Marston's swings to loss owing to asset writedowns, cost pressures

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Pub group Marston's swung to a full-year loss after the company wrote down the value of its assets and cycled tough comparatives following the football World Cup in the previous year.

Pre-tax losses for the year through September amounted to £20.0m, compared to a profit of £54.3m on-year.

Underlying profit fell 2.9% to £101.0m as revenue rose 3.0% to £1.17bn.

Group operating fell 0.8%, with the company announced that cost challenges remained a significant issue for the sector, particularly people and property costs.

Like-for-like sales grew 0.8% and the company kept its final dividend steady at 4.8p per share.

'We are making good progress with our debt reduction plans and are ahead of schedule in meeting the accelerated £70m of disposal proceeds, which we are targeting in the current year,' chief executive Ralph Findlay said.

'Trading is on track for the initial weeks of the current year and we are well prepared for the all-important Christmas and New Year period.'

At 8:56am: (LON:MARS) Marstons PLC share price was -0.55p at 126.85p