Pets at Home backs FY profit expectations

Pets at Home backed its full-year profit guidance on Tuesday as fourth-quarter trends have been as expected.

In a pre-close update for the year to 28 March, the company said trends in the fourth quarter have been broadly as expected across the retail and vets businesses, with group underlying pre-tax profit set to be in line with previous guidance of £132m.

Pets said it has successfully launched its new digital platform to consumers, in line with its commitment to launch this year.

The new Stafford distribution centre continues to function well, it said, with availability remaining at historically high levels.

The group expects to finish the year in a net cash position, having returned more than £100m to shareholders in FY24 via dividends and buybacks, and having incurred £3m more non-underlying costs than previously expected due to higher restructuring costs, taking the total non-underlying costs for FY24 to around £27m.

Looking ahead to FY25, Pets said it was comfortable with current analyst consensus expectations for group underlying pre-tax profit of between £137m and £150m.