LONDON (Reuters) - British pub and brewing company Marston's (>> Marston's PLC) said rising sales, strong Christmas bookings and plans to concentrate more on food-focused outlets will boost its prospects after posting full-year pretax profit slightly below analysts' forecasts.

Marston's, home to the Pitcher & Piano bars, registered underlying pre-tax profit up 1 percent to 88.4 million pounds for the year to October5, against analysts' consensus forecast of 90.45 million pounds, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Poor weather had dampened the previous year's results and also dragged on sales at the start of 2013 before a hot summer boosted performance in the second half.

Like-for-like sales for the seven weeks to November 23 at its food-focused Destination and Premium pubs were up 3.1 percent.

"Current trading has been encouraging, I think that's good against the market," Chief Executive Ralph Findlay said. "Now the key Christmas period is coming up and the Christmas bookings look very strong compared with last year."

Rival pubs group Mitchells & Butlers (>> Mitchells & Butlers plc) this week announced a 0.1 uptick in sales for the eight-week period starting Sep. 29.

MORE NEW PUBS

Marston's, which has 2,100 pubs in Britain, announced that it will accelerate the sale of its worst-performing drink-led pubs and build new food-focused pubs targeting in women, families and more mature customers.

"We are managing that transition from the kind pubs where people used to go, but don't go to anymore, to those where they do," Findlay said.

The company sold 130 pubs in the year for 50 million pounds, making a profit of 3 million pounds, and built 22 new outlets. It now intends to open 25-30 new pubs a year.

"We anticipate that, as the quality of the Marston's estate improves, so too will Marston's valuation multiples, reflecting the value created from the new investments and their longer-term prospects," Jefferies analysts said in a note.

Analyst at Panmure Gordon & Co, however, described the strategy as relatively risky, given the step up in industry supply.

Marston's expects capital expenditure to be about 140 million pounds in 2014, against 151 million pounds in 2013.

The company increased its final dividend by 5 percent to 4.1 pence per share.

Its shares, up about 30 percent since the start of the year, rose 2.2 percent to 157.5 pence by 0826 GMT.

(Reporting by Silvia Antonioli; Editing by David Goodman)

Stocks treated in this article : Marston's PLC, Mitchells & Butlers plc