City darling Fever-Tree (FEVR) is unaccustomed to missing market expectations, but last week it was forced to release a profits warning as its UK growth came to a shuddering halt – only to see its share price bounce back on the news.

The premium mixer brand has been one of the market’s most spectacular success stories since listing at just 134p per share in November 2014. Its share price hit an all-time high of 4,120p in September last year on the back of a bumper summer and promising international growth.

However, in the past year Fever-Tree has found the going tougher, with its share price falling back below 2,000p in recent weeks.

Such fears have proved well-founded, with Fever-Tree warning over its revenues, explaining weak UK consumer spending had hit its off-trade performance and would see annual growth of just 2% in its biggest market. Overall growth is now expected to be between 12% and 13%, which analysts suggested implied a 3%-4% downgrade to annual earnings expectations.

Fever-Tree shares subsequently bombed to a more than two-year low of 1,697p, but soon bounced back and were trading up by a hefty 7.8% at 2,004p by the end of the day.

City observers argued the share price reaction reflected investor relief that the scale of the downgrade was relatively minor, despite the brutal comparisons from last year’s heatwave in the UK.

“Fever-Tree’s unscheduled warning on UK revenue growth for this year has ironically helped clear the air over undue concerns of encroaching competition, trading down and ‘peak gin’ in its domestic market,” said Shore Capital.

Investors were also reassured by its progress internationally – particularly in North America. On Tuesday, Fever-Tree said its US business was “performing ahead of expectations”, with growth accelerating in the second half amid significant off-trade distribution expansion and gains in the on-trade.

“The shares are substantially undervalued in light of strong international growth prospects,” said Liberum.

Meanwhile, share gains in key markets in Europe should lead to 19% full-year growth on the continent and the rest of world will grow by 35%, it said. “Rumours of this profit warning had lingered for some time. We believe the negativity has opened up a substantial buying opportunity.”

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