Mitchells & Butler’s first half results cheer investors

FTSE 250 pub operator Mitchells & Butler (LON:MAB) has seen its share price climb by 8.45% to 263p (as of 13:50 BST) after revenues rose 5.0% during the 28 weeks to 13th April. Adjusted profits before tax also rose despite cost pressures and Easter shifting outside of the period.

Chief executive Phil Urban commented: “This is a strong set of results, demonstrating that we continue to build momentum in the business, delivering sales growth, sustained market outperformance and a return to operating profit growth all while reducing leverage to below four times. This strong performance comes from the progress we continue to make in our three priority areas: building a more balanced business; instilling a more commercial culture; and driving an innovation agenda.

Success in this highly competitive market is dependent on a continuous stream of improvements, and that is what we are delivering with many small advances at site level driving significant benefits in aggregate. We will maintain our focus on these initiatives which we believe are transforming the business“.