E-Malt.com News article: 1135

Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries Plc, the British largest regional brewer, has posted a slight fall in half-year profit on May 23, but the results were at the top end of forecasts and the company was upbeat over its outlook, according to Reuters. W&D, which narrowly defeated a hostile bid from Pubmaster in 2001, reported a four percent fall in pre-tax profit of 30.1 million pounds ($49 million) for the 26 weeks to March 29, largely due to a higher interest charge after buying back shares promised in its defence, but above forecasts of between 28.7 million and 29.5 million.

Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries Plc, the brewer of Banks's and Pedigree beers and owner of just over 1,600 pubs said it remained flexible over whether to return more cash to shareholders or make small pub acquisitions, though it declined to comment on its interest in struggling south-west England pub firm Eldridge Pope.

The company has returned 130 million pounds to shareholders since the 485 million-pound Pubmaster bid, but Findlay said the company had still not decided whether to return the full 200 million pounds promised as part of the bid defence or turn to buying up selected pubs.

Analyst Greg Feehley at Altium Capital described the results as "safe rather than exciting" and argued that, for the shares to continue to outperform, the focus should be on buying back more equity rather than getting distracted with acquisitions.

The brewer's 479 managed pubs saw like-for-like sales fall 0.4 percent on an uninvested basis, a trend which continued into April and May.


27 May, 2003