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Pub group Enterprise Inns has said that the business is continuing to perform in line with expectations, despite the summer's bad weather.

In a pre-close trading update Enterprise said that average core earnings per pub had increased by more than six per cent over the past year.

"This is a good result, particularly given the disappointing weather for part of the summer and the challenging comparables from the 2006 World Cup," the company stressed.

However Enterprise, which has around 7,500 pubs, said that it was too early to evaluate the impact that smoking bans, introduced earlier this year in England and Wales, had exerted on its business.

"We continue to work with our licensees to maximise the opportunities that the ban will bring but, at the same time, we are aware that the real test of the smoking pub goer's resolve will come with cold and wet winter weather," the company warned.

Nonetheless Enterprise said anecdotal evidence suggested that pubs that had prepared for the ban had performed well.

Meanwhile the company has confirmed that discussions with the government over the possibility of classing the group as a real estate investment trust (REIT) are ongoing.

But Enterprise has delayed a £750 million refinancing plan, pushing it back until 2008.

The company said that while it still maintained that the move was in the best long-term interests of shareholders, it had decided to postpone the action due to the current turbulence in the debt markets.

Enterprise stressed that in the meantime it did have sufficient funds to continue with a share buy back programme and had repurchased 102.6 million shares at an average price of £6.40 over the past year.

The company is due to release its preliminary results for the year ending September 30th on November 20th.