Copenhagen - Danish brewer Carlsberg, which makes Carlsberg, Tetley and Baltika beers, said yesterday that its second-quarter net earnings soared to 718 million kroner (R760 million) from 250 million kroner in the same period last year.
The company said its performance reflected a decline in exceptional items.
Operating earnings before interest and taxation slipped to 1.35 billion kroner from 1.38 billion a year earlier. But sales rose 1.7 percent to e10.42 billion.
Net income rose to 633 million kroner from 178 million kroner a year earlier, when the company incurred one-time costs of 545 million kroner.
Beer sales climbed 17 percent in Russia, where Carlsberg dominates the market in a joint venture with Scottish & Newcastle, Britain's biggest brewer.
In the first six months of the year, sales were up 5 percent at 17.8 billion kroner. Operating earnings came to 1.32 billion kroner, down from 1.52 billion in the first six months of last year.
Carlsberg, the world's sixth-largest brewer, said it was maintaining its 2005 projections for a 15 percent gain in net earnings and an operating profit of about 3.4 billion kroner.
Carlsberg and Scottish & Newcastle are looking to faster-growing economies such as Russia as beer consumption in western Europe wanes.
Carlsberg, which posted a 6 percent drop in European beer volumes, said the venture with Scottish & Newcastle would spend more on beer marketing in Russia in the second half than the first as disposable incomes there climbed.
The Russian business "is on fire", said Edouard Dubuis, a fund manager at Clariden. "There is a trend away from spirits and vodka, but people also have more money to spend and beer is one of the first things you can spend money on."
Carlsberg chief executive Nils Smedegaard Andersen said the company might shut more breweries in western Europe to help reduce costs as beer volumes fell.
One-time costs fell to 36 million kroner from 545 million kroner the previous year, when Carlsberg spent money to outsource UK draft equipment.
Earnings in the year-earlier period were also dented by a 26 percent increase in marketing expenses to fund Carlsberg's sponsorship of the Euro 2004 soccer tournament and the introduction of new types of beer in Russia.
Baltic Beverages Holding is the venture Carlsberg shares with Scottish & Newcastle.
The business, which runs 18 breweries in Russia and five eastern European countries, posted a 31 percent increase in second-quarter operating profit last week. Scottish & Newcastle said earlier this week that first-half profit gained 9.8 percent on earnings from Baltic Beverages Holding and higher sales of its main UK brews.
-Sapa-AFP and Bloomberg