Mitchells & Butlers, whose pub brands include Toby Carvery and All Bar One, enjoyed its biggest ever sales week as part of the Christmas festivities.
The company said like for like sales rose 2.6% over the three weeks to 4 January, with food volumes up 1.3%.
And some 193,000 meals were sold on Christmas Day as customers eshewed cooking turkey at home, a 7.5% increase on the previous year.
The positive news has pushed M&B shares up 13.6p to 452.1p. Jeffrey Harwood at Oriel Securities said:
On our unchanged forecasts for 2013/14 the shares are rated on 11.8 times earnings, which is a fairly undemanding rating. Progress continues to modernise the company. The shares have further upside, particularly if the company returns to the dividend list, although this may not necessarily occur in the short term.
There is no new news on the pension fund issue. Negotiations on the actuarial review as at March 2013 are underway. It is widely expected that the deficit will increase perhaps to £600m, from £400m, but we do not expect a proportionate increase in contributions.
But Simon French at Panmure Gordon repeated his sell rating on the company:
Mitchells & Butlers has released a better than expected interim management statement reporting 2% like for like sales growth for the 17 weeks to 25 January. This implies 3.7% in the last nine weeks compared to our forecast of around 2%. Ten new pubs have been opened and the group's investment in new pub systems has reached around 400.
However at this early stage in the year we expect no change to consensus forecasts of £320m earnings before interest and tax; our slightly below consensus forecast of £314m remains unchanged. We reiterate our sell recommendation and 365p target price.
Elsewhere London Pride brewer and pub owner Fuller, Smith & Turner is up 8p at 977.5p after reporting a 7.7% rise in like for like sales at its managed pubs and hotels in the 43 weeks to 25 January.
