Young & Co's joined the chorus of despondent pub groups in predicting a tough year ahead, as it warned about difficult trading in the past two months.

The company, which has 220 tenanted and managed pubs, bucked the trend by reporting an increase in profit for the half-year to the end of September but the shares fell 28p to 381p after Young's said like-for-like sales at its managed business fell 3.3 per cent in the past seven weeks.