By Radhika Anilkumar
(Reuters) - J D Wetherspoon enjoyed its busiest ever Saturday over the May Day weekend, the British pub group said on Wednesday, as demand for its cut-price lager and cocktails led it to forecast annual profit at the higher end of analyst expectations.
Shares in the company jumped as much as 9.6% to 816 pence in early trade, their highest since April 2022.
Customers paired ale and beer with pub favourites like fish and chips and steak and kidney pie during May Day holiday weekend, Chairman Tim Martin told Reuters.
The company didn't give details on how many customers it served on the Saturday, nor on analysts' range of profit forecasts.
According to Refinitiv data, analysts on average expect profit for the year through July of about 32 million pounds ($40 million), compared with a loss of 30.4 million pounds the year before.
While Wetherspoon has bounced back from pandemic lows more quickly than some of its competitors, high labour, food and energy costs remain a challenge.
"Food inflation is still a major issue in large categories of products," Martin said.
Food prices in Britain rose 15.7% in the year to April, though the British Retail Consortium said lower prices were on the horizon.
As of April 30, Wetherspoon's net debt was 738 million pounds, about 67 million lower than immediately before the pandemic.
"Wetherspoon's value proposition is holding it in good stead as the cost-of-living crisis continues and the action to bring debt down and optimise its portfolio of pubs is the right move," Hargreaves Lansdown (LON:HRGV) analyst Derren Nathan said.
Shares in pub group fell almost 54% in 2022, but are more up over 75% this year.
GRAPHIC: Wetherspoon's share bounceback https://www.reuters.com/graphics/JDWETHERSPOON-OUTLOOK/dwvkdnrazpm/chart.png
Like-for-like sales for the 13-weeks ended April 30 rose 9.1% from pre-pandemic levels, and sales during the Easter week were the highest ever for the group, Wetherspoon said, without providing details.
($1 = 0.7923 pounds)