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Shares dive amid consumer spending fears
19 November, 2007
Pub stocks bear brunt of stock market concerns
Shares in listed pub companies took a dive today as fears of a downturn in consumer spending hit the stock market yet again.
Concerns remain that pubs will be hard hit this winter by the double-whammy of the smoking ban and consumers being less inclined to visit the pub, either because of bad weather or having less money to spend.
Losers included Greene King, down 25.5p to 819p; Enterprise Inns, down 24p to 521p and Punch Taverns, down 37p to 865.5p.
Other fallers were Marstons and Mitchells & Butlers.
However the biggest loser today has been JD Wetherspoon, whose shares at one point fell more than six per cent to 410.5p.
Brokers said that while the FTSE-100 share index was down nearly 90 points, it was consumer-facing stocks which had been worst hit.
One analyst said he’d been surprised by the movement in Wetherspoon’s share price: “Yes, they’ve been hit on machine income recently, but there is no new news there. It’s puzzling.”
Enterprise Inns, the UK’s second largest pub operator, is to announce its results for the year tomorrow (Tuesday), with some analysts forecasting earnings per share growth of 12 per cent, aided by the recent share buyback programme.
Readers' comments
in one of my comments i stated a long time ago that shares in pub companies, especially punch taverns, will go down not just to the non smoking ban only but through the greed of these companies in high rents and us having to buy the beer at their inflated prices. I would go as far as to say PunchTavern shares will drop down to £5. Does any of the shareholders know how many of there pubs are boarded up as they cant find any tenants:-) ?