PUBS owner Greene King said it aims to add 200 more pubs to its Hungry Horse and Old English Inns business over the next five years.

The company, which has 888 managed pubs, wants to boost the size of the estate by a quarter to 1,100 to benefit from long-term growth in the eating-out market.

Suffolk-based Greene King will achieve this through acquisitions and transfers from its tenanted pub estate, which it wants to cut from 1,584 to about 1,200 outlets.

The plans came as the group lifted pre-tax profits by 4% to £123m for the year to May 2. Revenues rose by 3% to a record £984.1m.

Greene King reported an encouraging start to the new year with trading to date better than expected, according to chief executive Rooney Anand.