13 NOVEMBER 2024

 

 

FULLER, SMITH & TURNER P.L.C.

("Fuller's", the "Company", or the "Group")

Financial results for the 26 weeks to 28 September 2024

 

Delivering our strategic objectives today to grow the business for tomorrow

 

 

Financial and Operational Highlights

	Unaudited		Unaudited		Audited
	26 weeks ended 28 September		26 weeks ended 30 September		52 weeks ended 30 March
	2024		2023		2024
	£m		£m		£m
Revenue and other income	194.1		188.8		359.1
Adjusted EBITDA1	37.6		34.8		60.8
Adjusted profit before tax2	17.6		14.5		20.5
Statutory profit before tax	29.0		14.9		14.4
Basic earnings per share3	37.44p		17.65p		15.16p
Adjusted earnings per share3	21.81p		17.16p		24.48p
Dividend per share	7.41p		6.63p		17.75p
Net debt excluding lease liabilities4	128.2		129.4		133.1

 

1    Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation, profit on disposal of property, plant and equipment, and separately disclosed items.

2    Adjusted profit before tax is the profit before tax excluding separately disclosed items.

3    Per 40p 'A' or 'C' ordinary share. Basic EPS is calculated using earnings attributable to equity shareholders after tax including separately disclosed items. Adjusted EPS excludes separately disclosed items.

4    Net debt excluding lease liabilities comprises cash and short-term deposits, bank overdraft, bank loans, debenture stock and preference shares.

 

Financial and Operational Highlights

 

·    Like for like sales for our Managed Pubs & Hotels in H1 up 5.2%, demonstrating continued market outperformance

·    Adjusted profit before tax increased by 21% to £17.6 million (H1 2024: £14.5 million)

·    Statutory profit before tax of £29.0 million (H1 2024: £14.9 million) - significant increase reflects book profit of £17.2 million arising from the disposal of The Mad Hatter hotel 

·    Net debt of £128.2 million (H1 2024: £129.4 million) with cash generated from the business, combined with strategic disposals, invested in enhancing the existing estate, acquiring Lovely Pubs and financing shareholder returns

·    Interim dividend increased by 12% to 7.41p (H1 2024: 6.63p)

·    Continued share buyback programme, with 1.2 million 'A' shares repurchased in the period. When complete, later this financial year, the buyback programme will have repurchased the 6.5 million 'A' shares that were issued in 2021 as part of an equity placing. 

 

 

Strategic Highlights

 

·    An excellent first half of the year with growth in all areas

o  Food like for like sales increased by 5.5%

o  Drink like for like sales increased by 4.9%

o  Accommodation like for like sales increased by 4.9%

·    Invested £10.0 million across the estate, including a transformational development at The Head of the River in Oxford

·    Completed the sale of 37 non-core tenanted pubs to Admiral Taverns for £18.3 million, resulting in a more profitable and sustainable tenanted business with average EBITDA per site up 12%

·    Completed the sale of The Mad Hatter for a total consideration of £20 million

·    Acquired Lovely Pubs - seven stunning pubs in affluent Warwickshire villages for £22.5 million

·    Continued significant investment in our bespoke leadership training programme, Lead Your Way, for our General Managers and support centre managers, with Head Chefs scheduled to start in the second half of the year

 

 

Current Trading

 

·    Like for like sales for first 32 weeks of the year up 5.4%

·    Exciting £20 million capex programme planned for H2

·    Despite fresh challenges presented by the budget, we look forward to the future with optimism

 

 

Chief Executive Simon Emeny said:

 

"We have had a great start to the year - delivering on all five pillars of our strategy and ensuring that we succeed in our purpose, to create experiences that nourish the soul. In our Managed Pubs and Hotels, we have delivered like for like sales growth of 5.2% - ahead of the industry's CGA RSM Hospitality Business Tracker on average by two percentage points - and our adjusted profit before tax has risen by 21%.

 

"Our estate is in amazing shape. The sale of 37 non-core tenanted pubs to Admiral Taverns for £18.3 million, followed by the acquisition of the Lovely Pubs business on a multiple of 7.25x EBITDA for £22.5 million, gives us 185 outstanding Managed Pubs and Hotels and 153 excellent Tenanted Inns. Without a shadow of doubt, our estate has never been in such good shape, and we continue to invest to maintain our quality, with £10 million of capital expenditure in the first half.

 

"We will be investing a further £20 million in our estate during the second half, including substantial schemes at The Drayton Court in West Ealing, The Chamberlain in the City and the Bel & The Dragon in Odiham. We also continue to look at appropriate opportunities to drive our long-term strategy of growing the estate.

