The Pets at Home Board has recommended an interim dividend of 2.5 pence per share, maintained with the prior year. The interim dividend will be payable on 8 January 2021 to shareholders on the register at the close of trading on 4 December 2020.
Other financial highlights include:
Total Group revenue growth of 5.1% to £574.4m
Group like-for-like (LFL) revenue growth of 5.3% with Q2 LFL# revenue growth of 12.7%
Retail LFL revenue growth of 5.8%, or 14.8% on a 2-year basis; Q2 LFL revenue growth of 12.5%
Omnichannel revenue growth of 65.8%, or 118.2% on a 2-year basis, with previous investment in capacity and good online availability supporting a step change in participation of Retail revenue from 10.0% in the prior year to 15.2% in H1 FY21
Vet Group LFL revenue growth of 1.2%, with LFL customer sales growth across all First Opinion practices of 1.2%, and Joint Venture practices at 1.6%; LFL customer sales growth across all First Opinion practices of 14.2% in Q2, and Joint Venture practices at 14.6%
Decline in Group underlying PBT of 5.1% to £39.6m; Growth in Q2 Group underlying PBT of 43.7%
Group underlying free cash flow of £60.5m, reflecting good cash generation from our First Opinion veterinary practices post recalibration
Resilient balance sheet with net debt (pre-IFRS16) of £50.9m (net debt/EBITDA of 0.4x) and total liquidity, comprising cash balances and undrawn portion of combined £348m RCF, of £297.1m
