Pets at Home Group H2 2026 Pre Recorded Earnings Report

Pets at Home Group EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 14.80
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Pets at Home Group Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.47 billion
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Pets at Home Group Announcement Details

• Quarter: H2 2026 Pre Recorded
• Date: 5/27/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 2:00AM ET

We are the UK’s leading pet care business, providing pet owners with everything they need to be able to look after their pet – from food, toys and bedding, and grooming services, right the way through to first opinion veterinary care. Our stores represent a unique environment and provide a practical, fun and unique experience for pet owners. We’ll help owners select the right food for their pet with nutrition consultations, help test the water is safe for their fish tank before new fish are introduced, and help socialise a new puppy with socilaisation and training classes - and much more. We’re also online and our customers can order their pet products for home delivery or collect in store. Because we are a specialist pet care business everything we sell is tested specifically for pets, which is something we believe makes us unique, giving the customer peace of mind that they are buying a quality item which has been responsibly sourced and tested and is specific to an animal. When we sell a pet to a new owner we use our unique Pet Pad process which ensures a perspective owner understands the welfare needs of their pet to be, asking customers to sign to say they have understood how to look after their new family addition. Our in store and stand-alone veterinary practices provide full veterinary care from preventative healthcare including health checks and vaccinations right through to digital x ray and operating theatres.

Pets at Home Group H2 2026 Pre Recorded Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: FY 2026 group underlying PBT fell to £93 million, down a third year over year, as retail underperformance and gross margin pressure weighed on results.
• Neutral Sentiment: Retail is in turnaround mode under a plan focused on product, price, cost, and execution, with management saying it has already seen improving momentum and positive sales in Q4 and half two.
• Positive Sentiment: The vets business remained resilient and grew, with practice revenues up 6% and cash generation of £74 million, underscoring the strength of the JV model.
• Positive Sentiment: Management highlighted a strong balance sheet and low leverage at 0.1x, plus £84 million returned to shareholders in FY 2026, supporting continued capital returns and investment capacity.
• Positive Sentiment: The company remains on track to launch Pets-branded insurance in 2026, with FCA approval and the technology platform already built, creating a new growth avenue.

Presentation

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our full-year results. Sarah and I will take you through our FY 2026 results and particularly the progress made through half two. We'll give you some early impressions of the business we joined around eight weeks ago. A little about me and why I'm here. I have spent my career in retail, and it's part of the reason that I'm passionate about the opportunity that Pets at Home represents. I joined Pets around eight weeks ago as Chief Exec, coming from Waitrose, where I spent five years as Managing Director, and before that I spent 18 years at Sainsbury's, lastly as Commercial Director for the grocery business. When I was approached about this role, two things stood out. Firstly, Pets at Home is the clear market leader in a genuinely attractive sector.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

If we get the basics right and leverage that competitive advantage we have, we can create significant value for shareholders. I can see an opportunity to create value by improving execution and building on the strong foundations the business already has. I want to reassure you that the current priorities are the right ones for now. The team is talented and there's meaningful headroom to do better. I spent my first eight weeks immersing myself in the business, spending time in our stores, in our vet practices, with our amazing colleagues, and with our customers. I am genuinely encouraged by what I've seen so far. Today, I'll share some of those early impressions with you. Pets at Home is the market leader in a structurally attractive market. Let me start by why I think Pets at Home is such an exciting opportunity.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

The U.K. pet market is structurally attractive. Pet ownership benefits from a deep emotional connection, and pet owners increasingly want the best products, care, and advice for their pets. This drives premiumization and humanization in the sector that support structural growth over many years. These underlying trends are alive and well, even though growth in the sector has been more subdued in the past couple of years. Within this market, we are the leading pet care business with a 20% market share and delivering close to GBP 2 billion sales, over GBP 1.3 billion from retail sales alone and over GBP 650 from our vet consumers. 460 Pet Care Centers, 455 vet practices, 339 grooming salons, and a well-invested modern online platform.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

No other business in the sector brings together retail, vets, grooming, and digital in the way we do, and this is a genuine competitive advantage, and it's one I'm excited to build on. Those competitive advantages are underpinned by a set of genuine, hard-to-replicate strengths. Our colleagues sit at the heart of our business. The expertise and passion of our store teams, our vets, and our groomers is something you can really feel when you walk into our Pet Care Centres. I've been a customer of the business, and since joining I've visited many of our stores and vet practices, and the quality of our people is undeniable. They know their products, they know their customers, and they do genuinely care. Our vet business is unique in the U.K. market. The joint venture model we have built, partnering with clinical entrepreneurs, creates aligned incentives and genuine quality of care.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

