UK's Pets At Home looks to bolster accessory sales

By Echha Jain and Radhika Anilkumar

(Reuters) -Britain's Pets At Home aims to bolster sales of pet accessories this year, it said on Wednesday, and added it expects no impact on its growth plans from a UK probe of the veterinarian services sector launched last week.

The UK's second biggest vet care provider also reported a 3.2% fall in underlying profit before tax for the year ended on March 28 to 132 million pounds ($168 million), in line with analyst forecasts.

Its shares were up 2.3% in morning trade.

Pet owners have curbed spending on luxury items like expensive toys, hurting Pets At Home's performance, something the company said it aimed to address.

"We plan to return accessories to growth through driving premiumisation, leveraging exclusive licences and tie-ups, and creating points of engagement around major events," it said in a statement.

It also announced a 25 million pound buyback programme for this fiscal year.

The pet supplies retailer, which also offers grooming and veterinary services, flagged subdued trading in the first six weeks of the current fiscal year but reiterated it expect 9% profit growth.

"Pets At Home remains in a more resilient position than the average retailer," Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, wrote in a client note.

The company said its growth strategy was not threatened by a probe into the vets sector launched by the Competition and Markets Authority last week.

Its shares have fallen about 25% since the competition regulator started a review of the vet industry last September.

($1 = 0.7837 pounds)

(Reporting by Echha Jain in Bengaluru; editing by Savio D'Souza, Subhranshu Sahu and Jason Neely)