That is 4.6% up on sales of €279.3m (+4.0%, and organic growth of +2.8%)

CEO Bob Kunze-Concewitz said: "First quarter 2012 results were in line with expectations, resulting in positive organic growth in sales and operating profit performance, despite a tough comparison base and the anticipated one-off’s.

“We achieved positive growth across all the key spirit brands as well as key markets with the exception of Brazil and Russia. The business confirmed its resiliency in Italy and Germany, gained momentum in the US and continued to perform very strongly in markets where distribution was recently in-sourced, including Australia, Argentina and Mexico. With Russia progressing as planned and first quarter 2012 results in line with expectations, we remain cautiously optimistic for the full year.”