9 December 2025

XP Factory plc

("XP Factory", the "Company" or the "Group")

Unaudited Interim Results

New Banking facilities

Directorate change

XP Factory plc (AIM: XPF), one of the UK's pre-eminent experiential leisure businesses operating the Escape Hunt® and Boom Battle Bar® brands, is pleased to announce its unaudited interim results for the twenty-six weeks ended 28 September 2025 ("H1 FY2026"). 

 FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS

POST PERIOD-END HIGHLIGHTS

Richard Harpham, Chief Executive of XP Factory, commented: "XP Factory group has had another period of double-digit growth generating strong underlying free cashflow in particularly challenging trading conditions. Escape Hunt has bounced back strongly since the first quarter and continues to produce industry leading metrics on all measures. Boom has performed ahead of the experiential leisure industry as a whole over the period, with softer consumer demand being mitigated by improved cost control and record corporate pre-bookings for the crucial Christmas period on which, as ever, the outturn for the financial year is heavily dependent.  Evidencing the attractions of our business model, we have successfully secured new, extended, larger and lower cost banking facilities providing access to liquidity and the flexibility for continued growth and future shareholder value creation."

XP Factory will provide a trading update after the Christmas period in late January / early February 2026 and will schedule meetings with investors at that time, including an online presentation via Investor Meet Company which will be available to retail shareholders.  

About XP Factory plc

The XP Factory Group is one of the UK's leading experiential leisure businesses which currently operates two fast growing leisure brands.  Escape Hunt is a global leader in providing escape-the-room experiences delivered through a network of owner-operated sites in the UK, an international network of franchised outlets in five continents, and through digitally delivered games which can be played remotely. 

Boom Battle Bar is a fast-growing network of owner-operated and franchised sites in the UK that combine competitive socialising activities with themed cocktails, drinks and street food in a high energy setting.  Activities include a range of games such as augmented reality darts, Bavarian axe throwing, 'crazier golf', shuffleboard and others.  The Group's products enjoy premium customer ratings and cater for leisure or teambuilding, in small groups or large, and are suitable for consumers, businesses and other organisations. The Company has a strategy to expand the network in the UK and internationally, creating high quality games and experiences delivered through multiple formats and which can incorporate branded IP content. (https://xpfactory.com/)

CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S REPORT

INTRODUCTION

We are pleased to report another period of robust growth and a resilient underlying performance from the group in a period of weak business and consumer confidence. On almost all key measures, the group has made further progress with turnover up 13%, site-level EBITDA up 8%, Pre IFRS16 Adjusted EBITDA up 15% and loss per share reduced by 18%.  

Cash generation has remained strong, with £2.3m cash generated from operations (after rent payments), and £1.3m free cash generated after maintenance capital expenditure and interest payments.  The performance comes notwithstanding the seasonal nature of the industry which is weighted heavily to the second half of the year.

The financial position of the group has also been further strengthened through the refinancing of our existing £10m bank facility with a new £20m facility from HSBC on substantially more attractive terms. Details are set out below.

The Christmas trading period remains critically important to the full year's results.  So far, Escape Hunt is seeing strong like-for-like growth. Within Boom, pre-booked revenue for 2025 Christmas season has been at record levels, exceeding what was achieved in 2024.  Discretionary in venue ('consumer') spending within Boom in the key busy weeks has so far been lower than in the prior year, a pattern consistent with what we can see within the industry and have been experiencing throughout the financial year to date. We will report on the performance over Christmas in late January / early February 2026.

As we move forward, focus remains on the opportunity to roll out further Escape Hunt and Boom sites where appropriate.  Whilst we have set ambitious roll out targets, the board remains focused on its capital allocation decisions, including the potential to return cash to shareholders through share buybacks.

ESCAPE HUNT

Owner Operated

Escape Hunt has continued to prove itself as a resilient and remarkably consistent business.  Turnover grew 13% to £7.3m (H1 FY2025 £6.5m), and site level Pre IFRS16 Adjusted EBITDA was £3.0m, representing a 40.4% margin.  After a challenging first quarter, the like-for-like performance has rebounded strongly from -3.5% in Q1 to 6.8% in Q2.  This has continued into Q3 with LFL growth in the 9 weeks to 30 November further increased to 8.3%.

