26th Mar 2008 07:01
Sainsbury(J) PLC26 March 2008 26 March 2008 Fourth Quarter Trading Statement for 12 weeks to 22 March 2008: Good sales growth and three-year targets achieved Highlights • Total sales for fourth quarter up 6.7 per cent (5.1 per cent excluding fuel) (1) • Like-for-like sales for fourth quarter up 6.0 per cent (4.1 per cent excluding fuel) (1) • 13 consecutive quarters of like-for-like sales growth • Sales targets achieved: £2.7bn of sales growth delivered against £2.5bn target Justin King, chief executive, said: "We've delivered another good performance inthe final quarter of the year with like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, up 4.1per cent. Full year like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, grew by 3.9 per centcontinuing our momentum of sales growth over three years. As announced inJanuary 2008, we achieved our Making Sainsbury's Great Again (MSGA) sales growthtarget early in this quarter, three months ahead of plan. We've continued togrow and have now delivered £2.7 billion of sales growth since March 2005. Thisis an outstanding success and I would like to thank and congratulate all 150,000Sainsbury's colleagues for the part they played in achieving this. "The fourth quarter contained a number of seasonal events as well as our owninitiatives and we were pleased with our operational performance which helped usdeliver good growth during these periods. We again delivered strong customerservice and product availability as a result of the improvements we've made toour operation over the past three years. "We are passionate about the quality and value of our food and provide a broadoffer to over 16.5 million customers a week, whatever their household budget.Consumers are facing real increases in their cost of living. Today we havelaunched our 'Feed your family for a fiver' campaign which provides customerswith a range of healthy, fresh and tasty meal ideas for four people for £5 orunder. During the quarter we supported the Fairtrade fortnight with specificpromotions in all of our stores. Our range of Fairtrade products continues togrow, and we've more than doubled our Fairtrade sales over the last 12 months. "We also continue to play a very active role in the communities in which weoperate. In February we launched our fourth Sainsbury's Active Kids programme,where vouchers are collected against spend in store and then exchanged for anincreasingly wide range of rewards, such as donating sports equipment to schoolsin developing countries. Since 2005 we have donated £52 million of sports andcooking equipment to schools, nurseries, scout and guide groups. We were alsoproud to sponsor the Sainsbury's Sport Relief Mile on March 16 as part of ourlongstanding relationship with Comic Relief. Our colleagues and customershelped us contribute over £1.5 million to this charity. "We continue to see strong growth from non-food sales following the investmentwe've made in developing the range, establishing the supporting infrastructureand increasing the space dedicated to this part of our offer. Going forward,non-food has significant growth potential as we continue to implement our plans. "During the quarter we opened a new store in Alnwick, extended our store atBradford on Avon and refurbished a further 13 supermarkets. Within theconvenience estate we opened eight new stores. We have identified 36 formerBells and Jackson's stores unsuitable for conversion to the Sainsbury's fasciaand a sale process has commenced. This is expected to be completed early in2008/09. "Today we have also announced the investment of £273 million to create a £1.2billion property Joint Venture ('JV') with British Land. This allows Sainsbury'sshareholders to share in the significant value creation arising from thedevelopment opportunities across 38 Sainsbury's stores owned by the JV. (2) "The achievements we've made during our MSGA plan are significant and I amdelighted with our progress. The market remains competitive but, as we enterour fourth year of growth, the improvements we have made to date position uswell to meet the demands of what continues to be a challenging environment." Enquiries: Investor Relations MediaElliot Jordan Pip Wood+44 (0) 20 7695 4931 +44 (0) 20 7695 6127 Notes (1) Quarter four and full year like-for-like and total sales growth havebeen Easter adjusted for comparative purposes. 2007/08 included two Good Fridaytrading weeks and one Easter Monday trading week. 2006/07 included one GoodFriday trading week and one Easter Monday trading week. 2008/09 will includeone Easter Monday trading week only. (2) A separate announcement has been made today with the details of theJoint Venture transaction. British Land has also made an announcement today. (3) Certain statements made in this announcement are forward lookingstatements. Such statements are based on current expectations and are subjectto a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differmaterially from any expected future events or results referred to in theseforward looking statements. Unless otherwise required by applicable law,regulation or accounting standard, we do not undertake any obligation to updateor revise any forward looking statements, whether as a result of newinformation, future developments or otherwise. (4) A conference call will take place at 8:45am GMT. To listen to the audiowebcast we recommend that you register in advance. To do so please visitwww.j-sainsbury.co.uk prior to the event and follow the on-screen instructions.To view the transcript of the conference call, go to www.j-sainsbury.co.uk on 28March 2008. (5) Sainsbury's will announce its preliminary results for the 52 weeks ending22 March 2008 on 14 May 2008. (6) Sales results for the year (Easter adjusted): 2007/08 Q1 Q2 H1 Q3 Q4 H2 FY*Sales growth including fuel (%)Total 5.7 3.8 4.7 5.9 6.7 6.3 5.5Lfl 4.4 2.6 3.3 5.1 6.0 5.5 4.4 Sales growth excluding fuel (%)Total 6.7 4.7 5.7 4.7 5.1 4.9 5.3Lfl 5.1 3.1 4.0 3.7 4.1 3.9 3.9 * Total statutory sales growth for the full year is 5.8 per cent including fuel(5.7 per cent excluding fuel). (7) Store investment for the year:2007/08 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 TotalSupermarketsNew 1 2 12 1 16Closed (2) - - - (2)Extensions 1 8 5 1 15Refurbishments 5 15 17 15 52 ConvenienceNew 4 7 8 8 27Closed (2) (4) - - (6)Extensions - 1 - - 1Refurbishments 5 7 - 3 15 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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