Majestic Wine uncorks record profits

Wine merchant Majestic Wine served up record annual pre-tax profit as consumers celebrated events such as the Royal Wedding with a good bottle of wine.

Pre-tax profit rose to £23.2m in the 53 weeks ended 2 April 2012 from £20.3m the same time a year earlier. Total sales were up 8.9% to £280.3m, just below forecasts of £281.4m. Like for like sales in UK retail stores rose 2.6%.

The price of an average bottle of still wine purchased at Majestic is now £7.34, up from £6.94 a year earlier.

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Majestic in France saw profit before interest and tax of £1.4m, up from £1m the year before while profit at Lay & Wheeler, its fine wine merchant, climbed to £1.9m from £0.7m before.

Commenting on the results chief executive Steve Lewis said, "Majestic has a clearly differentiated operating model, with a focus on delivering exceptional customer service that has proved resilient in a challenging economic environment."

In the ten weeks from 3 April to 11 June 2012, UK like for like sales up 0.6%.

A final dividend of 11.8p net per share has been offered, bringing the total dividend for the year to 15.6p, an increase of 20% on last year.

CJ