 

"Following our strong first half results, we have continued to build on our momentum with like for like sales for the 32 week period rising by 5.4%. This sustained underlying performance, combined with the added benefit from our Lovely Pubs acquisition and encouraging Christmas bookings up 15%, provides us with confidence that we are on track to meet current market expectations for the financial year.

 

"In summary, everything that is in our control is going well. We have an outstanding, predominately freehold, well-invested estate, a driven and motivated team - who are supported by continuous development - and a clear, consistent strategy. We are in excellent shape, and despite the fresh challenges presented by the Chancellor's recent budget, we remain positive and optimistic about the future."

 

 

-Ends-

 

For further information, please contact:

 

Fuller, Smith & Turner P.L.C.

Simon Emeny, Chief Executive                                                           020 8996 2000

Neil Smith, Finance Director                                                                020 8996 2000

Georgina Wald, Corporate Comms Manager                                020 8996 2198

 

Instinctif Partners

Justine Warren                                                                                       020 7457 2010

 

 

Forthcoming dates in the financial calendar:

Interim dividend payment: 2 January 2025

Trading update: 15 January 2025

Full year results announcement FY 2025: 11 June 2025

AGM: 22 July 2025

Half year results announcement FY 2026: 12 November 2025

 

 

Notes to Editors:

Fuller, Smith & Turner PLC is the premium pubs and hotels business that is famous for beautiful and inviting pubs with delicious fresh food, a vibrant and interesting range of drinks, and engaging service from passionate people. Our purpose in life is to create experiences that nourish the soul. Fuller's has 185 managed businesses, with 1,025 boutique bedrooms, and 153 Tenanted Inns. The Fuller's pub estate stretches from Brighton to Birmingham and from Bristol to the Greenwich Peninsula. Our Managed Pubs and Hotels include Cotswold Inns & Hotels - seven stunning hotels in the Cotswolds, Bel & The Dragon - six exquisite modern English inns with boutique rooms located in the Home Counties, and Lovely Pubs - seven beautiful village inns in Warwickshire. In summary, Fuller's is the home of great pubs, outstanding hospitality and passionate people, where everyone is welcome and leaves that little bit happier than they arrived.

 

Photography is available from the Fuller's Press Office on 020 8996 2000 or by email at pr@fullers.co.uk.

 

This statement will be available on the Company's website, www.fullers.co.uk. An accompanying presentation will be available from 12 noon on 13 November 2024.

 

 

 

FULLER, SMITH & TURNER P.L.C.

FINANCIAL RESULTS FOR THE 26 WEEKS ENDED 28 SEPTEMBER 2024

 

 

CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT

 

 

It has been a very successful first half to the new financial year. Simon Emeny and the team have delivered great results and a fantastic new addition to the Fuller's family, in the form of Lovely Pubs.

 

Our superb estate, with many iconic pubs in great locations, has always been the centrepiece of Fuller's success. The recent changes we have made through the sale of our non-core Tenanted pubs to Admiral Taverns and the acquisition of Lovely Pubs - seven stunning sites that sit neatly within the geographic boundaries of our estate - mean that our portfolio of pubs and hotels is the best it has ever been.

 

But it is not the pubs that make Fuller's successful - that is thanks to our amazing people. I take real pride in seeing the investments we make, at all levels, to ensure we recruit, retain and develop them. They make the difference to our customers and, therefore, to our results and I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank them for their continued hard work and dedication. They are a source of inspiration to us all.

 

In addition, I am delighted that we have continued with our share buyback programme. It has been a great use of capital and once completed we will have successfully repurchased the 6.5 million 'A' shares that were issued in 2021 as part of an equity placing. As at 28 September 2024, we had completed 66% of the planned repurchases at an average price of £6.03, which represents a 27% discount to the £8.30 price of the equity placing.

 

The Chancellor's recent budget gave me cause to reflect that, over the years, we have seen our wonderful industry plundered for an ever-increasing amount of tax - and once again, history has repeated itself. While other sectors replace human interaction with automated systems, hospitality continues to provide an introduction to the working environment not just for future publicans and hoteliers - but also the business leaders and, indeed, politicians of tomorrow.

