19th May 2016 07:17
LONDON (Alliance News) - Booker Group PLC on Thursday reported growth in profit in its recently-ended financial year as revenue grew following its acquisition of Budgens and Londis last year.
The food wholesaler and convenience store operator said its pretax profit in the year ended March 25 grew to GBP150.8 million from GBP138.8 million the year before, as revenue rose to GBP4.99 billion from GBP4.75 billion.
Non-tobacco sales grew by 6.3% and tobacco sales rose by 2.2%.
Booker will pay a total dividend of 4.60 pence for the year, which is up on the 3.66p paid the year before. It has also proposed a capital return of 3.20p, up from 3.50p the prior year.
"The group's trading in the first seven weeks of the current financial year is ahead of last year. However, we anticipate that the challenging consumer and market environment will persist through the coming year and the UK's food market remains very competitive," Booker said in a statement.
"We are on track to deliver an outcome for the new financial year in line with our plans and to make progress in this challenging environment," the company added.
Shares in Booker were trading down 0.1% at 174.77 pence on Thursday morning.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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