Fuller Smith & Turner Plc, one of the UK's leading independent brewers and retailers, the maker of beers such as London Pride and ESB, announced full-year profit doubled, boosted by gains from selling property. Net income at the company, whose brewery in southwest London is more than 350 years old, rose to 11.7 million pounds, or 47.9 pence a share, from 5.9 million pounds, or 22.8p, a year earlier, it said in a Regulatory News Service release. Stripping out property gains and losses, profit grew 15 percent.

“Trading in the early weeks of the current financial year has been satisfactory taking into account the impact of a late Easter,'' Chairman Anthony Fuller said in the statement. “The hotel market is challenging at the moment.'' Shareholders will get a second-half dividend of 11.37p a share, boosting the total for the year by 6 % to 16.12p.

03 June, 2003