Mitchells & Butlers sales leap as festive punters tuck in

Pubs owner Mitchells & Butlers had its best Christmas in three years as punters paid more to guzzle down pints and eat roast turkey dinners.

The Sizzling Pubs operator, which serves 16 million pints of Carling a year, said like-for-like sales accelerated by an unexpectedly strong 2.9% for the seven weeks ending January 7, better than the 0.6% decline last Christmas.

The company, which owns All Bar One, Nicholson’s and Toby Carvery, did much better on food sales, which rose by 2.8%.

“This is an encouraging performance building on a positive momentum from earlier in the year,” chief executive Phil Urban said.

Investors piled in and sent the shares 5% higher today, adding 13p to 273.2p.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley told clients M&B had benefited from price increases as volumes were broadly flat.

“It appears as if this may be an Christmas effect when price increases tend to get noticed less,” they said.

M&B, which operates 1800 pubs, went through a big shake-up 16 months ago when Urban was promoted from chief operating officer after sluggish sales.