There is nothing quite like it. Our physical estate across 460 locations gives us unrivaled reach and combined with our digital capabilities and our Pets Club membership base of over 7 million active members, we have a compelling platform that I think is difficult for any of our competitors to replicate. Of course, we have that trusted brand. In a sector where pet owners want reassurance and expertise, being the most recognized and trusted name matters enormously. Diving deeper into our vet group, we have a truly unique business built around the alignment that our JV model gives us, bringing together our best-in-class infrastructure and service with the entrepreneurial and clinical expertise of our practice owners. Our vet business delivers differentiated economics for us and for our partners while delivering great outcomes for pet owners and their pets.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

The JV structure means that we support practices in running a great business, leveraging the scale and expertise we have as a group, bringing our trusted brand, commercial rigor, large customer base to support our practice owners who are free to run their practice with clinical autonomy and take the best care of their pets. We know that our practices are the most productive in the sector because of this, with average practice revenues reaching one and a half million this year and plenty more to go for in this respect. They benefit from co-location in our stores, great infrastructure, which will get even better with the deployment of our new practice management system, and this combination drives differentiated economics while delivering great customer outcomes.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

This was confirmed in the recent CMA report, which found our practices are considerably better value than our corporate competitors while delivering significantly higher levels of customer satisfaction, something we can see in our own data with vet satisfaction up a further one and a half points in the year from already high levels. This is a high-quality, cash-generative business that supports the resilience of the group. This winning combination has supported a long track record of revenue, profit, and cash growth. Over the course of the last five years, we've compounded practice revenues at a 13% growth rate, leveraging the proven growth levers of driving out maturity, extending practices, rolling out new practices, and growing our care plan revenues.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

Profits have compounded at 18%, reaching GBP 83 million in this financial year. Our practices have seen similar benefits with GBP 48 million in dividends taken out by our practice owners. The capital light nature of our vet group means that free cash flow has compounded at 28% and now represents the vast majority of group free cash flow. This is not a one-year story. That is a sustained track record of growth built on a sustainable model that delivers great outcomes for all stakeholders. There is more to come, leveraging the proven growth levers we have consistently executed against. Practice sales growth. We've grown average practice revenue significantly over recent years, reaching GBP 1.5 million per practice in this financial year from only GBP 1.1 million three years ago.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

There is plenty of headroom here as our practices continue to mature, as we drive further optimization of core practice operations and through the continued growth of our extremely successful care plans. In practice rollout in the last financial year, we accelerated our openings to eight, and this is a marked acceleration from previous years. We expect to further accelerate this year with plenty of white space in which to grow through in-store practices and standalone, both of which are successful models. We will bring our winning formula to more of the U.K. pet owners in the years to come. Alongside new openings, we have a strong pipeline of practice extensions. This is a proven model with attractive returns and advanced capabilities. We're building clinical specialisms that deepen the offer for our most committed pet owners, which will help us expand our revenue pool.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

Let me return to retail. We've built a retail business on great foundations. Our infrastructure is solid, having undergone significant investment in recent years. It was aimed at the right areas and gives us a strong foundation for the future. While execution and core retail basics have led to some underperformance in recent years, this remains a market-leading business with significant competitive advantages. At our interim results, we announced our Retail Turnaround Plan to address shortcomings and sharpen focus around some clear priorities of Product, Price, Cost, and Execution. These are the right priorities for the business now. We're executing against this plan, and we've seen good improving momentum in retail, including winning back some share as a result. Bringing my retail experience to this Retail Turnaround Plan, this is how I see it.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

In product, we need to ensure our ranges are relevant to today's pet owners. Consumer tastes have shifted. For a period, our ranges didn't evolve with that. That's changing. We've brought on a number of new brands in food. There's more to come, and we're launching strong and well-supported own brands. We will bring innovation to accessories. On price, we need to be competitive. We've dug deep to understand where we are competitive and where we need to do more. Late last year executed nearly 1,000 targeted price cuts to put us in a much more competitive position. We've seen a really encouraging volume response as a result. On cost, we committed to remove GBP 20 million from our support office, which had grown too large. We have completed that program.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

