Belhaven poised to beat forecasts

INVESTORS are likely to raise a glass to the owner of Scotland's Belhaven brewery this week as brokers are tipping it to serve up forecast-busting annual profits.

Pubs and beers owned by Belhaven should help Greene King report profits of 140 million on Thursday, against market forecasts of 139.4m, up from 123m a year ago, according to Numis Securities.

East Anglia-based Greene King, which bought Belhaven six years ago, is likely to say sales at its managed pubs north of the Border rose by 4 per cent, with equivalent sales in England lifting 4.7 per cent.

It said in April that the Scottish brewer's Belhaven Best ale had boosted volumes by 1.8 per cent while volumes of its English ales such as Greene King IPA, Old Speckled Hen and Abbot Ale had stayed level with last year.

Sunny weather helped its drink-led pubs, while food growth was also strong with the group reporting an 8.2 per cent uplift in the last quarter of the year through its Hungry Horse and Old English Inns brands.

Belhaven's pubs division has more than 300 tenanted, leased and managed pubs, from Stranraer in the south of Scotland to Wick in the north, and its brewing business is based in Dunbar.

Greene King announced in 2005 that it was buying Belhaven and runs it separately from the other Greene King businesses.

Douglas Jack at Numis said: "We believe the shares are attractive."

Greene King has also been adding to the portfolio, with the recent acquisition of pub chains RealPubs and Cloverleaf seen as good deals by analysts.

RealPubs owns 14 pubs in London and took the number of outlets in the M25 area to 217, which Greene King expects to get a major boost from the Olympics. Simon French at broker Panmure Gordon recently upgraded his earnings forecast for the year to April 2012 on the back of the likely strong fourth quarter and raised his target price for the shares.

French said current trading may struggle to match last year's levels, which were boosted by the sales during the football World Cup.

But he said the Cloverleaf and RealPubs deals together with the group's existing managed pubs, including those run by Belhaven, should underpin trading this year.

"We reiterate our 'buy' recommendation," French said.