 

The changes to Employers' National Insurance, coming on top of the cumulative impact of other wage and business rate increases, will cause particular pain, and has been brought about by the Chancellor's inadvisable promise not to increase taxes on individuals. The Chancellor's actions are a direct attack on those labour-intensive industries that are the lifeblood of our economy, whilst leaving the large City institutions, that can afford to pay their share, almost completely untouched. The unintended consequences of these actions will be to drive inflation higher, put pressure on wages, and will drive many businesses to the wall. I hope the Government will reflect on its decisions and appreciate the incredible contribution hospitality, farming, and small businesses make to so much more than just the Treasury coffers.

 

 

DIVIDEND

 

The Board is pleased to announce an interim dividend of 7.41p (H1 2024: 6.63p) per 40p 'A' and 'C' ordinary share and 0.741p (H1 2024: 0.663p) per 4p 'B' ordinary share. This will be paid on 2 January 2025 to shareholders on the share register as at 13 December 2024.

 

 

Michael Turner

Chairman

12 November 2024

 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S REVIEW

 

 

OVERVIEW

 

We have had a great start to the year - delivering on all five pillars of our strategy and ensuring that we succeed in our purpose, to create experiences that nourish the soul. In our Managed Pubs and Hotels, we have delivered like for like sales growth of 5.2% - ahead of the industry's CGA RSM Hospitality Business Tracker on average by two percentage points - and our adjusted profit before tax has risen by 21%.

 

Our estate is in amazing shape. The sale of 37 non-core tenanted pubs to Admiral Taverns for £18.3 million, followed by the acquisition of the Lovely Pubs business on a multiple of 7.25x EBITDA for £22.5 million, gives us 185 outstanding Managed Pubs and Hotels and 153 excellent Tenanted Inns. Without a shadow of doubt, our estate has never been in such good shape, and we continue to invest to maintain our quality, with £10 million of capital expenditure in the first half. In addition, the sale of The Mad Hatter for a total consideration of £20 million ensures that we still have a strong balance sheet to allow us to take advantage of further organic and inorganic opportunities, in line with our capital allocation framework.

 

 

TRADING UPDATE

 

Alongside this proactive portfolio management, our core estate has performed well in the first six months with like for like increases in food, drink and accommodation. Supported by excellent marketing and digital communications, our offer is resonating well with our customers. The work undertaken to drill down even further into the behaviours of our core customers and targeting the right marketing to the right people at the right time, is delivering good results.

 

We have always been a Company with a long-term vision and a robust and stable strategy. We aim to achieve our goals by delighting our customers, inspiring our people, enhancing our estate, evolving our business and owning our impact - and we have made good progress across all these areas.

 

 

Delighting our Customers

 

While we have always focused on giving our customers great reasons to visit - through delicious, locally-sourced, freshly cooked food on the menu, an interesting range of drinks on the bar, and by hosting innovative events which attract new and existing customers alike - we have made excellent progress in honing and improving the way we communicate these.

 

This process starts by having a comprehensive and detailed knowledge of our key customer groups. Across the business, we understand which customer personas frequent which of our various styles of pub, and by using Wi-Fi, social media and till data, combined with an understanding of our customers' spending patterns and behaviours, we can deliver excellent and relevant reasons to visit, tailored to our customers' preferences, which build loyalty and maximise spend.

 

Through this process, we can help our pubs to create memorable, stylish and relevant events and promote them through our customer database - optimising this commercially significant channel. We have 1.7 million contactable customers on the database and another 3.1 million who are socially available and can be communicated with via Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

 

Underpinning this, our digital infrastructure enables us to monitor customer behaviour, and as we refine our understanding of what drives success, we will continue to increase sales and attract similar customers. The final piece of this jigsaw comes through delivering engaging content with beautiful and captivating visuals through online advertising and social media posts, so we can effectively target both existing customers and future lookalike audiences with a similar guest profile. 

 

 

Growing our Business

 

During the period, we have seen growth in all areas - food, drink and accommodation. Food like for like sales have risen by 5.5% and drink by 4.9%. Accommodation like for like revenue is up 4.9%, while RevPAR has risen by 6% and our Average Room Rate has increased to £138 (H1 2024: £127).

 

We have seen a real emphasis on the finer details of our food offering to ensure menus are developed with customer needs in mind. This, in turn, has improved the marketability of our excellent dishes and our recently launched Sunday Roast campaign - Sunday's Pride - in which we are returning this pub classic to hero status, is a great example and plays to our strengths.

 

Looking at the way our customers spend, and the places in which they choose to do so, has also opened new opportunities and encouraged us to push initiatives we know our customers like - such as prix fixe menus across some of our rural estate. It is early days, but we are excited by the opportunity to use this to build lunch and early evening trade. Running a similar offer across a number of sites also allows us to better leverage marketing opportunities such as paid social media.