Maintaining site level EBITDA margins in excess of 40% has been a welcome achievement in the face of significant labour cost increases driven by increases in both the National Living Wage and employer's national insurance from April this year. Labour cost ratios continue to run at higher levels than in prior years as it has been difficult to fully pass on the cost increases.  However, cost controls in other parts of the business have mitigated the impact enabling us to maintain a healthy margin at site level.

Pleasingly the brand continues to attract exceptionally good customer reviews (99% aggregated customer satisfaction reviews scores) and in all metrics we believe Escape Hunt is a standout performer and leader in its class.

A new site was opened in Canterbury in May 2025 and in August we opened an extension to our site at Birmingham Resorts world. Both are performing in line with similar previous sites.  Further progress has also been made on our library of intellectual property with a new game, Jewel of India, launched in three locations.  We have another exciting theme coming soon!

Since the period end a further site has opened in Sheffield, whilst sadly we had to close our Birmingham Central site, which was the very first Escape Hunt owner operated site to have opened in the UK, as the scheme in which it was located closed down. We have a strong pipeline of new sites in progress, including a potential site to replace the closure in Birmingham, and target to be substantially complete / have opened  three further sites by the end of the financial year. 

As at 8 December 2025, we have 27 owner operated Escape Hunt sites, including overseas sites in Paris, Brussels and Dubai.

 Franchise

Escape Hunt franchise revenue was broadly flat at £0.3m in the period.  The estate reduced by one to a total of twenty.

BOOM BATTLE BARS

Owner operated

The Boom Battle Bar estate has performed creditably in a challenging environment.  Whilst UK like-for-like growth for the period was negative 6.8%, the performance reflects favourably compared to the industry-wide negative like-for-like growth of 8.4%[1].  Turnover grew 16% to £20.4m, reflecting the full year effects of sites opened and acquired in the prior year together with a new site opened in the period.

Site level EBITDA grew 26% to £2.6m, representing margin of 12.8%, up from 11.8% in the six months to September 2025.  This improvement was achieved through cost improvements offsetting the impact of negative like-for-like sales and increased labour costs, which has been material since the increases in national insurance and NLW in April 2025, as well as a reduction in operating losses from previously acquired franchise sites which diluted the margin in the comparable period.  The better terms achieved with a major supplier has led to a significant increase in rebates and listing fees which have benefitted the Group in the period, as well as improved cost of goods. These are ongoing benefits which will continue to help offset other cost increases.

Whilst Escape Hunt's like-for-like growth has bounced back after a tough Q1, Boom has continued to experience mid to high single digit negative like-for-like performance. Pre-booked revenue over the all-important Christmas period has been at record levels, offsetting a weaker consumer performance and lower in-venue spend. 

We opened a new site in Reading in May 2025.  The site has performed exceptionally well, outperforming against expectations and offsetting some of the impact of negative like-for-like performances elsewhere in the estate.  Similarly, our site in Cambridge which opened in December 2024 has continued to perform strongly. Our expansion strategy for the brand is focused on the acquisition of more select sites located in higher footfall areas. 

We have made progress dealing with underperforming sites and since the period end have reached agreement to terminate the lease of our Boom site in Swindon on reasonable terms within the costs previously provided, and are close to closing a further underperforming site without significant cost. 

Consumer ratings continue to provide an industry-leading review score of 97%.  We remain focused on delivering best in class customer experiences and believe these will underpin the success of the business in the longer term.  After a period of rapid growth, there are signs that the rate of capacity growth in the industry is slowing and, in some cases, capacity is coming out of the market.  The Escape Room industry experienced similar trends in the early 2020's and Escape Hunt has emerged a clear industry leader, and we are therefore optimistic that Boom will benefit from a similar industry consolidation and emerge as a leading player.

Franchise

The Boom franchise estate delivered £0.2m revenue, down from £0.5m in the prior year due to the acquisition of 5 franchise sites last year.  As at 8 December 2025, the estate comprised 5 UK franchise sites.

