24th Mar 2005 07:01
Sainsbury(J) PLC24 March 2005 24 March 2005 Fourth Quarter Trading Statement for 12 weeks to 26 March 2005 J Sainsbury plc today reported its fourth quarter pre-close trading statement,comprising 11 weeks actual sales to 19 March 2005 and 1 week estimated sales to26 March 2005. Highlights • Total sales for quarter four up 7.2 percent (5.4 percent excluding petrol)• Like-for-like sales, Easter adjusted, for quarter four up 3.7 percent (1.7 percent excluding petrol)• Continuing improvement in the customer offer Justin King, chief executive, said: "We are pleased with the quarter four salesnumbers reported today which continue to show an improving trend. We recoveredwell from the Christmas and New Year peak trading period and had solid tradingover the seasonal events. "Of particular note were Valentine's Day and Mother's Day which were wellexecuted in stores and helped drive sales over those periods. In the last fourweeks we have had a strong contribution from Comic Relief selling over 4 millionred noses. We estimate Comic Relief delivered an extra 0.3% like-for-like salesin the quarter. Overall £6.5 million was donated to the charity and we aredelighted by the support our colleagues and customers gave to this biennialevent. Our Active Kids programme has also started strongly with over 18,000schools registered in the scheme, which equates to around 60% of all UK schools. "The encouraging signs reported in January have continued. Our major focus onavailability is beginning to show results with both colleagues and customersnoticing the improvements in store. The 3,000 extra store colleagues, who havebeen in place this quarter, have helped us provide a much better service.Customers are also enjoying the better value for money offered by our 6,000lower prices. "The competitive environment continues to be fierce but we are committed toensuring that our customer offer is not compromised while we continue with ourplans. In these circumstances we are particularly pleased that we have seen animproving trend in sales. The outlook remains competitive but we are confidentthat by continuing to do a better job for our customers every day we will reachour objective of market levels of sales growth by the end of 2005/06. "We announced on 13 January 2005 the new structure for centrally basedcolleagues. This is now taking shape and around 600 people have already leftthe business. At the same time we indicated that Sainsbury's Bank hadexperienced a difficult quarter in an increasingly competitive market. This hascontinued into the fourth quarter. "Overall we are pleased with our progress during the quarter. However we arestill only six months into implementing the plans we outlined last October. Werecognise that there is a long way to go and must continue to be realistic aboutthe task in hand. It will take time to deliver sustainable sales growth toachieve our target of £2.5 billion extra sales by 2007/08." In a separate announcement today Sainsbury's outlined the conditional award ofordinary shares under the J Sainsbury plc Share Plan 2005, as part of along-term incentive scheme for circa 1,100 managers throughout the business.This share plan is subject to shareholder approval at the AGM on 13 July 2005. Notes 1. Sales growth is detailed below. For quarter four, the numbers arebased on actual sales for 11 weeks and 1 week of estimated sales. Like-for-likesales have been Easter adjusted. A similar adjustment has been used for thesecond half and full year numbers. Total sales include two Easter periods in the2004/05 financial year. 2004/05 Q1 Q2 H1 Q3 Q4 H2 FYSales growth including petrol (%)Total 2.3 4.4 3.5 6.1 7.2 6.6 5.0Like-for-like 1.0 1.8 1.5 2.4 3.7 3.0 2.2Like-for-like inflation / (deflation) 0.5 -0.5 -0.1 -0.8 -1.2 -1.0 -0.5 Sales growth excluding petrol (%)Total 0.8 1.5 1.3 2.7 5.4 4.0 2.6Like-for-like -0.6 -1.1 -0.9 -1.2 1.7 0.2 -0.4Like-for-like inflation / (deflation) 0.2 -1.1 -0.5 -1.2 -1.6 -1.4 -1.0 2. We will be holding a conference call for analysts and investors at 8:30am. To listen to the webcast of this call, we recommend that you register inadvance for this event. Please visit www.j-sainsbury.co.uk prior to the eventand follow the on-screen instructions. Alternatively, please visit the websiteby 8:15 GMT on the morning of the announcement, and follow the on-screeninstructions. The archive of this event will be available from 12:00 GMT on theday in the form of a delayed webcast. 3. We will be providing an update on the implications of IFRS on 26 April2005. 4. Our Preliminary results for the year ended 26 March 2005 will beannounced on 18 May 2005. Enquiries: Investor Relations MediaRoger Matthews Pip WoodLynda Ashton Gillian Taylor+44 (0) 20 7695 7162 +44 (0) 20 7695 6127 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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