ASBFY Associated British Foods Plc (PK)

1146 GMT - Primark is among the most mentioned topics across news items over the past four hours, according to Factiva data, after its parent Associated British Foods PLC said the retailer had a record Christmas week, with sales for the 16 weeks ended Jan. 7 up 18%, or 15% on a constant-currency basis. ABF attributed the performance to stronger footfall at its stores given that the previous year was hurt by the Covid-19 omicron variant. ABF said sales were supported by higher unit volumes, average selling prices and a normalized level of markdown. RBC Capital Markets analysts Richard Chamberlain and Manjari Dhar said that Primark's sales rise of 18% beat their expectations for a 13% increase, leading to a better-than-expected adjusted operating margin but is still down compared with a year ago given inflationary pressures. "We think that Primark's margin outlook has improved recently given a firmer GBP, lower raw-materials costs and improved supply terms," the analysts say. Jefferies says in a note that Primark's lack of price elasticity is helping drive sales gains amid shallower margins in the current year, but the lack of overall upgrades could be an issue. Dow Jones & Co. owns Factiva. (ian.walker@wsj.com)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 24, 2023 07:02 ET (12:02 GMT)

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