Pets at Home, the specialist retailer considering a sale or float, has posted 6.7% like-for-like sales growth over Christmas.

The festive season performance, over the six weeks to January 7, brought the year to date like-for-like advance to 9.8% and total sales growth to 16.5%.

Pets at Home chief executive Matt Davies said the cold weather had boosted sales of items such as dog coats, sales of which soared 70%, and wild bird food.

He said no decision has yet been made about a potential IPO or sale and was confident about the year to come.

Davies said: “Our performance has been very strong all year and I am pleased that despite the bad weather of the past few weeks, we were also able to deliver a good sales performance for the Christmas period. I am particularly pleased that this sales growth has been accompanied by further improvements in our margin.”

Pets at Home, which is owned by private equity firm Bridgepoint, relaunched its etail site at the start of November. Davies said online sales were growing ahead of expectations.

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