Forecourt retailer Applegreen’s performance has been “in line with expectations for the first five months of 2019,” said its chairman, Daniel Kitchen, via a trading statement.
Released to coincide with Applegreen’s AGM, the statement reported that the legacy Applegreen business is ‘performing strongly year on year’, boosted by the fact that the previous year was impacted by negative weather effects.
In Ireland, it added, trading conditions ‘remain good’.
UK Business
In the UK, where the business acquired a controlling stake in Welcome Break last year, the company reported that the performance of the Welcome Break business has been ‘satisfactory’.
It added, however, that ‘ongoing uncertainty surrounding Brexit has impacted on consumer sentiment’ in its UK operation.
In the US, the business is ‘performing well’, with Applegreen actively seeking out new opportunities in the marketplace.
“The group has continued to selectively invest in quality sites with strong return potential, with a total of nine sites being added to the portfolio since 31 December 2018,” Kitchen said. “Six new sites were added in the Republic of Ireland, and three new sites in the UK. We also converted a further two sites in the US to 7-Eleven convenience stores.”
Subject to shareholder approval, Applegreen intends to pay a final dividend of 0.91 cent per share to shareholders at the end of this month, bringing the total dividend for the financial year to 1.54 cent per share.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Jana Zimmermann. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
