Financial performance

Financial performance

Here is an overview of our financial performance. More detailed information is available in the Investor section.

Financial summary	2011/12 £m	2010/11 £m	Change %
Sales (including VAT)	24,511	22,943	6.8
Sales (excluding VAT)	22,294	21,102	5.6
Underlying operating profit	789	738	6.9
Underlying profit before tax	712	665	7.1
Profit before tax	799	827	(3.4)
Profit after tax	598	640	(6.6)
Underlying basic earnings per share	28.1p	26.5p	6.0
Basic earnings per share	32.0p	34.4p	(7.0)
Full year dividend per share	16.1p	15.1p	6.6

Notes

Underlying operating profit: underlying profit before tax before underlying net finance costs and share of underlying post-tax results from joint ventures.

Underlying profit before tax: profit before tax from continuing operations before any gain or loss on the disposal of properties, investment property fair value movements, impairment of goodwill, financing fair value movements, IAS 19 pension financing (credit)/charge and one-off items that are material and infrequent in nature.

Underlying basic earnings per share: underlying profit, net of attributable taxation, divided by the weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue during the period, excluding those held by the ESOP trusts, which are treated as cancelled.

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