TOP NEWS: Pets at Home profit up as puppies and kittens remain popular

(Alliance News) - Pets At Home Group PLC on Tuesday attributed buoyant growth in the first half ...

Alliance News 23 November, 2021 | 9:38AM
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(Alliance News) - Pets At Home Group PLC on Tuesday attributed buoyant growth in the first half of its financial year to sustained growth in new pets, as the boom in cat and dog ownership outlasts lockdowns.

The pet products seller nearly doubled pretax profit to GBP70.6 million in the 28 weeks to October 7 from GBP38.9 million a year before.

Revenue improved by 18% to GBP677.6 million from GBP574.4 million. Total customer revenue, which includes joint ventures, rose 20% to GBP867.6 million from GBP724.7 million. Retail like-for-like revenue growth was 22% and 29% on a two-year basis. Vet Group like-for-like revenue growth was 26%.

Shares were up 6.7% in London on Tuesday morning at 488.95 pence each.

An interim dividend of 4.3p per share was declared, an increase of 72% annually from from 2.5p.

"Strong growth in pet ownership continues, reflected in the elevated level of customer registrations across our Puppy and Kitten club, and the performance across our retail and veterinary operations continues to be robust, notwithstanding some widely reported challenges in the near-term operating environment relating to supply, logistics and labour availability," Pets at Home said.

The Cheshire, England-based pet supplies retailer is guiding for annual underlying pretax profit to be at the top end of the current range of analyst expectations of GBP128 million to GBP135 million. Underlying pretax profit was GBP87.5 million in financial 2021.

Pets at Home said it was working to mitigate inflationary pressures across the supply chain and was making good progress in its programme of rent reductions and initiatives to target improving efficiencies.

"The stronger than expected and continuing growth in the pet population over the past eighteen months, combined with continued customer themes of pet humanisation, premiumisation and renewal, is increasing the size of our market and scale of the opportunity facing us," the company said.

Medium-term guidance for customer revenue was raised to GBP2.3 billion.

Pets at Home will release its third-quarter results on January 26.

By Will Paige; willpaige@alliancenews.com

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Securities Mentioned in Article

Security Name Price Change (%) Morningstar
Rating
Pets at Home Group PLC 279.00 GBX 0.94 -

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