Cost control outside of this has been strong in recent years, but productivity is a constant requirement, and you'll hear much more from me on this in the future. On execution, retail is a discipline. Getting the basics right in store every day is what drives customer satisfaction and sales. We have raised the bar here, and we will continue to do so. Against these priorities, we've made meaningful progress. We are starting to see these flow through into our results. Having invested price on around 1,000 lines by an average of 12%, price discipline is a must, and we will remain vigilant. Right now, we've taken the action we need and will focus on making sure we get the deserved credit for this from our customers and with our suppliers.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

We executed our half two trading plan well, delivered positive sales growth through half two with improving momentum as we move through the half. That continues into this financial year. This has enabled us to deliver the PBT outcome of GBP 93 million in line with expectations. We have improved execution, and as a result, improved customer experience, which has helped us drive customer satisfaction higher. It's up four points in the year and a good improvement in product availability. On cost, we've delivered our commitment to remove GBP 20 million from our group overhead. I am encouraged by the progress we've made. It is delivering results, and it puts the business on a more solid footing. There is more to do. We will continue to deliver improvement to our product range this year and beyond, and we'll work hard to delight customers and improve customer satisfaction further.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

We'll look closely at cost at all levels to ensure we have the right cost structure to deliver great value to customers, recover the gross margins, and deliver better outcomes on the bottom line for our investors. Some of this will take time. We are focused on the right areas and moving quickly. The progress we've delivered against our retail turnaround plan is showing up in our results. Those early results are encouraging. Volume momentum has been building through the second half of the year as we've sharpened the offer. Our Q4 volume growth was over 5%, with broad-based growth across food, consumables, and accessories. This is translating into sales growth, which turns positive in Q4, taking half two overall into positive territory. We've continued this momentum into the new financial year.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

This improvement is sustainable, with customer satisfaction up as we focus on doing the right things for them. It's still early, and we're not complacent. We have clear plans for this financial year coming, and we're focused on delivering our plan and embedding a volume-based recovery in our business. Moving on to pet insurance. Pets insurance is an exciting addition, and it's ready to launch in 2026. In May 2025, we announced this move, and we said that we'd launch a Pets branded insurance offer, leveraging the considerable advantages we have to gain our fair share of the GBP 2 billion U.K. pet insurance market. We've made considerable progress in just a year, and we're on track to launch in 2026. We have a team in place with deep experience in building insurance businesses, including for Pets.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

We have FCA approval in place with a technology platform built from the ground up, a strong endorsement of the way we've built our new digital platform. This is a genuinely exciting opportunity that represents a further complementary business for the group. I've talked in detail about the strengths of our business and the competitive advantages we have. What genuinely excites me about the future and our ability to unlock value is the talented and passionate team I found at Pets at Home. The quality, the passion, and the commitment of our people across retail, vets, insurance, grooming, and our support office is an advantage few other businesses in retail and pet care have. Our people are a special advantage. They care about what they do, and they genuinely care about our customers and their pets, and they care about our business.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

As I look across the business, I'm excited about the future and the opportunities we have in front of us. We are the market leader in a structurally attractive and growing sector. We have very hard-to-replicate competitive advantages in our vet businesses, our physical estate, our brand, and our people. We have a turnaround underway in our retail business that is showing real early signs of momentum, and we have exciting adjacencies in insurance and beyond. Our vet group has a clear focus and a number of proven growth levers to execute against. We will continue to deliver against this with a relentless focus on delivering growth and great outcomes for our clients, our practice-owning partners, and our shareholders. Our retail business has better sales momentum and transaction-led recovery. Continuing to embed this is a core focus, and in time, our profits, margins, and cash will follow.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

We have an early-stage opportunity in insurance that has the potential to create significant value over time. We have a clear plan and are executing this plan off strong foundations with well-invested infrastructure and an enviable balance sheet. As we deliver against our priorities, I see a tremendous opportunity to create sustainable value for shareholders. What can you expect from me? You can expect a relentless focus on customers. I spent the vast majority of my career in retail, and I've been through turnarounds. I know the importance of a consumer/customer focus in everything we do, and everything we do will start with the customer. You can expect discipline and consistency on costs, on capital allocation, and on execution. What next for me?

