The Pets at Home Board has recommended an interim dividend of 2.5 pence per share, equal with the prior year. The interim dividend will be payable on 10 January 2020 to shareholders on the register at the close of trading on 6 December 2019. First anniversary of launching their pet care strategy.
Other financial highlights include:
Sustained momentum in Retail business, with like-for-like (LFL) revenue growth of 7.8%
o Omnichannel revenues# up 31.7% to £46.5m
o Stores delivering positive LFL revenue growth and a solid operating margin
Vet Group underlying business performing well, with LFL# revenue growth of 6.4%
o First Opinion customer sales growth across all vet practices of 11.8%, with Joint Venture (JV) practice LFL of 14.0% and mature practice sales again growing ahead of the market
o Planned changes to fee arrangements for Joint Venture practices starting to have positive impact: increasing practice profitability and improving Group cash performance
o JV practice buy outs now complete: total of 57 sites, with 36 having subsequently closed
They are introducing more customers to their complete pet care offer:
o Number of VIPs who purchase both products and a service has grown 22% year-on-year, and now represents c16% of all active members
o Number of subscription customers across the Group is now over 790,000
Group underlying PBT, on a comparable pre-IFRS16 basis, up 18.9% year-on-year to £45.0m driven by quality revenue growth in Retail converting strongly to profit
Given progress in the first half, they remain confident about the rest of the year despite continued consumer uncertainty, and expect full year profit towards top end of current market consensus2
After over 9 years as Chairman, succession plan for Tony DeNunzio commenced
