London — Soft drink bottler Coca-Cola HBC reported higher-than-expected first-half sales on Thursday, helped by price increases, sending its shares up more than 8% to all-time highs. The company, which was the top gainer on London’s FTSE 100 index, said operating profit jumped by nearly 21% to €266.4m ($312.5m) in the first half of the year on sales revenue up 5.6% to €3.21bn. Excluding currency fluctuations, sales rose 5.7%, beating expectations for growth of 5%, according to several analysts. The company, which bottles and sells Coca-Cola drinks in more than two dozen countries, sold 1.4% more drinks, but the bulk of the sales growth came from price increases and selling a greater proportion of more expensive drinks. The company has raised prices in recent months in countries such as Russia and Nigeria. UBS analysts said the implied growth for the second quarter was 6.1%, which was 1.2 percentage points more than consensus. They also said the company’s updated guidance implied mid...
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