Greene King has announced on Tuesday that it remains confident in its 2019 outlook. Indeed, the company continues to trade ahead of market expectations following the Christmas festivities.
For the 36 weeks to 06 January, like-for-like sales were up 3.2% following strong trading over the Christmas period. Like-for-like sales in the last two weeks alone, covering Christmas and the New Year, were up 10.9%.
Greene King achieved record Christmas day sales of £7.7 million.
All sales categories saw like-for-like sales growth over the six weeks covering the Christmas period. The company’s branded Local Pubs drove strong drink sales growth.
Greene King was founded in 1799 and has its headquarters in Suffolk. It currently employs roughly 39,000 people across its main trading businesses.
The company remains confident of its outlook for the rest of the 2019 financial year, despite the highly reported Brexit uncertainty.
“While the ongoing uncertainty around Brexit may still have an impact on consumer confidence and spending during the year, we remain confident of our outlook for the financial year. We remain focused on our strategic priorities of driving profitable sales growth, developing a more streamlined and efficient organisation, and further strengthening and improving the flexibility of our capital structure to deliver long-term value for our shareholders,” Greene King commented.
Greene King’s trading update is a strikingly contrast compares to last year’s Christmas results, which were highly impacted by the snowy British weather.
The company has said it remains in line to dispose 100 to 110 pubs and limit cost inflation between £10 million-£20 million in 2019.
Earlier this year, Greene King announced that it sold half a million extra pints over England’s World Cup match against Panama. England’s World Cup success was a huge drive in sales over the summer for the company. Indeed, following one of Britain’s hottest summers and England’s World Cup performance, the company was the biggest gainer in the FTSE 350 at the start of September.
At 10:11 GMT today, shares in Greene King plc (LON:GNK) were trading at +3.54%.