 

In the drinks arena, we have continued to build on our premium drinks range and one of the outcomes of this is a continued growth in cocktail sales. Total sales have risen in the period by 6.7% against prior year. Cocktails now account for a third of our spirits sales and the value of our cocktail sales has grown by 271% since pre-Covid. This illustrates the premium nature of our customer base and our ability to deliver the quality drinks they seek.

 

We have accelerated sales through the use of Attensi, our online training platform, to ensure our teams are constantly up to date with the latest perfect serves and are regularly reminded of some of the fundamentals. During the period, we launched a new cask ale campaign - building sales in an area where the authenticity of our heritage plays to our advantage. We have supported this with a consumer campaign (#OnlyInThePub) targeting a younger demographic, featuring beautiful imagery and targeted online ads, reinforced with information and training. It is supporting cask ale sales and, in those sites where the majority of team members have completed the online training, sales are a further 5% ahead.

 

Accommodation continues to perform well, and we have invested in sites like The Head of the River in Oxford to build on the continued increase in international tourism. Our work to drive direct bookings continues to be successful and the return of large events such as Taylor Swift at Wembley have helped to drive sales too. We expect the Oasis and Coldplay concerts next year to do the same. We will also be investing in a number of our hotel sites in the second half of the financial year to ensure we continue to advance the quality of our accommodation offer.

 

 

Inspiring our People

 

We have undertaken one of the biggest leadership training programmes in our history over the last 12 months with our Lead Your Way programme. The investment in this industry-leading programme is substantial - with the course running over a six-month period. All of our General Managers have either started or completed the course. We are now rolling it out to our support centre managers at Pier House and, in the second half of the year, our Head Chefs will also be joining the programme.

 

We are investing further in our development kitchen site at Reading, creating the Fuller's Kitchen Academy - a focal point for training and development that will inspire our people, enhance recruitment and retention and drive ever higher levels of creativity and service.

 

We are already seeing great results from the investments we make in our people - in their development, their welfare and the package and benefits we offer - as our labour turnover has reduced by a third over the last two years.

 

 

Enhancing our Estate

 

Our estate has never been in better shape thanks to the actions we have taken over the last two years. The transfer of 23 managed pubs to our Tenanted Inns division, followed by the sale of 37 tenanted pubs to Admiral Taverns has left us with a first-class tenanted estate and the addition of the beautiful Lovely Pubs estate to our Managed Pubs and Hotels division, has enhanced this part of our business.

 

The Lovely Pubs estate consists of seven outstanding pubs, of which six are freehold, set in beautiful, affluent Warwickshire villages. They fit perfectly with Fuller's - having an offer that is set around outstanding customer service, delicious freshly-cooked food and a premium drinks range, and one, The Baraset Barn in Alveston, has 16 bedrooms. The pubs will be earnings enhancing in their first year of acquisition and we are both delighted and excited to welcome the business to the Fuller's family.

 

We have continued to invest in our core estate too, with £8.5 million invested across our Managed Pubs and Hotels including two major schemes at The Carpenters Arms in Sunninghill and The Head of the River in Oxford, where we transformed the hotel rooms and the adjoining pub with its large riverside garden.

 

We have always invested ahead of the curve - renovating our properties to ensure we stay at the top of our game. The Head of the River was refurbished at the start of the new financial year, ensuring it was ready for the arrival of the summer tourist trade and in a position to command a substantially higher room rate. The Carpenters Arms is a pub we acquired in March 2022 in the affluent suburb of Sunninghill near Ascot. It is well-known locally for its French restaurant - as well as having a traditional pub that shows a wide range of live sport. We have invested in both of these discrete parts of the pub, as well as in the lovely garden, and added touches that help to define the different areas to improve the overall customer experience.

 

We have an exciting programme of investments to come - and expect to spend circa £18 million on our Managed Pubs and Hotels in the second half. These include large schemes at The Chamberlain Hotel in the City of London, and the Bel & The Dragon in Odiham. We will also be carrying out a substantial investment at The Drayton Court in West Ealing, where we are already on site, and which benefits from being next to the newly opened Elizabeth Line station with its excellent access to Central London and Heathrow.

 

 

Life is too good to waste

 

We are making good progress on the journey to our Net Zero target for Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 2030 and Scope 3 emissions by 2040. We have also successfully reduced our overall energy consumption during the period, with gas usage down 1.2% and electricity usage down 1.5%.

