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LONDON (Alliance News) - Pets at Home Group PLC on Thursday issued another positive trading update after achieving growth in revenue in its recently-ended financial year, driven by a good performance in both its merchandise and services divisions and as it added 1.3 million members to its VIP club.
The pet products and services provider said group revenue in the year ended March 31 grew to GBP793.1 million from GBP729.1 million the year before, as like-for-like revenue grew by 2.1%.
By division, merchandise like-for-likes were up by 1.4% and services like-for-likes increased by 10%. Merchandise revenue rose to GBP710.2 million from GBP666.1 million, and services revenue grew to GBP82.9 million from GBP63.0 million.
During the year, Pets at Home opened 20 new superstores, 50 vet practices and 60 grooming salons. It also opened six Barkers specialist dog stores and one Whiskers 'n Paws trial format store. Pets at Home now has 427 stores, 388 vet practices and 240 grooming salons.
Membership in the company's VIP club loyalty scheme grew by 1.3 million people to 4.5 million.
Pets at Home added that full-year pre-exceptional pretax profit is expected to be in line with market expectations ranging between GBP93.0 million and GBP97.0 million. It made a pretax profit of GBP87.0 million in financial 2015.
Liberum said Pets at Home's update should be seen as reassuring by the market, with the performance in services particularly impressive against a tough backdrop.
"We remain positive on the long-term growth prospects, with the roll-out programme and growing loyalty customers being supportive," analyst Adam Tomlinson said.
This comes after Pets at Home reported growth in sales in the third quarter of the year, boosted by its Advanced Nutrition product range and recovering sales in Health & Hygiene. Health & Hygiene had suffered a soft start to the year due to "continued seasonal challenges" which led to slower sales growth in the first half.
This improved as the year progressed, however, with first-half like-for-like growth of 1.8% improving to 2.2% in the third quarter and then to 3.2% in the fourth quarter.
"With group like-for-like revenue growth of 3.2% in the final quarter, we are pleased with the continued positive sales momentum in our merchandise business and have seen excellent performance in both our vet practices and grooming salons," Chief Executive Ian Kellett said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Pets at Home revealed that Graeme Jenkins, who had been appointed as the company's chief financial officer in December, would no longer be joining the group.
Jenkins' joining date had been postponed following reports of an investigation into supplier payments at Target Australia Pty Ltd, the Australian department store chain where he is currently the finance chief.
Pets at Home later revealed that Jenkins' appointment had been withdrawn "by mutual agreement", and that it had appointed Mark Adams as interim CFO while it recommences the search for a permanent replacement.
Shares in Pets at Home were trading up 2.1% at 244.70 pence on Thursday afternoon.
By Karolina Kaminska; karolinakaminska@alliancenews.com @KarolinaAllNews
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