FY25 pre-close statement

*A Private Investor is a recipient of the information who meets all of the conditions set out below, the recipient:

Obtains access to the information in a personal capacity;
Is not required to be regulated or supervised by a body concerned with the regulation or supervision of investment or financial services;
Is not currently registered or qualified as a professional securities trader or investment adviser with any national or state exchange, regulatory authority, professional association or recognised professional body;
Does not currently act in any capacity as an investment adviser, whether or not they have at some time been qualified to do so;
Uses the information solely in relation to the management of their personal funds and not as a trader to the public or for the investment of corporate funds;
Does not distribute, republish or otherwise provide any information or derived works to any third party in any manner or use or process information or derived works for any commercial purposes.

Please note, this site uses cookies. Some of the cookies are essential for parts of the site to operate and have already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but if you do, parts of the site may not work. To find out more about the cookies used on Investegate and how you can manage them, see our Privacy and Cookie Policy

To continue using Investegate, please confirm that you are a private investor as well as agreeing to our Privacy and Cookie Policy & Terms.

•	Group underlying profit before tax (PBT) for FY25 is expected to be £133m, in line with previous guidance.
•	Q4 trends have been broadly as we planned across Retail and Vets, against a challenging and volatile UK consumer backdrop.
•	We finish FY25 with record numbers of Pets Club members, higher customer satisfaction and having grown our clinical talent with more vets and more vet nurses.
•	We have successfully completed the transition of online sales to our Stafford distribution centre, meaning we begin FY26 with a single DC, having completed our network optimisation.
•	Our new digital platform is also now functioning well, with particularly strong growth in subscriptions.
•	The completion of our network optimisation and new digital platform mean we have now fully completed our two major strategic programs, setting our retail business up to return to sales growth and market outperformance in FY26.
•	We expect to finish FY25 in a net cash position, after having return c£85m to investors during the year.

•	We expect the current market conditions and subdued consumer backdrop to continue into the new financial year.
•	In our Vet Group, which now represents more than half of our Group underlying PBT:
	-	We expect further progress in underlying PBT albeit against the comparative of the exceptional levels of growth delivered in FY24 and FY25.
	-	Going forward we are accelerating the rollout of new practices, and will deliver at least 10 in FY26, together with a further 15 extensions.
	-	We now expect the provisional findings of the CMA to be released over Summer 2025, rather than previous expectations of May 2025.
•	We will invest c£3m in a new, capital-light insurance proposition which will leverage our best-in-class consumer data, large customer base and leading brand.
•	In Retail:
	-	Given the uncertain economic backdrop for both demand and inflation, our plan for FY26 assumes subdued UK pet retail market growth continues. Against this, we expect to outperform the market as our investments in digital bear fruit.
	-	In this uncertain environment we will focus on what we can control: putting consumers at the heart of our business, being committed to remaining competitive and keeping tight control of our cost base.
	-	We are facing cost increases including the externally imposed headwinds of NLW/NICs (c£18m impact) and new packaging regulations (£2m), the rebuild of variable pay (c£10m) and we are investing a further £3m in marketing costs to drive sales.
	-	We plan to make significant savings through material cost reduction and productivity initiatives to deliver no more than a 5% increase in operating costs in FY26.
	-	The extent to which we can further mitigate cost inflation will depend on the rate of sales growth we are able to deliver, which is dependent on how consumer demand evolves and how inflation comes through.
	-	Overall, taking into account our current view of demand and costs we expect Retail underlying PBT to decline year on year.
•	Taking all this into account, this would lead to a FY26 Group underlying PBT outcome down year on year, within a range of £115-125m.
•	Having gone through a period of significant change in the business over the past 2 years, we are now through this period of disruption and elevated investment. FY26 will see capex return to normalised levels of less than £50m and we do not expect any non-underlying costs.
•	We remain highly cash generative and will continue to deploy capital in line with our established framework, remaining committed to our ordinary dividend.

Pets at Home Group Plc:
Andrew Porteous, Director of Investor Relations	+44 (0) 7740 361 849
Aaron Wood, Head of Investor Relations	+44 (0) 7702 083 154

Pets at Home Group Plc
Natalie Cullington, Head of Communications	+44 (0) 7974 594 701
Citigate Dewe Rogerson:
Angharad Couch	+44 (0) 7507 643 004

Pets at Home Group Plc: FY25 pre-close statement

Investor Relations Enquiries

Media Enquiries

About Pets at Home

Disclaimer

Companies

UK 100

Latest directors dealings