Punch Taverns completed its 52 week financial year on 21st August and expects to announce preliminary results on 11th November 2004.

Trading has continued to be in line with Board expectations. Overall turnover growth in the Punch like for like estate was 2.9% in the year, slightly ahead of the 2.6% reported in the previous year, and marking an improved second half of the year.

The Pubmaster business, acquired on 1st December 2003, has now been fully integrated into the Punch estate and continues to perform well. All infrastructure and management is now combined, and the anticipated synergy benefits of £10m pa from cost and purchasing savings will be achieved as planned. Improved supply deals have already been agreed with two major suppliers and many regional and smaller brewers. In addition, there are excellent opportunities to further improve the estate over time by investment and longer term lease agreements.

The Pubmaster acquisition resulted in a net increase to our estate of 2,859 pubs. A further 80 individual pubs have been acquired during the year with 120 other disposals or delicenses, taking the estate at year end to 7,334. We continue to see many opportunities to acquire good quality pubs and to improve value by disposal or transfer to alternative use. In addition we work closely with our retailers to improve our pubs and have undertaken 580 development schemes during the year.

Our commitment to retailers has been reinforced during the year by our enhanced Retailer Charter and we have now fully launched our new plain english Retailer Agreement, with 103 retailers already signed up. We continue to be strong advocates of retailer training and have delivered over 6,500 training days during the year. The number of applicants to take a Punch pub is running at an all time high and we currently have over 1,600 vetted applicants in our talent bank, searching for a suitable pub.

We have engaged fully with the Trade and Industry Select Committee hearing, and remain convinced that the market operates fairly both to the advantage of the retailer and the pubco, and importantly to the advantage of the consumer.

Giles Thorley comments:

“This has been another year of strong growth and improvement within our estate, which has now been enhanced by the transformational Pubmaster acquisition. The integration activity is complete, the business cont nues to generate good profits and strong cash flows, and we continue to work well with our retailers to help them build their businesses for the future.”

Ends