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

I will continue to spend most of my time in the short term in the business, listening and learning, talking to our colleagues, our customers, and our suppliers. I will be focused on continuing the momentum we have begun to build, and I look forward later in the year to coming back and talking to you more about our plans and the opportunities that lie ahead. I will hand you over to Sarah now to take you through the financials in detail.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

Thanks, James, and hello, everyone. I'm Sarah Pollard, the group's new CFO. I joined the business back in March, and I've already reconfirmed for myself the opportunity that Pets represents, an opportunity to create meaningful value for our shareholders, success from which all our stakeholders can benefit. I took over the reins from Mike Iddon, who has earned himself a very well-deserved retirement. Having spent my career in listed U.K. and global consumer and retail businesses, Diageo, Tesco, Unilever, and latterly, PZ Cussons, I'm thrilled to be here and reporting my first set of Pets results with James. Let me start with an overview of our financial performance in FY 2026. Retail underperformance impacted our results, but the Pets underlying financial position remains strong.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

While group consumer revenue grew by 1% to close to GBP 2 billion, underlying profit before tax reduced by a third to GBP 93 million, generating free cash flow of GBP 62 million. Within this, the strong structural economics of vets has remained resilient, thanks to our proven JV model, contributing GBP 688 million of revenue. By contrast, our retail business underperformed during the financial year, with revenue down 1% to GBP 1.3 billion. Retail profit of GBP 31 million is some 60% lower, generating GBP 3 million in cash. We know that that level of performance is neither good enough nor sustainable, and the business has clear plans to improve it. We're starting to see some improvement already, including volume growth off the back of the retail turnaround plan, which centered on four priorities, product, price, execution, and cost, as James explained. Pausing now on our current trading.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

Whilst only nine weeks into our new financial year, we are quietly encouraged by the volume and sales growth, plus progress in some operational metrics, namely customer satisfaction and availability. We know there is much, much more to do. The underlying financial strength of the overall business remains very strong. Our CapEx investment requirements remain in line with our previous guidance, normalizing now after the peak tech platform and distribution center investments of prior years. The spend in FY 2027 will be focused on our retail store space reset program, the largest we've ever done, and we will employ a disciplined return on investment mindset. We continue to have very little debt on our balance sheet, meaning growth investments need not be restricted, nor do we have any liquidity concerns. Our leverage is low for a business of our size and risk profile at only 0.1 times.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

We remain fully committed to our capital allocation approach, with surplus cash being returned to shareholders in a sustainable way. The overall quantum returned in FY 2026 was in line with the year before. Turning now to a more detailed breakdown of the group's revenue performance where continued vet growth offset the retail decline. Statutory revenue was very slightly lower in the year, defined as our retail sales plus for vets, primarily the JV fee income paid to the Pets at Home Group. Vet revenues therefore constitute a smaller proportion of our overall statutory revenue than they do our consumer revenue. Overall consumer revenue measuring actual vet practice revenues grew 1% to approximately GBP 2 billion. This comprised vet growth of 6% and a decline in retail revenue of 1%. This vet JV practice revenue growth generated a 5% increase in fee income for the group.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

Revenues in our company-managed vet practices, which we have now returned to a position of profitability, were 3% lower as we continue our strategy to transition them onto our proven JV model. As I mentioned, retail revenue declined by 1%, but we saw sequential improvement with sales improving as we progressed through FY 2026, exiting Q4 at a growth rate of 2%. Volumes grew ahead of sales as we invested in price at the beginning of the second half, supporting an improved performance against a subdued U.K. pet retail market overall broadly flat during FY 2026. Within this, Pets at Home retail food sales were flat with volume growth offsetting deflation of around 1%. Our own label products performed better than branded food as we maintain our focus on strengthening our own label proposition, introducing two new Pets brands, Ruff's Recipes for dogs and Willow's for cats.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

own label food sales were up 3% in the year while branded food sales declined 2%. Discretionary accessories continue to be our main area of challenge with a sales decline of around 3.5%, and it remains a key area of focus for us. We've already taken steps to strengthen our team, and they're focused on bringing innovation and newness to our product ranges. The performance of consumable accessories was held back by the lapping of a very strong weather related flea season in FY 2025. Looking now through the important retail channel lens, store sales experienced an overall low single-digit decline, but we saw the rate of that decline slow exiting Q4 down approximately 2%. We've seen further green shoots so far in FY 2027. Online again delivered double-digit sales growth in FY 2026. Turning now to profit performance in the year.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

