Sainsbury’s lifts growth target
Published: 25 March, 2010
Sainsbury's is stepping up its growth plans and plans to increase its estate by 15 per cent over the next two years.
Sainsbury’s plans to open a hundred new stores across the UK this year, on the back of a continued improvement is sales figures.
Unveiling the grocer’s fourth quarter figures, which saw like-for-like sales up 1.7 per cent, Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King said: “We have accelerated space growth, bringing over 100 new and extended supermarket and convenience stores to customers, which delivered 6.8 per cent gross new space in the full year with an unprecedented level of activity in March.
“In the quarter we opened six supermarkets and completed five extensions creating around 1,500 new jobs as a result. We are on track to deliver gross space growth of 15 per cent in the two years to March 2011 creating 13,000 new jobs in the two years as a result.”
And he added: “We continue to actively manage our valuable property estate. We completed the sale and leaseback of our 83,000-sq ft store in Hayes which we extended in the last financial year and achieved planning approval on two schemes in our joint venture with Land Securities including a significant mixed use scheme in Wandsworth.”
