British brewer Greene King's full-year profit beats expectations

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July 1 (Reuters) - British pubs operator Greene King Plc (LSE: GNK.L - news) reported a better-than-expected full-year profit and said revenue from its retail business crossed 1 billion pounds for the first time.

Greene King, which operates 1909 pubs including Hungry Horse, as well as breweries, reported a pretax profit of 168.5 million pounds ($264.51 million) for the 52 weeks ended May 3.

That compares with analysts' average estimate of 166.76 million pounds, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue at Greene King's retail business, which accounts for nearly three-quarters of the total, rose 5.9 percent with average revenue per site up 2.4 percent. Group revenue rose 3 percent to 1.31 billion pounds.

Suffolk-based Greene King is focusing on its retail business as it competes for a bigger slice of the burgeoning dining market. It operates 1,000 managed pubs, restaurants and hotels across the UK.

The group completed a 774-million-pound takeover of smaller rival Spirit Pub (LSE: 120214.L - news) last month to create one of the biggest pub groups in Britain, overtaking All Bar One owner Mitchells & Butlers.

The company declared a final dividend of 21.8 pence per share from 20.8 pence last year.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Greene King were up 0.8 percent at 851 pence in early trading on the London Stock Exchange (Other OTC: LDNXF - news) .

($1 = 0.6370 pounds) (Reporting by Aastha Agnihotri in Bengaluru; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)