Group underlying PBT was GBP 93 million, GBP 41 million lower than the prior year. The retail sales decline of 1% alongside a gross margin rate reduction of 175 basis points with half of that explained by our targeted price investments are the key contributors to the decline in overall group profitability. We know that our retail gross margins can't continue to be eroded, and we have plans in place to improve them. Vets again improved its profitability, but not enough to offset retail. Cost control was strong with productivity largely offsetting cost headwinds and underlying inflation. Insurance startup costs and the reinstatement of an employee bonus for our hardworking colleagues complete the picture, and both of these figures came in in line with our expectations. To cash flow. Within the context of our performance, the business has continued to deliver strong cash flow.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

We generated overall free cash flow of approximately GBP 62 million, 22 million lower than in FY 2025 due to the decline in retail profitability. Vets, however, generated cash of GBP 74 million, GBP 7 million more than the prior year, demonstrating the predictable, high quality, and capital light nature of our vets JV model. Lower non-underlying costs, tax payments, and CapEx outflows all benefited free cash flow in the year, with CapEx maintained at normalized levels. We booked some impairments on some old investments totaling approximately GBP 6 million. More now on our investment program. We invested GBP 42 million in CapEx in the year, with just over GBP 30 million of that being in our Pet Care Centres.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

We opened three new stores, we relocated three, and we completed 23 store refits, which helped to drive higher sales. We also continue to invest in our digital capabilities, but this has normalized versus prior years.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

The capital requirements of our vet business remain very low, with the Pets at Home Group contributing only modest sums to practice expansions, with the vast majority funded by the JV practice owners themselves. We partner with the practice owners to ensure the investments will yield a good level of return for all, and we have significantly reduced our level of operating indebtedness with practice owners over the years to now less than GBP 2 million. Being disciplined with our capital investments allows us to maintain a very strong balance sheet, which you can see on the next slide. Our balance sheet is flexible and robust, allowing us to invest in the future growth of the business as well as reward shareholders now. We have net debt of GBP 19 million after returning a total of GBP 84 million to shareholders in either ordinary dividends or share buybacks.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

We've maintained our overall cash returns to shareholders despite lower profitability as an indication of our commitment to and confidence in the future prospects of the business. We have flexible funding arrangements and good financial capacity, with leverage of just 0.1x and significant headroom on our borrowing facilities. Let's take a look at capital allocation in some more detail. Our refreshed capital allocation approach highlights the importance we attach to effectively rewarding our shareholders. We have been consistent and clear on the four elements of our capital allocation policy and have been disciplined in the execution of it. We've returned over GBP 430 million of surplus capital to shareholders in the last five years. Following extensive consultation across our shareholder base, we announced a rebalancing between dividends and share buybacks at our pre-close statement at the end of March.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

We're not changing the overall quantum we will return to shareholders in FY 2027, but we will rebase our dividend back to a sustainable 50% payout ratio and increase the cash amount returned to shareholders via our buyback program to GBP 50 million. Looking now more broadly to the year ahead, we're comfortable with current consensus expectations. This will represent a year of profit growth for the group from another strong vets contribution and critically, an increase in retail profitability as the benefits of the retail turnaround plan and other actions come through. We will see the GBP 20 million support office overhead saving flow to the bottom line. Now, as is the case for everyone in the U.K. consumer and retail sector, we have sizable cost headwinds to navigate with our productivity programs geared up to offset these.

[Sarah Pollard, CFO at Pets at Home Group]

This will allow us to continue to invest in the right areas to support both the short and the long-term growth of the business. In closing my first set of Pets results, I would leave you with a message that the business has a unique set of strengths and the actions that are being taken are starting to deliver. These factors, together with our very strong balance sheet, give me confidence in the future prospects for Pets. With that, I'll hand us back to James to close the call and I look forward to meeting you all very soon.

[James Bailey, CEO at Pets at Home Group]

Thanks for listening, everyone. Thank you for your time. Sarah and I are confident about the future for this business, and we look forward to seeing and hearing from some of you over the coming days.

Participants

Executives

• James Bailey, CEO
• Sarah Pollard, CFO