The company, which jointly owns Tiger beer maker Asia Pacific Breweries with Dutch company Heineken, posted a S$563 million operating profit driven by a 31 per cent increase in profits at the properties unit and 17 per cent profit growth in breweries.

F&N now has 29 breweries, including newly acquired operations in the Indian sub-continent. In China - where low prices make substantial profits difficult to achieve - overall operations are profitable, said the firm last week, and expected to improve further as it turns its Shanghai brewery around.

The glass division has also picked up after problems at a Greenfield site near Chengdu, China. Profits at this unit were up 79 per cent and sales rose by 11 per cent to $117 million, reported F&N.

In soft drinks however profits fell 15 per cent, as weak consumer spending in Malaysia - the core market - eroded sales and higher packaging costs ate into margins. A price rise in the second half was insufficient to improve earnings from drinks brands including Coca-Cola and the isotonic drink 100Plus.

"Consumers have other competing challenges for their spending," said Hui Choon Kit, investor relations manager.

In the dairy business too, higher raw material prices - primarily milk solids but also packaging - hurt profits in Singapore although a price rise and increased exports of canned milk raised profit before interest and tax from the Malaysian operations by 6 per cent.

Dairy only accounts for 10 per cent of overall turnover but a new agreement to take over Nestle's canned milk business in south-east Asia will more than double this part of F&N's business.Choon Kit said he did not know when the acquisition would start to impact the firm's results.

F&N's food and beverage division is looking for further acquisitions too, chief executive Han Cheng Fong said at a results briefing on Friday.

These could be in new segments of the packaged food and beverage market, said Choon Kit."We're always on the look-out for additional add-ons. We don't have a fixed amount to spend but if we need to raise financing we can always look at the value of other businesses," he told AP-Foodtechnology.com.

Overall the group earned S$432 million in net profit, up 15 per cent from a year ago. Full-year sales rose 8.8 per cent to S$3.8 billion.