Greene King Trading statement for the 40 weeks to 5th February 2017

[idpickering]

"In the first 40 weeks of the year, Pub Company achieved like-for-like (LFL) sales growth of 1.1%. Excluding Fayre & Square, LFL sales were +1.6%. Over the last 16 weeks, we have seen a strong Christmas trading period alongside the usual quieter months of November and January.

LFL sales over the three Christmas weeks were up 4.5%, despite tough comparisons with the previous Christmas. Sales were driven by particularly strong growth in London. We again broke our record for Christmas Day with sales of £7.4m, up 6.0% on the previous year.

LFL net income in Pub Partners was up 3.5% after 40 weeks, maintaining its strong performance this year. In a cask ale market down 3.8%, own-brewed volume (OBV) in Brewing & Brands was down 4.2%.

Further progress was made on the Spirit integration with over 1,000 pubs now converted to the 'best of both' Pub Company IT system and ongoing synergy savings realised. "

Full item here;

http://www.investegate.co.uk/greene-kin ... 00065456W/

Funnily enough, I was just toying with bringing these on board my HYP to sit alongside my DGE holdings.

Ian.

[kempiejon]

Ta Ian,
Like you I hold both DGE and GNK, I bought the first years ago when it had a higher yield. Since then dividend up about 60%, the capital has outstripped that by doubling driving the current yield. GNK I bought initially in May last year and have added to. There was some discussion around Gengulphus' demo port selections of the soft drinks company Britvic, I pondered between the two but preferred the brewer. Greene king are some way off a full holding so look worthy of a top up, the yield today is slightly higher than my average.

[idpickering]

Ta Ian,
Like you I hold both DGE and GNK, I bought the first years ago when it had a higher yield. Since then dividend up about 60%, the capital has outstripped that by doubling driving the current yield. GNK I bought initially in May last year and have added to. There was some discussion around Gengulphus' demo port selections of the soft drinks company Britvic, I pondered between the two but preferred the brewer. Greene king are some way off a full holding so look worthy of a top up, the yield today is slightly higher than my average.

Thanks for your input kempijon. I do like having the 'sin' stocks on board my HYP lol. Tobacco accounts for just over 10% in my HYP in value terms, and beverages at 2.2%. I've no intention of dumping Diageo, but am reluctant to buy more due to the lower yield. GNK are down 2.85% as I type! Oversold surely?

Regards,

Ian.

[idpickering]

Edward Sheldon, one of the TMF writers, took the words out of my mouth with this item today;

Why Greene King is in my ‘buy zone’ but Diageo isn’t

"If there’s one important lesson I’ve learnt in nearly 20 years of investing, it’s that patience can make a huge difference to long-term returns. Warren Buffett once stated that “it’s better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.” However with patience, it’s often possible to buy the wonderful company at a wonderful price, enjoying the best of both worlds.

With that in mind, here’s a look at two stocks trading at contrasting valuations. One is simply too expensive for me right now, while the other is in my ‘buy zone’."

http://www.fool.co.uk/investing/2017/02 ... ageo-isnt/