pets at home

The big freeze has boosted sales of dog coats and rabbit hutch covers at Pets at Home, with the retailer enjoying bumper trading over the Christmas period and improving its prospects of finding itself a buyer. Like-for-like sales climbed 6.7% in the six weeks and to 7 January Sales were up 9.8% in the 41 weeks to 7 January.

The 252-store chain has put itself up for sale and is in talks with several private equity firms but has not ruled out a stock market flotation. Today's figures could boost the retailer's price tag in an auction. A total of 1.4m presents were bought from Pets at Home over Christmas. The cold snap led to a surge in sales of products to keep pets warm, from rabbit hutch covers to dog coats. It sold 70% more dog coats than last year. The retailer also sold more than a thousand tonnes of wild bird food.

But John Lewis was less lucky during the cold snap. It reported a 1.4% slide in sales for last week as the snow and ice kept shoppers away from the high street. In the same week - John Lewis's peak clearance week - back in 2008 the department store group enjoyed a 9.9% sales surge.

The impact of this year's bad weather on sales, however, was mitigated somewhat by a 56% surge in John Lewis's online sales as snowed-in shoppers turned to the internet, and bumper sales of comfort food from Waitrose such as frozen chips, tinned beans, fish fingers and corned beef.

Back at Pets at Home, four private equity houses – Apax Partners, Bain, KKR and TPG – are understood to have got through to a second round of bidding for the company, which is tipped to fetch more than £700m.

"We have begun a dual-track process to examine the options for either a potential IPO or a sale of the company to a private equity buyer," said Pets at Home chief executive Matt Davies.

"Our performance has been very strong all year and I am pleased that despite the bad weather of the past few weeks, we were also able to deliver a good sales performance over the Christmas period, demonstrating the resilience of our business," he added. "I am particularly pleased that this sales growth has been accompanied by further improvements in our margin."