 

Following a successful trial of Grassroots beef - from cows that are farmed using a farming process that is kinder to the environment - we are now rolling it out across our Cotswolds Inns & Hotels and into a small number of Fuller's pubs. Grassroots uses 52% less carbon than traditional beef farming methods, the quality of the meat is exceptional, and we expect to roll this out further over time.

 

We have also continued to roll out our programme of electrifying our kitchens, and we have our first fully-electric hotel, The Head of the River in Oxford. We have also installed our first two rapid EV charging points, at The Hampshire Hog in Clanfield. We already have EV charging points at a number of sites, but these rapid chargers can recharge a standard car in less than an hour. We hope this will encourage customers to pop in for a coffee or a sandwich - recharging the soul at the same time as the car!

 

Our annual inclusive football match, which we hold with our main charity partner Special Olympics GB, raised £21,000 and we have matched fund raising activities from a larger number of team members than ever before.

 

Finally, we have rolled out our new "Call Time on It" initiative - aimed at ensuring all our team members feel safe, cared for, and respected. "Call Time on It" ensures that we all know what is and isn't acceptable, in terms of language and behaviour, and are there to speak up when things aren't quite right. Whatever form it takes, if it makes someone feel uncomfortable - we are determined to call time on it.

 

 

TENANTED INNS

 

Our Tenanted Inns have had a good start to the year with revenues up 7% and operating profit increasing to £7.5 million (H1 2024: £6.9 million). Some of this growth has arisen from our proactive asset management described earlier, which has resulted in a further strengthening of the quality of the tenanted estate. Average EBITDA per Tenanted pub has increased by 12% year on year, and we are excited about the future for this part of the business.

 

We recruit entrepreneurial Tenants and are currently at 96% occupancy. We have good relationships with our Tenants and will be rolling out a new online support hub in the second half. This will serve as a centralised resource for Tenants with helpful information on a whole range of topics including compliance, risk assessments, marketing support, training and wellbeing. It will bring everything, including ordering, together in one place, making life easier for our busy Tenants. We will also be rolling out new websites across the Tenanted Inns estate.

 

A good relationship is crucial to the success of both parties - and we further encourage, support and develop this through tools such as our Community Support Initiative. This half alone we have supported 36 community events in the Tenanted Inns estate. We also continue to invest capital alongside our Tenants with £1.5 million invested in the first half and a similar amount earmarked for the second half.

 

 

FINANCIAL REVIEW

 

We are pleased to have delivered another strong set of financial results, reflecting six months of significant progress, with adjusted profit before tax growing by 21% to £17.6 million (H1 2024: £14.5 million). 

 

As well as growing profits, we have delivered on our capital allocation framework through investment in the estate, returns to shareholders and enhancing the estate through acquisitions while reducing net debt and leverage. In the first half, we paid a dividend of £6.5 million to shareholders and £8.4 million was used for share buybacks as part of our ongoing share buyback programme. This amounts to a total return to shareholders of £14.9 million in the period, an increase of 55% on the prior period.

 

We have had a busy first half enhancing the estate. We have invested a total of £10 million in our existing properties, including 20 significant projects with a further £20 million of investment planned in the second half of the year. We also completed the sale of The Mad Hatter, Southwark for £20 million (£17 million received in the period with a further £3 million to come in due course), and we sold 37 non-core pubs to Admiral Taverns for £18.3 million. These proceeds have been reinvested in acquiring the high quality, largely freehold, Lovely Pubs business for an enterprise value of £22.5 million. This proactive portfolio management, coupled with the 23 pubs transferred from Managed to Tenanted in the prior year, leaves us with a great pub and hotel estate which is in a strong financial position and yielding improving returns.

 

Managed Pubs and Hotels like for like sales increased by 5.2% on the prior period, outperforming the market. Total revenue in the Managed Pubs and Hotels division increased by 2.4% on the prior period. This headline growth is affected by the transfer of 23 pubs from Managed to Tenanted over the course of the last financial year. Excluding these transfers, total managed revenue increased by 6.0%. All categories of revenue showed significant like for like growth against the prior period, with food sales up by 5.5%, drink sales up by 4.9% and accommodation sales up by 4.9%.

 

As well as growing revenue, profitability within our managed business also improved with operating margins growing from 14.7% to 15.7%. This was in part helped by the continued reduction in utility costs through lower energy consumption and unit rate reductions, but much of the decrease was delivered through continued focus on cost management. In particular, food margins significantly improved through cost deflation and enhanced menu development. This resulted in an increase in adjusted operating profit of £2.3 million from £25.4 million to £27.7 million.

