Companies In The News ...And How They Were Assessed

Companies In The News ...And How They Were Assessed

Fever-Tree: Cheers!

Since floating in November 2014, the “posh mixer maker” Fever-Tree has enjoyed a “remarkable shares run”, said Joanna Bourke in the London Evening Standard. But is the fizz starting to go flat? The soft drinks company suffered co-founder Charles Rolls cashed in some £73m worth of shares, said Rob Davies in The Guardian. The “hefty sale” left the company’s stock down 2% at £17.12 – but that’s still nearly 13 times its float price. Fever-Tree, founded in 2005, is now worth more than its “170-year-old drinks rival Britvic, and some three times as much as the Debenhams store chain”. The company embraced “luxury status” and made much of the “exotic origin” of its ingredients, but it was a “serendipitous resurgence in gin” that really put Fever-Tree on the map. It has “ridden the crest of this wave like no other company”. Rolls (pictured, right), who previously revived the Plymouth Gin brand, once observed that “you’ve got to feel a little sorry for Schweppes”, which, like Britvic, was caught napping by the botanics renaissance – both are hoping to regain ground with new premium ranges, but Fever-Tree may be tough to squash. It recently announced that its 2017 results will be “comfortably” ahead of forecasts, “indicating it is still very much in the ascendancy”.