Greene King Share News (GNK)

(ShareCast News) - Pub group Greene King reported a surge in full-year profit and revenue, partly thanks to its acquisition of Spirit Pub Company, but cautioned that Brexit was likely to hit consumer confidence in the near term.For the 52 weeks to 1 May, adjusted pre-tax profit rose 52.2% to £256.5m on revenue of £2.07bn, up 57.6% on the previous year.Like-for-like sales were up 1.5%, ahead of the market's 1.3% growth and the company declared a dividend per share of 32.05p, up 7.7% on the year before.Chief executive officer Rooney Anand said: "It has been a transformational year for Greene King. We completed the acquisition of Spirit Pub Company and reached the milestone of £2bn revenue. We have delivered growth across each of the three divisions, outperforming the market in a challenging environment, while making significant progress in combining the best of both businesses to build Britain's best pub company."I am pleased to report a strong start to the new financial year, although it is likely that consumer confidence will be affected by Brexit in the near-term."Nevertheless, the company pointed out that it has a strong track record of performing well in challenging conditions, highlighting its strong balance sheet and saying it will benefit from the opportunities created by the Spirit acquisition.Greene King said trading in the first eight weeks of the year has strengthened, underpinned by the European Football Championships and better weather in May, with LFL sales up 2.8%.Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Nicholas Hyett said: "Greene King has a great track record of dividend growth, and the Spirit takeover appears to be sowing the seeds for this to continue a while longer."The group has used the boost to its earnings from the merger to improve dividend cover, while still offering shareholders an inflation-busting 7.7% increase for the full year."At 1030 BST, Greene King shares were flat at 759.50p.