Trading across both the Agriculture and Specialist Retail Divisions has continued strongly in the second half of the financial year, with farmer confidence and spending patterns continuing to recover as output prices have strengthened. As a result, the Board now expects to report profit before tax and earnings per share for the financial year ahead of current market forecasts.
Strong feed sales, both direct-to-farm and through Wynnstay's agricultural retail stores have been a key driver of this better-than-expected performance. Feed volumes and margins benefited from both the improvement in underlying market demand and the extended warm dry summer, which limited forage availability. Fertiliser volumes, which have been expanded through acquisitions within the Glasson business, were also boosted by weather conditions in the final quarter of the financial year, and seed sales were also strong over this period. The integration and turnaround of the stores acquired from the administrators of Countrywide Farmers is proceeding to plan and they are anticipated to make a positive contribution to the Group's results in 2019.
The Board believes that the general agricultural and commodity outlook in the UK remains positive, and that the Group is well placed to take advantage of the opportunities that are expected to present themselves.
The Group expects to announce its results for the year ended 31 October 2018 towards the end of January 2019.