Diageo, the world’s biggest drinks group, said yesterday that it had seriously considered not giving full-year profit guidance because of the lack of visibility on the trading outlook.

Shares of the Guinness-to-Smirnoff vodka group fell by 30p to 877½p after it used its interim results to pare back its guidance on organic operating profit growth to a range of 4-6 per cent from a previous forecast of 7-9 per cent. Paul Walsh, chief executive, said: “I don’t think most people are surprised by the new guidance because the world has changed dramatically in the last six months.”

He said that he and colleagues had debated whether to provide new guidance, adding: “We decided we didn’t want to be subjected to the vagaries of everyone making up their own number. We decided to give a range with the caveat that these are difficult times for us to be giving guidance.”

Mr Walsh also cited the economic environment as the reason for the announcement of a £200 million restructuring programme, which will produce annual savings of £100 million. The move is expected to result in several hundred job losses, including many in the UK, although the company declined to quantify them.

Analysts said that, including positions that had become vacant during the hiring freeze of the past five months, the number of roles could be reduced by more than 1,000 from a global workforce of 23,000.

Mr Walsh blamed the financial climate for the decision to put on ice plans to sell part of the Guinness brewery site at St James’s Gate in Dublin and build a brewery outside the city. He said the collapse of property values meant that it was a poor time to be selling land and hinted that most of the ambitious project might never be resurrected. In the six months to the end of December, Diageo reported a 6 per cent increase in organic operating profits, and organic net sales up 3 per cent. Total sales volumes fell 1 per cent and the company said it had put its share buyback programme on hold.

Pretax profits rose 3.2 per cent to £1.41 billion, although a £103 million positive impact from the weakness of sterling meant operating profits increased by 16 per cent to £1.64 billion.

While volumes in North America rose 2 per cent, Europe suffered a 5 per cent decline on the back of poor trading in Ireland and Spain.

Diageo lifted the interim dividend by 5.3 per cent to 13.9p on the back of what Mr Walsh described as “a pretty resilient performance”.

Times Recommends

• Minister in talks with Saudis to protect creditors
• Premier Inn hits back in £29-a-room row
• Bankers hit back at 'populist' bonus supertax