Greene King has this morning reported a 1.8% decline in like-for-like sales across its managed pubs division for the 49 weeks to 8 April.
The company said that the weather over the last 12 weeks impacted trading, particularly in its destination food-led pubs, and on an underlying basis, excluding the impact of snow, like-for-like sales in the year-to-date were -1.2%.
It said that both drink and accommodation like-for-like sales were ahead of last year.
The group said that trading over Easter was strong with like-for-like sales up 2.8% against the Easter weekend last year, helped by strong sporting fixtures, especially football and boxing.
After 48 weeks, like-for-like net profit across its leased and tenanted Pub Partners division was down 0.3% while own-brewed volumes in Brewing & Brands fell 0.7%, ahead of the UK ale market at -3.1%.
Greene King said that the targeted £10m investment it made in the second half of the year to strengthen its value for money, customer service and quality was “starting to positively impact on trading, despite the continued challenging market backdrop”.
The company said: “We continue to reposition Pub Company to drive growth going forward; we will complete the exit from Fayre & Square by the financial year end; we opened nine new pubs over the year; and we invested core and brand conversion capex in 292 pubs.
“We remain on track to deliver targeted cost savings of £40-45m, we will have spent c£160m in the full year in ensuring our estate remains well invested and our disposal proceeds are likely to be ahead of expectations at c£120m following the sale of three high value leasehold pubs. As a result, we expect full year profit before tax and exceptionals to be in the range of £240-245m.
“With our high quality portfolio of pubs, excellent team, strong balance sheet and sustainable dividend, we remain well placed to withstand the external market challenges and deliver long-term value to our shareholders.”
