Brokerage firm CLSA has reiterated a 'buy' rating on Varun Beverages, stating that the company’s annual report shows improving fundamentals with positive free cash flow for the first time in five years. The brokerage firm has set a price target of Rs 1,200 for the stock.

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In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Ravi Kant Jaipuria, chairman of the company, had recently said that the summer season has begun well for the firm, but at the same time, the steep rise in COVID cases, especially in Maharashtra, is a cause of concern.

“February and March have been very good; we are actually growing over previous year, so we are in good shape at the moment,” Jaipuria said.

“We have launched some new variants which is ‘Mountain Dew Ice’ which is a lemon juice content category which has started doing extremely well for us. We launched energy drink a couple of years back which is doing extremely well for us. Overall for us the season has started off very well and we are looking at reasonably robust growth,” the chairman said.

Jaipuria also said that the company was waiting for more HORECA (hotel, restaurant, cafeteria) channels to open up.