Pre-Close Trading Update

GREENE KING plc

 CONTINUED STRONG TRADING MOMENTUM

Greene King announces its pre-close trading update for the 52 weeks to 27 April 2014. Its preliminary results for the 53 weeks to 04 May 2014 will be announced on 03 July 2014.

Highlights include: -

· Retail like-for-like (LFL) sales up 4.1% and up 4.8% in the last 16 weeks

· 22nd consecutive quarter of LFL sales growth

· Food LFL sales up 5.0% and room LFL sales up 6.8%

· Average EBITDA per pub in Pub Partners up 5.0%

· Core brand own-brewed volumes (OBV) up 4.6%

· Expect to meet market expectations for the full year

Rooney Anand, chief executive officer, said:

"We have achieved consistently strong trading in each of our businesses through the year. This reflects the strengths of our business and the success of our strategy to move to higher growth areas in our markets and to improve the customer offer. We expect to meet the market's full year expectations for profit, cashflow and the balance sheet, with further improvement in our ROCE and a further reduction in leverage.

"Looking ahead, we see the UK's economic outlook improving. Throughout the downturn wage growth lagged inflation but this quarter has seen that change for the first time since the recession began, which bodes well for the future. Customers, though, are still spending carefully, as highlighted by our most recent Leisure Spend Tracker report*. Hence we remain cautiously optimistic for the forthcoming financial year."

OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS

On the back of our continued commitment to delivering great value, service and quality to our customers, we have achieved another year of strong LFL sales growth in Retail. LFL sales were up 4.1%, with 4.8% growth in the last 16 weeks. This was the 22nd consecutive quarter of LFL sales growth. Food LFL sales were up 5.0%, room LFL sales were up 6.8% and drink LFL sales were up 3.2%. During the last 16 weeks, we saw good growth on key events such as Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Easter. On Mother's Day, we served a single day record of 262,000 food covers with LFL sales growth of 17.1%. Farmhouse Inns performed particularly well with average sales per site of £14.4k and three sites delivering over £16k.

We expect the Retail margin to be slightly ahead of last year.

Our Retail expansion programme remains on track. We expect to have added 45 new Retail sites by the year-end, taking Retail to 1,032 sites, with Hungry Horse reaching 232 sites by the year-end.

Average EBITDA per pub in Pub Partners was up 5.0%. Our strategy to reduce the size and improve the quality of the Pub Partners' estate continues and we expect to end this financial year with 1,164 sites, 149 less than last year, after 134 disposals and 15 transfers to Retail.

Brewing & Brands has again improved its market share, achieving core OBV growth of 4.6% against a UK ale market down 2.3%**. Our continued strong performance was driven by Old Speckled Hen, the UK's leading premium ale brand, which recorded growth of 12.5%.

*GK Leisure Spend Tracker March 2014

**BBPA, 12 months to March 2014

For further information:

NOTES FOR EDITORS

· Greene King operates c. 2,200 pubs, restaurants and hotels across England, Wales and Scotland, of which c. 1,000 are in the largest and fastest growing business, Retail. Its leading retail brands are Hungry Horse, Old English Inns, Loch Fyne Seafood & Grill and Eating Inn.

· Greene King is the leading cask ale brewer in the UK with leading brands such as Greene King IPA, Old Speckled Hen, Abbot Ale and Belhaven Best.