London, Jan. 9 - Britain's Restaurant Group reported a sharp slowdown in underlying sales on Wednesday and said it was expecting a subdued 2008, sending its shares down 20 percent in a broadly weaker retail sector.
The group, which runs chains such as Frankie & Benny's, Chiquito and Garfunkel's, said like-for-like sales rose just 1 percent in the last quarter of 2007, having been up 7 percent after 36 weeks of the year.
"Part of the reason (for the slowdown) was that our comparatives were very high," Chief Executive Andrew Page told reporters on a conference call.
"The other part is certainly that the consumer has been put under a bit of pressure as a result of the rises in interest rates and those feeding through into increase costs of servicing their debt, principally mortgage debt, but also other personal debt."
At 1000 GMT, Restaurant Group shares were down 20 percent at 139.75 pence, valuing the firm at 278 million pounds ($550 million), after earlier hitting a 2-year low of 138 pence.
"Tougher trading in Q4 was accompanied by higher food costs, which The Restaurant Group is not passing on to customers. Consequently, we are downgrading forecasts," Panmure analysts said in a research note.
They kept their 2007 pretax profit forecast at 43.5 million pounds, but cut their 2008 estimate by 8 percent to 46 million and their price target on The Restaurant Group shares to 275 pence from 425 pence.
The Restaurant Group said 2007 results, due on March 5, would be in the middle of analysts' current forecast range. It said full-year like-for-like sales rose 5.5 percent, against 5 percent in 2006.
Page said he expected a "quiet" 2008 but did not believe market conditions were going to get much worse.
The chief executive also said the group had no intention of cutting back on its new openings programme, which would see a further 30 to 35 new restaurants opened in 2008, after opening 36 new restaurants had been opened during 2007.
The group also said it had undertaken a routine refinancing and now had banking facilities of up to 120 million pounds until 2012.