Punch Taverns forecasts lifted by summer sun

Hard though it might be to believe at the moment, Punch Taverns today included good summer weather among reasons for its profits this year to be slightly better than expected.

Punch shares rose 2.25p to 80.45p as City analysts nudged their profit forecasts up from around £129 million to £133 million for the year which ended on Saturday. Last year the group made £160 million.

The news comes just days before new chief executive, Ian Dyson, the former finance director of Marks & Spencer, joins the company.

Punch said the better-than-expected profit was largely due to its own actions in improving operating standards and refurbishing more pubs.

But finance director Phil Dutton admitted: "It was nice to have had a good summer as well."

Over the past year Punch has sold off pubs worth £300 million and reduced its net debt by almost £700 million to £3.1 billion.

It said that pub failures had halved from last year and that the amount of cash support it was providing to landlords had stabilised at around
£2 million a month.

Like-for-like sales in the managed division were down by 2% for the year but were up by 2.6% in the final quarter.