Majestic Wine PLC (“Majestic”), the UK’s largest wine warehouse chain, today announces its interim results for the 26 weeks ended 28 September 2009.
Highlights
- Profit before tax increased by 9.0% to £6.1m (2008: £5.6m).
- Interim dividend maintained at 2.8p net per share.
- Total sales up £12.6m to £106.7m (2008: £94.1m) after inclusion of £6.0m from Lay & Wheeler, the fine wine specialist acquired in March 2009.
- Like for like sales in UK retail stores up 5.4%.
- Online sales increased 24.6% on last year and now represent 9.2% of UK retail sales.
- Sales to private customers continue to show good growth up 8.9% in the period.
- Sales to business customers declined 6.9% reflecting difficult economic conditions.
- Sales of fine wine continued to increase, with sales of still wine priced at £20 and above increasing by 14.4% on last year.
- Average bottle of still wine purchased at Majestic is now £6.41 (2008: £6.19).
- Average spend per transaction is just down at £133 (2008: £135) due to the reduction in sales to business customers.
- During the period we opened four new stores in Southend, Shrewsbury, Edinburgh and Market Harborough. Since the end of September we opened in Abingdon and Sale and have re-sited our store in central Glasgow.
- We now operate from 153 stores in the UK and see the potential to enlarge Majestic to at least 250 locations.
- In the five weeks from 29 September to 2 November 2009, like for like sales in UK retail stores up 6.0%.
Commenting on the results Steve Lewis, Chief Executive, said:
“I am pleased that, in the half year, Majestic has achieved profit growth of 9.0%. It is encouraging that in the current economic conditions our loyal customers continue to find the Majestic proposition compelling.”
