All Bar One owner Mitchells & Butlers posts ‘good, not great’ Christmas sales
Pub chain Mitchells & Butlers enjoyed a solid rise in like-for-like sales over Christmas, but suffered from strong comparative sales the year before.
The core three-week festive period saw the firm’s pub chains – which include All Bar One, Ember Inns and Harvester – enjoy comparable sales growth of 5.6 per cent.
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Like-for-like sales grew 2.6 per cent over the 14 weeks to 4 January, with food performing especially strong. Over the year to date total sales have risen 2.7 per cent compared to last year.
“We are pleased with our trading performance over the festive trading season against a strong set of results last year, again demonstrating the breadth of appeal of our brands for special occasions,” chief executive Phil Urban said.
“We achieved record sales levels across the five key festive days at growth of 6.5 per cent. This continued progress reflects the output of our Ignite initiatives which will continue to be our focus for the year ahead.”
But Barclays called Mitchells & Butlers’ performance “good but not great”, citing “very tough” comparatives from a strong performance last year when like-for-likes grew at seven per cent over Christmas.
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“Investors may have been hoping for stronger trading, albeit we note that the shares have been weak year to date,” Barclays’ research note read.
Still, the figures sent Mitchells & Butlers’ share price up 3.3 per cent to 435.5p in early trading.
Picture credit: Mitchells & Butlers