The recovery of Punch Taverns, the pubs group that was almost brought down by its huge debt mountain during the credit crunch, is a long drawn-out process and Thursday's interim results are likely to focus on the familiar twin themes of declining like-for-like (LFL) sales and the pubs disposal programme.
In the 12 weeks to March 3rd, Punch reported a LFL year-on-year income decline of 2.9% in its core estate - the pubs it hopes to keep hold of - while the 'up for sale' pubs in aggregate saw LFL sales down 10.2%. Any improvement in those trends would be seen as cause for a drink.
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