Investors raised a glass or two to Mitchells & Butlers, and the All Bar One operator’s shares popped to a 15-month high.

The FTSE 250 group, which is also behind the Toby Carvery and Miller & Carter brands, said strong demand for pub meals and drinks on key days including a “record-breaking” Father’s Day helped to boost like-for-like sales in the third quarter by 9.7 per cent. Because of resilient trading, bosses are now confident that the company’s full-year performance will reach the top end of City estimates.

What also gave traders a lift was that the group has started to see signs of cost inflation abating and is expected to be at the bottom end of the 10 per cent to 12 per cent range that was previously guided.

The company reckons this will allow it to rebuild its margins towards pre-Covid levels next year. Shares in Mitchells & Butlers finished the day up 17¾p, or 8.3 per cent, at 233p.

Most of the eye-catching moves were driven by a flurry of corporate updates as the earnings season continued. Lifting the FTSE 100, which closed up 15.87 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 7,692.76, were results from Centrica, which pushed the stock up 9½p, or 7.5 per cent, to 133¼p as it proposed to increase its interim dividend by a third after reporting record profits of nearly £1 billion at its British Gas business.

Also on the up was Airtel Africa, the telecoms operator, which rose 4p, or 3.6 per cent, to 113½p as it reported a strong start to the year with its customer base growing by 8.8 per cent, to 143.1 million. This contributed to forecast-beating first quarter sales at constant currency of $1.4 billion.

In the FTSE 250, which advanced 86.83 points, or 0.5 per cent, to reach 19,273.37, Inchcape, the motor dealer, raced 67p, or 8.6 per cent, higher to 847p as it said it now expected annual pre-tax profit to be towards the top end of consensus estimates as revenues in the first half galloped 45 per cent to £5.6 billion, which it partially put down to the successful integration of Derco, Latin America’s largest independent car distributor it bought last year for £1.3 billion.

Listed wealth and other investment managers were also in investors’ sights, but for all the wrong reasons after weak half-year results from St James’s Place — which fell 189½p, or 16 per cent, to a nine-month low of 933½p — soured sentiment towards the sector. Quilter, which was spun out of Old Mutual, the insurer, in June 2018, declined 4¼p, or 5.1 per cent, to 78¼p; Rathbones, which also saw inflows slow in the first half, extended losses by another 46p, or 2.5 per cent, to £18.02; and Man Group, the big hedge fund, retreated 4¼p, or 1.8 per cent, to 235p.

Shares in Mobico Group, formerly National Express, headed south as a £60 million reduction in Covid-19 funding and significant wage and fuel inflation during the first half of the year pushed the transport company into a pre-tax loss of £23.4 million from a £20.5 million profit a year earlier. Its shares closed down 12p, or 11.1 per cent, to 95p.

Interim results from Drax Group failed to power up the FTSE 250 company’s shares, which slipped 15½p, or 2.5 per cent, to 604½p as its adjusted operating profits of £453 million fell slightly short of some City analysts’ expectations.

Off the main market, almost a third was wiped off the value of RBG Holdings after the legal services group said it would suspend its dividend until it had “achieved a more sustainable level of net debt”. Its shares, which have slumped more than 70 per cent this year, lost 7¾p, or 31.1 per cent, to a record low of 17½p.

Shine comes off at Safestyle

A warning that full-year profits will fall prey to the worsening economic climate and weaker consumer confidence had investors heading for the exit at Safestyle UK, sending shares to a record low.

The Bradford-based fitter of double-glazed windows and doors said it expects to post a 5.4 per cent drop in half-year revenues to £74 million and an underlying loss of £6 million.

It said the tough trading backdrop had “worsened over the last five weeks into July and adversely impacted order intake volumes.”

As a result the board now expects its annual performance to be “materially below current market expectations”.

This is despite the board’s introduction of its biggest cost reduction in years, which has saved the group about £2 million since the start of the year.

This included “a small number” of redundancies across the business.

In the first six months of the year, Safestyle’s order intake was down 6.4 per cent on the same period a year before and its order book closed 22 per cent lower against the first half of 2022.

Shares fell by 7¾p, or 42.5 per cent, to 10½p, their largest single-day drop.

Wall Street report

Indices reversed early gains as investors banked profits amid a strong corporate earnings season. The Dow Jones industrial average ended its longest winning streak since 1987 with a fall of 237.40 points, or 0.7 per cent, to 35,282.72.