Alliance Boots says cautious on Q4 outlook |
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Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:41
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LONDON (AFX) - George Fairweather, finance director of Alliance Boots PLC, said the health and beauty group is taking a cautious view on the UK outlook for its fourth quarter to end-March 2007.'We are cautious on the market outlook overall. There's certainly nothing changed for the consumer that we are seeing that suggests its going to get any easier for them,' he told AFX News.'When you sometimes see a slightly slower October, November and a pick-up at Christmas, if you look back at history it doesn't mean that things will roll forward.'So in terms of our planning and how we are looking forward, we are being cautious, recognising that people have got credit card bills coming in this month and there's a lot of talk about what's going to happen to interest rates.'Fairweather was speaking after Alliance Boots, created from the merger of Boots Group and Alliance UniChem last July, reported a solid, if unspectacular, underlying performance in its UK retail business in the third quarter.For the three months to Dec 31, 2006, total sales for its UK retail business, which groups the Boots The Chemists chain with the Alliance Pharmacy chain, rose 2.5 pct and were up 1.5 pct on a like-for-like basis.At 8.08 am, shares in Alliance Boots were down 3-1/2 pence at 830 pence, valuing the business at 8.03 bln stg. The FTSE 100 was up 24.9 points at 6,185.6.newsdesk@afxnews.comjdd/jsaCOPYRIGHTCopyright AFX News Limited 2006. All rights reserved.The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News.AFX News and AFX Financial News Logo are registered trademarks of AFX News Limited
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Boots plans ‘merger of equals’ deal with Alliance 