In the United States, Fresh & Easy continued its strong run of form, helped by a very successful Christmas and New Year period. Total sales grew by 41% and like-for-like sales growth also remained strong at 19.3%, driven by the improvements the business has delivered for customers and building on the good progress made earlier in the financial year.
Outlook
In a challenging consumer environment at home, and with early signs of more cautious behaviour emerging elsewhere, we have seen more strain than anticipated on our profitability during the important seasonal trading period. As a result, while underlying profit before tax and earnings per share for 2011/12 will be broadly in line with market consensus forecasts, we expect Group trading profit growth to be around the low end of the current consensus range.
Our plan for 2012/13 now reflects substantially increased investment to deliver an even better shopping trip for customers – particularly in the UK. Consequently, we anticipate minimal Group trading profit growth for the year.
An important element of our plan for 2012/13, as we signalled at our Interim Results, will be reduced levels of capital expenditure as we modify our approach to UK expansion.
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