7.8 per cent at £2.1 billion. On average, analysts had forecast a pretax profit of £204 million.
The firm said bad weather in Britain, France and a strike at one of its French breweries had outweighed strong growth from the Russian beer market.
S&N said bad weather in Britain, which has seen the worst floods in decades and a recently introduced smoking ban inside pubs and restaurants, would hit beer sales there.
"We now believe the overall impact for the second half will be a beer market down around 1- 2 per cent and slower than expected growth in the more seasonally sensitive cider market."
S&N said it would pay an interim dividend of 7.4 pence a share, up 2.5 per cent on last year's payout.