Drinks group Britvic has said its earnings before interest, tax and other items for the year to the end of September rose by 18.4% to £137.9m sterling.
Pre-tax profits for the year, at a constant exchange rate, rose by 26.7% to £108.1m from £84.4m. Adjusted earnings per share for the year increased by 27.5% to 35.2 pence.
The company said that revenues for the year rose by 4.4% to £1.321 billion, helped by a strong fourth quarter when a hot summer and the recovery of its Fruit Shoot brand after last year's recall boosted trade
The company said that a full year dividend of 18.4 pence will be paid.
Britvic employs over 500 staff in Ireland and has operations in Dublin and Limerick.
It produces brands such as Club and MiWadi for the local Irish market and produces Fruit Shoot concentrate for export markets.
On its Irish operations, Britvic said that the underlying market conditions remained difficult, however the second half of the year saw a "tangible" benefit from the warm weather in July and August. The market in September was much more subdued, it noted.
Revenues in its Irish operations, on a constant currency basis, fell by 3.5% to £136.9m from £138.7m.
It said that plans for Ballygowan Water's market entrance to the UK in Spring of 2014 are progressing. Ballygowan will become Britvic's single water brand for the UK and Ireland.
Having rejected an improved proposal from Irn-Bru maker AG Barr for an all-share merger in July, Britvic has ramped up its expansion in the US, moved into Spain and will launch its Fruit Shoot drinks in India by the middle of next year to help grow its business.
The firm said today it had signed a new 15-year bottling agreement with PepsiCo Americas Beverages for further manufacturing and distribution in the US, which will see Fruit Shoot rolled out to 41 states during 2014, up from 32.
The firm has also outlined a cost cutting drive, which it said was on track to deliver £30m of cost savings per annum by 2016.
Britvic said trading in the new financial year had started ahead of its first quarter a year ago, and added that it was confident of delivering operating profit of between £148-156m for the new fiscal year.
