9th May 2007 07:00
Wetherspoon (JD) PLC08 May 2007 JD WETHERSPOON PLC THIRD QUARTER TRADING UPDATE 9 May 2007 Current Trading For the 13 weeks of the third quarter (to 29 April 2007) like-for-like salesincreased by 3.4%. Year-to-date (39 weeks to 29 April 2007) like-for-like saleshave increased by 6.1%, with overall Company sales up by 7.2%. Property The financial year so far has seen the opening of 11 new pubs and the disposalof 3. Approximately 20 new sites are expected to open this financial year, with30 in the next year. Non-Smoking Pubs The experience in our converted non-smoking pubs continues to be encouraging.The 39 Scottish pubs have now passed the anniversary of the implementation ofnon-smoking legislation and continue to perform well. We have 34 pubs in Wales,where non-smoking legislation was introduced at the start of April 2007, and theinitial results have been in line with the Scottish experience. Outlook In addition to the cost pressures previously highlighted in energy and wages,the third quarter has seen increases in our underlying investment in certainareas. These include increased repairs in advance of non-smoking legislation,combined with extra costs from the temporary closure of all of our pubs for theinstallation of new beer and wine chilling systems. We have increased non-smoking areas to approximately 80% of customer space sinceJanuary, which has resulted in strong growth in food sales, with some adverseimpact on bar volumes, and we will continue to increase our marketing activityin advance of non-smoking in England. Wetherspoon has led the industry with regard to non-smoking initiatives and hasbeen willing to invest in the relevant areas to maximise the benefit fromnon-smoking legislation. This worked well with our Scottish pubs, and we havecontinued to take initiatives in recent months, at a level in advance of ourprevious plans. We believe that these are important areas and will producesignificant underlying benefits during the change to a non-smoking environment.The scale of these initiatives will result in a short-term impact onprofitability and the full year profits outcome is expected to be marginallybelow current market expectations. Enquiries: John Hutson Chief Executive 01923 477777Jim Clarke Finance Director 01923 477777Eddie Gershon Company Spokesman 0208 352 5012/ 07956 392234 Visit our web site at www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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