Shares in J Sainsbury were up on the FTSE 100 ahead of the supermarket's preliminary results, which are expected to see a rise in pre-tax profit of 10.5 per cent for the full year 2009.

Sainsbury's saw its sales growth decline throughout much of last year, with store sales rising 4.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2009, 3.7 per cent in the third quarter and only 1.7 per cent in the final quarter of last year.

Profits in the final quarter, ended March, are also likely to have been hit by poor weather at the start of the year and by a significant slowdown in food price inflation. However the supermarket is likely to benefit from its expanding its store space in Britain.

The current consensus analyst estimate is that Sainsbury will report pre-tax profit for the full year of 2009 of £601 million, up 10.5 per cent from the previous year. Analysts at Hargreaves Lansdown said that shares in Sainsbury are rated a "weak hold".

By13:12 shares in Sainsbury were up 0.74 per cent to 325.70 pence per share on the FTSE 100.

FTSE