Pets at Home reports strong annual growth

21st Apr 2015 08:01

Pet food and pet products retailer Pets at Home Group has seen annual like-for-like sales jump 4.2% in its first year since floating on the stock exchange.The FTSE 250 group said strong performance in advanced nutrition, health and hygiene and its VIP Club loyalty scheme drove total revenue up 9.6% to £729.1m.The company said its VIP Club registered 270,000 new members in the fourth quarter, bringing its total number of members for the year to 3.2m.Merchandise like-for-likes revenue rose 3.7%, while like-for-like sales of services grew 10.7% and income from joint venture veterinary practices jumped 30.7% to £28.2m."We are delighted to be delivering on expectations in our first year as a publicly listed company," said group chief executive Nick Wood."We have seen strength across both merchandise and services, demonstrating the broad range of levers through which we will successfully deliver further profitable business growth."The retailer opened 25 new gross stores in the year ending 26 March, bringing its total number of stores to 400 and it also opened 61 vet practices, bringing the portfolio to 338.Pets at Home shares were up 0.58% to 259.80p at 08:09 on Tuesday.