Greggs Regulatory News (GRG)

9 Jan 2008 07:00

Greggs PLC09 January 2008 9 January 2008 GREGGS plc TRADING UPDATE Greggs is the UK's leading retailer specialising in sandwiches, savouries andother baker-fresh food on the go. It has over 1,350 retail outlets throughout the UK, trading under the Greggs and Bakers Oven brands. Group Managing Director Sir Michael Darrington reports: "The business hascontinued to achieve satisfactory like-for-like sales growth since our lasttrading update in October. Like-for-like sales in the second half of ourfinancial year, comprising the 28 weeks to 29 December 2007, increased by 5.8per cent, giving overall growth in like-for-like sales for the year of 5.3 percent. The like-for-like sales increase over the Christmas and New Year tradingperiod, comprising the four weeks to 5 January 2008, was broadly in line withthis at 5.6 per cent. "During the year we opened 56 new shops and closed 24, making a net addition of32 and a total of 1,368 units trading at the year end, meeting the increased netopening target we announced in October. "We have continued to return cash to shareholders through our share buybackprogramme. During the second half we purchased for cancellation a total of375,300 ordinary shares at an average price of £47.69 and an aggregate cost of£18.0 million. "Despite the continuation of significant cost pressures on a number of our keyingredients, we look forward to reporting on a year of satisfactory progresswhen we make the preliminary announcement of our 2007 results, which isscheduled for Tuesday, 11 March 2008." ENQUIRIES:Greggs plc Hudson SandlerSir Michael Darrington, Managing Director Wendy BakerRichard Hutton, Finance Director Tel: 020 7796 4133Raymond Reynolds, Retail DirectorTel: 0191 281 7721 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange