Wynnstay sees full year profit and EPS ahead of market expectations

The company said trading across both the agriculture and specialist retail divisions has continued strongly in the second half, with farmer confidence and spending patterns continuing to recover as output prices have strengthened.

Strong feed sales, both direct-to-farm and through its agricultural retail stores have been a key driver of this better-than-expected performance.

"Feed volumes and margins benefited from both the improvement in underlying market demand and the extended warm dry summer, which limited forage availability. Fertiliser volumes, which have been expanded through acquisitions within the Glasson business, were also boosted by weather conditions in the final quarter of the financial year, and seed sales were also strong over this period."

The company said the integration and turnaround of the stores acquired from the administrators of Countrywide Farmers is proceeding to plan and they are expected to make a positive contribution to the 2019 results.

"The board believes that the general agricultural and commodity outlook in the UK remains positive, and that the group is well placed to take advantage of the opportunities that are expected to present themselves."

At 1600 GMT, the shares were up 2.1% to 410.82p.