- Interest and debt expected to be flat
- Net pub disposals
JD Wetherspoon’s (JDW) sales growth outstripped the market yet again as the pub operator enjoyed a strong Christmas, but chair Tim Martin struck his usual negative tone on the tax discrepancies between pubs and supermarkets and warned about ongoing cost pressures.
The company revealed in a trading update ahead of its interim results, due to be released in March, that like-for-like (LFL) sales rose 15.2 per cent in December, an outperformance of the market for the 16th consecutive month. According to the CGA RSM business tracker, pubs grew LFL sales by 9.6 per cent and the wider hospitality sector by 8.8 per cent in the final month of the year.