Pre-tax profit up 12 per cent
Sainsbury's full-year results published today show that recovery is on track after five consecutive quarters of sales and market share growth.

Underlying pre-tax profit was up 12 per cent to£267 million for the year to March 25, up from£238 million last year. Like-for-like sales rose 3.4 per cent excluding petrol. Total sales were up 5.7 per cent to£17 billion.

The supermarket chain also revealed it carries out 16 million transactions a week, an increase of 1.5 million on 2004/2005.

Sainsbury's Bank made a£10 million loss, after what the group described as a 'difficult year'. Earlier this month, Rob Walker was appointed chief executive of the banking arm after Tim Pile stepped down in March.

Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King said: 'We've made good progress during the year and are on track in our Making Sainsbury's Great Again plan. Sales for the year were ahead of our plans. However, it is early days in our recovery and we still have much to do to drive further improvements.'

The retailer also announced it will be rolling out state of the art recycling banks, which recycle CDs and clothes as well as plastic and glass, to 50 stores this year, with a further 297 potential sites identified. The supermarket giant also pledged to address the way it packaged its food.

Numis analyst Steve Davies said: 'Sainsbury's is very much the sweet spot of food retailing - there is a clear trend for customers to trade up to fresher, healthier foods and this is benefiting Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's. We believe there is scope for them to outperform like-for-like expectation again this year.'

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