Booker bucks the trend

That’s not to say that Booker doesn't face challenges, however, and integrating the Makro acquisition - purchased from German retail giant, Metro in May - could take time. That's because Booker must operate Makro separately until it has obtained clearance for the deal from competition regulators. Moreover, Makro itself isn't in great shape - its sales are expected to slide 9.1 per cent in the year to end-December and post an operating loss of £18m. Assuming Booker can get to work on Makro from January - and that’s not certain - management reckons the business will slice £10m from the group’s full-year profits.

But the longer-term benefits of the deal look impressive. Booker thinks it can deliver £26m of cost savings from a successful integration and that, by March 2014, Makro should be generating an operating profit of about £10m. Analysts at UBS think the move will transform Booker into a business with annual turnover in the region of £6bn in the medium-term, compared with around £4bn presently.

Operationally, meanwhile, Booker opened a further 85 Premier stores in the latest six month trading period, bringing the total estate to 2,724. Management also converted a further three stores to the Extra format, which offers a broader product range and improved customer environment - bringing the total here to 145. The company is making progress online, too, and sales here jumped 10.7 per cent to £332m, representing 17.5 per cent of the sales mix up up from 16.2 per cent a year ago.

Broker Investec Securities has upgraded its full-year estimates by roughly 1 per cent and now expects adjusted pre-tax profit of £90m and adjusted EPS of 4.26p (2012: £84.5m/4.4p), rising to £112m and 5.2p, respectively, in the 12 months to March 2014.