Booker is holding its Annual General Meeting today at 11am whereby chief executive Charles Wilson will read out the following trading update: “Overall Booker Group had another good quarter. Group sales rose by 4.0% on the same period last year with like for likes up 4.2%. Non tobacco sales grew by 9.6% on a like-for-like basis. Favourable weather and the late Easter assisted this growth. Tobacco sales continued to be adversely impacted by changes in tobacco legislation, down 7.9% like-for-like. The group had a solid quarter for customer satisfaction and cash profit. Booker Direct, Chef Direct, Ritter and Booker India performed as we expected.
"Our balance sheet remains strong with a net cash position. As previously announced, we are today seeking shareholder approval to pay a special dividend of 3.02 pence per ordinary share at a cost of approximately £54m. This is in addition to the final dividend of 4.97 pence per ordinary share which is also being proposed at the Annual General Meeting.
“This was a good quarter. Our plans to focus, drive and broaden the group are on track. On 27 January we announced the planned merger with Tesco and we are going through the competition process. Meanwhile business as usual is going well as we continue to improve choice, prices and service for our retail, catering and small business customers.”
Stuart Hyslop, managing director, Booker Group - catering & small business, added: “Our catering business has enjoyed a good first quarter boosted by our caterers taking advantage of a later Mother's Day and warmer weather. Throughout this time we have maintained very strong availability across our business centres and this has seen them reward us with more of their spend. By listening to our Caterers and focussing our efforts on what really matters to them I am confident we will continue to help them ‘make more and save more’ as we head into the very important summer season. I’d like to say big thank you to them for choosing Booker and Makro and we are looking forward to helping all of our Caterers prosper in the weeks and months ahead."