LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Domino's Pizza Group on Tuesday unveiled a £46m share buyback as it posted higher annual profit driven by a surge in post-lockdown sales.
The chain, a franchise of US-based Domino's Pizza Inc, said underlying pre-tax profit rose to £113.9m from £101.2m a year earlier. On a statutory basis, profit more than doubled to £78.3m from £38.6m due to significantly reduced international losses.

Sales rose 11.2% to £1.5bn, with like-for-like system sales excluding splits up 10.9%. The company declared a final dividend of 6.8p a share for a total of 9.8p, up 7.7%.

Domino's said trading in the first quarter had started well, helped by its first national price campaign for several years, after resolving a dispute with franchisees which saw them refuse to open new stores unless they received an increased share of profits.

"Overall order count and customer acquisition continues to be positive, despite being up against a comparative quarter last year when there were strict lockdown restrictions in the UK," the company said.

"We continue to expect an acceleration in underlying system sales growth (excluding the benefit of the reduced rate of VAT), largely driven by increased store openings and like-for-like growth due to the operating and capital investments associated with the franchisee resolution and continued implementation of our strategic plan."

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