British brewer Greene King announced an impressive 61 percent rise in pre-tax profit for the year to May 1st, despite seeing a slowdown in business in the run-up to the EU referendum.

The group saw revenues reach £2.1 billion for the first time ever, up 57.6 per cent from £1.5 billion last year. Earnings per share grew to 64.4p, up 57.5 per cent on the 40.9p reported last year, with the dividend was also rising by 7.7 per cent to 32.05p per share. These results are the first reported by Greene King since it acquired the rival Spirit pubs chain, with CEO Rooney Anand calling the merger process over the past year as “transformational”.

However, despite good results thus far, Anand took the opportunity to warn investors of a likely dip in sales post-referendum. Anand gave a nod to the “resilience” of Greene King, before adding that it was likely that “consumer confidence will be affected by Brexit in the near-term”.

Greene King have seen its share price dip 15 percent since the vote, with little recovery; the company is currently trading down 0.26 percent at 757.50 (1028GMT).

29/06/2016