INTERVIEW - Wetherspoon boss sees economic pick-up but urges tax cuts

7th May 2014 13:27

The flamboyant Chairman of JD Wetherspoon, Tim Martin, says the UK economy is frothing up despite a slowdown in the pub group's sales in the last few weeks.Martin, pictured second from left, told ShareCast: "Most chief executives who comment on the economy don't know what they're talking about, so on the proviso that I'm the same, I would say the economy certainly seems better than it was a few years ago."Surveys show people are feeling a bit easier and that can't do us any harm."But Martin, the company's founder, said the pub industry was working with one hand tied behind its back because it faces more and higher taxes than supermarkets selling cheap booze.Supermarkets pay no VAT on food sales, effectively allowing them to subsidise their alcoholic drinks prices to the detriment of pubs, he said.Wetherspoon is also facing other pub industry-specific taxes from local authorities which supermarkets and other retailers can avoid, he said."We're at a strategic disadvantage. The tax differential bites very hard in less well-off parts of the country because people can't afford to pay it," he said.Easter slowdownEarlier on Wednesday, Wetherspoon reported a good February and March, but like-for-like sales in April rose less than a year ago and Easter was below last year.Like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks to April 27th rose 6.2% and total sales increased 10.9%. In the 39 weeks to April 27th, like-for-like sales climbed 5.6% and total sales lifted 9.7%.Martin said he wasn't sure why trade eased off at Easter, but said Wetherspoon was in line with rivals who had also faced a slowdown of about minus-4% in the Easter week."If you get minus-4% in a trading week it's going to dampen down the rest of the trading period," he said.Martin said he didn't think the weather had too much impact, pointing out that most of Wetherspoon's pubs were in high street locations rather than riverside sites popular during hot weather."We're probably about as weather-neutral a pub company as you're likely to get," he said.Wetherspoons has focused on food and drink rather than pulling in football fans with live television soccer and the chain, which has televisions in only some of its pubs, does not plan to buy any more TVs to show this summer's football World Cup.But Martin voiced confidence about its business model despite economic ups and downs."We've gone through two or three recessions now and we've emerged pretty unscathed," he said.By 14:16 in London, shares in Wetherspoon had fallen 15p or 1.8% to 837p.PW