Majestic planning share split

A MASSIVE buy-one-get-three-free offer was today launched by Majestic Wine as it celebrated yet another year of record-breaking growth.

Sadly, the special offer applies to its shares, not its booze, as it plans a four-for-one share split to improve liquidity and trading in them after the price quadrupled in three years.

Meanwhile, customers will have to top up on Majestic's summer offers with 15% off Italian and Chilean wines and a dozen champagnes on 'buy-three-save-a-third'.

Chief executive Tim How said Majestic had upped its growth plans and now envisages expansion from its current 115 sites to 'more than 175 locations in the UK'.

It also owns two huge Wine and Beer World outlets in Calais and one in Cherbourg.

Majestic customers' average spending on a bottle of wine rose last year from £5.30 to £5.40 compared with the national average of £3.97.

The group stocks more than 200 wines costing over £20 a bottle. Its internet database of customers who have made purchases in the past 12 months grew by 10% to 325,000 people, who each now spend an average of £107 on each visit.

Total sales rose by 18% to £148.3m in the year to 29 March with like-for-like UK sales up 10%. Sales in the first eight weeks of the current year were 'encouraging', according to How, with UK like-for-likes up by 8%.

Headline pre-tax profits rose 27% to £10.6m with earnings up 24% at 46.9p a share. The dividend for the year is lifted 50% to 16.5p.