Trading Statement

GREENE KING plc

RESILIENT PERFORMANCE UNDERPINS FURTHER PROGRESS ACROSS ALL BUSINESSES

Greene King announces its pre-close trading update for the 51 weeks to 21 April 2013. Its preliminary results for the 52 weeks to 28 April 2013 will be announced on 27 June 2013.

·; Retail like-for-like (LFL) sales up 2.2%

·; Food LFL sales up 2.7% and room LFL sales up 3.1%

·; Average EBITDA per pub in Pub Partners up 4.6% after 48 weeks

·; Core brand own-brewed volumes up 0.8%

·; Expect to meet market expectations for the full year

Rooney Anand, Chief Executive Officer, said: "Although trading conditions were more demanding in the second half of our financial year, our business has once again demonstrated its resilience and we have delivered good progress across all businesses.

Our commitment to delivering industry-leading value, service and quality to our customers, supported by our strong retail brands and South East bias has driven another year of LFL sales growth and margin expansion. Easter was particularly strong this year. We sold a record 700,000 meals over the four-day period and delivered LFL cover growth of 5.2%. This drove LFL sales growth of 7.1%.

Alongside strong underlying growth, we have made further strategic progress, adding an expected 33 new Retail sites during the year, taking the retail estate to 987 sites by the year-end, and reducing the size of the Pub Partners' estate by 108 sites to 1272 sites.

Despite the impact on trading and profitability caused by the extreme weather conditions in the second half of the year, we expect to meet external full year expectations for profit, cashflow and balance sheet, with continued improvement in group ROCE and a further reduction in group leverage."

OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS

Greene King Retail has had another successful year. After 51 weeks, LFL sales growth was 2.2%, made up of a very strong first half of the year and a slower second half. The second half was negatively impacted by a combination of tough comparatives and unusually poor weather. Despite these challenges, we achieved LFL growth in every month of the year except March and all sales categories achieved LFL sales growth with food LFL sales up 2.7% and room LFL sales up 3.1%.

In support of our continued LFL sales growth in Retail, we have been able to improve operating margins during the year, despite the slower LFL sales in the second half. We expect the Retail margin to be around 70bps higher than last year following successful gross margin management, strong labour productivity improvements and a tight control of our costs. We have also continued to grow the estate with an expected 33 sites added during the year taking the Retail estate up to 987 sites at the year-end. Reflecting the brand's strong performance, just after the year-end we will be opening our 200th Hungry Horse site, the Royal Horse, in Leamington Spa.

After 48 weeks, average EBITDA per pub in Pub Partners, our tenanted, franchised and leased business, was up 4.6%. LFL EBITDA was level with last year with core estate LFL EBITDA up 0.2%. Our strategy to reduce the size and improve the quality of the Pub Partners' estate continues. We expect to have reduced our trading estate by 108 sites to 1272 sites through non-core disposals and reverse-transfers in the year. We will participate fully in the Government's consultation on pub companies. Independent surveys show the vast majority of our licensees value the support we provide them and we believe that a statutory code is an unnecessary additional burden on the tenanted and leased sector.

In Brewing & Brands, the performance of our industry-leading brand portfolio has improved, despite the broader market remaining subdued. In a UK ale market down 3.8%*, core brand own-brewed volumes were up 0.8% after 51 weeks. The improvement in the second half was helped by renewed sales momentum on the back of our investment and innovation in our core ale brands. Both Greene King IPA and Old Speckled Hen are benefitting from national TV advertising, while both Greene King IPA Reserve and Greene King IPA Gold have recently won Monde Selection Grand Gold and Gold awards respectively.

*BBPA, May 2012 to March 2013 vs comparative period

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NOTES FOR EDITORS

§ Greene King operates c. 2,300 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 Restaurants 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.