 

Tenanted Inns revenue improved by 7% from £16.3 million to £17.5 million and operating profit increased by 9% from £6.9 million to £7.5 million. As a result of enhanced underlying trading and the active estate management in the current and prior year, we have seen a 12% increase in the average EBITDA per tenanted pub.

 

The Group has unsecured banking facilities of £200 million, split between a revolving credit facility of £110 million and a term loan of £90 million. These facilities are committed through to May 2027. The Group also has £20 million of debentures which are due for repayment in 2028. The Group's undrawn committed facilities at 28 September 2024 were £81.3 million, with a further £11.0 million of cash held on the Balance Sheet. Net debt (excluding leases) was at £128.2 million (H1 2024: £129.4 million) which was down £4.9 million from the net debt position at year end (FY2024: £133.1 million). At 28 September 2024, the Group's ratio of net debt to EBITDA was 2.3 times (H1 2024: 2.6 times). With significant headroom on facilities and covenants, we have the scope to seek further opportunities, in line with our capital allocation policy, when they arise.

 

Adjusted finance costs decreased to £6.6 million (H1 2024: £6.9 million) despite the average cost of borrowing remaining high at 7.6% due to the Bank of England base rates. The reduction from the prior year was partly due to the repayment of the £6 million debenture in December 2023, which accrued interest at 10.7%, and was aided by effective cash management, which delivered lower average debt than in the previous period. The Group has a zero-premium interest cap and collar over £60 million of the term facility. This instrument is in place for a three-year period to September 2025 to hedge some of the variability in interest rates. The Group sold a floor of 310bps and bought a cap of 500bps, which gave some protection while the Bank of England interest rate was at 525bps.

 

Separately disclosed items before tax was a credit of £11.4 million (H1 2024: £0.4 million credit), which principally consists of the profit on disposal of The Mad Hatter of £17.2 million, net of an impairment charge of £6.4 million, of which £5.4 million is in relation to the write down of 12 properties and a further £1.0 million on the write down of goodwill.

 

Tax has been provided at an effective rate before separately disclosed items of 27.8% (H1 2024: 28.3%). The decrease in effective tax rate is mainly due to the increased profit before tax and credit for future tax relief on employee share acquisition. Disclosure on tax is set out in note 5.

 

The net impact of these items has resulted in basic earnings per share increasing by 19.79p to 37.44p (H1 2024: 17.65p) and adjusted earnings per share increasing by 4.65p to 21.81p (H1 2024: 17.16p).

 

The growth in earnings per share has enabled the Group to declare an interim dividend of 7.41p (H1 2024: 6.63p), which is an increase of 12% on last year. This level of dividend growth is in line with our desire to follow a progressive pathway to a normalised dividend cover in excess of 2.5 times. In addition to the dividend, the Group continues to buy back shares as part of a 6.5 million share buyback programme with 1.2 million shares repurchased in the period. As at 28 September 2024, the Group had bought back a total of 4.3 million shares at an average price of £6.03 since September 2022.

 

The surplus on the defined benefit pension schemes has increased by £3.0 million from the year end and is now showing an accounting surplus of £20.3 million (30 March 2024: surplus £17.3 million, 30 September 2023: surplus £13.1 million). This is predominately due to an increase in discount rate from 4.85% to 5.10%, resulting in a decrease in the present value of the scheme liabilities. As the Group has an unconditional right to refund under the pension trust deed, an asset has been recognised at 28 September 2024.

 

 

 

CURRENT TRADING AND OUTLOOK

 

Following our strong first half results, we have continued to build on our momentum with like for like sales for the 32 week period rising by 5.4%. This sustained underlying performance, combined with the added benefit from our Lovely Pubs acquisition and encouraging Christmas bookings up 15%, provides us with confidence that we are on track to meet current market expectations for the financial year.

 

We will be investing a further £20 million in our estate during the second half, including substantial schemes at The Drayton Court in West Ealing, The Chamberlain in the City and at the Bel & The Dragon in Odiham. We also continue to look at appropriate opportunities to drive our long-term strategy of growing the estate.

 

In summary, everything that is in our control is going well. We have an outstanding, predominately freehold, well-invested estate, a driven and motivated team - who are supported by continuous development - and a clear, consistent strategy. We are in excellent shape, and despite the fresh challenges presented by the Chancellor's recent budget, we remain positive and optimistic about the future.

 

 

Simon Emeny

Chief Executive

12 November 2024