STRATEGY

Growth targets

We have previously detailed our plans to continue to expand the business organically through expansion of both the Escape Hunt and Boom businesses in the UK. The strategy focuses around three pillars: site expansion, strong unit economics and leveraging central costs. During the period we undertook third party research to test our assumptions regarding the opportunities for both brands.  The results of that work have conclusively validated our belief in the size and scope of the opportunity in the UK. Furthermore, the results in the period have demonstrated that, notwithstanding the substantial cost increases brought about by the increases in employment costs in April 2025, unit economics for both brands remain highly attractive.  We have also been able to maintain greater efficiency within our central cost base, with central costs as a percentage of revenue reducing from 17% in H1FY2025 to 15% in the current period.

We therefore continue to see a clear medium-term opportunity to achieve £100m run-rate turnover delivering £15m group pre IFRS16 EBITDA.  The route to this is through further investment in sites, focusing on Escape Hunt venues where performance has been extraordinarily consistent across the estate, whilst targeting fewer but higher profile sites for Boom. 

The choices the board must make in doing this relate to timing and appetite for risk associated with opening new sites, the use of debt to fund growth, and general consumer sentiment.  Alongside this we have a business generating a highly attractive free cashflow return on equity at the current share price at arguably lower risk.  In the current climate, with weak consumer sentiment and industry capacity growth slowing or declining, the urgency to roll out new sites has diminished, which, together with the attractive free cash returns, gives greater weight to the argument supporting the use of capital towards share buyback. The board is therefore actively considering allocating an element of capital to share buybacks whilst returns remain attractive.  This would mean  a commensurate moderation of the pace of roll out over the next twelve months, whilst retaining flexibility to reallocate capital as deemed appropriate. Subject to market conditions and the relative returns from further buybacks versus new site openings, we would then expect to accelerate roll out of new sites towards the back end of the next three financial years. More detail will be provided in the trading update in late January / early February.   

Other

We have continued to make good progress in other areas, with our new ERP system which went live in in Q1 FY2026 already delivering clear benefits across the network in terms of cost controls and adoption of best practices.  The new system has also allowed us to align our accounting periods to a weekly cycle, and for this reason the current reporting period is for a 26 week period whereas the comparative was for six months. The Company's current financial year will be for the 52 weeks ending on 29 March 2026. Further progress has also been made on our technology strategy with the imminent launch of a loyalty app together with further enhancements to our proprietary game management software.

RENEWED AND IMPROVED BANK FACILITIES

We are delighted to be able to confirm that the Group has signed a new £20 million revolving credit facility with HSBC, completion of which is subject only to satisfaction of largely administrative conditions precedent.

The new facility replaces the existing 2-year £10 million RCF entered into on 7^th October 2024 and is on significantly improved terms:

·      3-year facility with 2 x one year extension options (subject to renewed credit approval), replacing the existing facility which expires Oct 2026

·      Margin of 260 bps over SONIA (versus 450 bps over bank rate on existing facility)

·      Availability fee of 104 bps on unutilised balance (versus 180 bps)

·      Optional further £5m accordion facility (subject to renewed credit approval)

·      Simplified covenant package

The improved size, term and costs reflect the ongoing improvement and maturity of the group's operations and provide significant further scope to pursue our strategic aims.  Whilst the board's intention is to use debt prudently, targeting an average pre IFRS16 Debt:EBITDA ratio of c.1.0x, the additional facility and headroom secures the future bank funding required to support growth, provides significant additional headroom and in so doing gives greater flexibility to the board's capital allocation decisions.

BOARD CHANGES

After six years and a successful transformation of the group since joining, Graham Bird, the Group's Chief Financial Officer, has informed the board of his decision to retire from the board effective 29 March 2026 in order to devote more time to his other interests.   

The Company has a strong finance team and the capabilities exist within the business to allow natural succession of the role. Graham will move to a part time role in the new year to support the transition. Initially Dominic Richards, Group strategy and corporate finance director will take on a higher profile role with responsibility for business planning and performance as well as leading on the financial aspects of investor communications. Dominic joined XP Factory in May 2023, with 8 years of public markets experience, including as investment partner at Rye Capital LLP, a $1bn European Equities fund. He will work closely with Owain Loft, the group Finance Director, who will have full responsibility for the core finance function.  Owain Loft joined XP Factory in May 2024 having previously been Finance Director at the experiential leisure business Clays.  Both Dominic and Owain will have non-board positions reporting directly to the CEO.

Graham has played a seminal role in the development of the Group during his six years as Chief Financial officer.  He joined in January 2020 when the group was in its infancy, and shortly before the incredibly difficult period under COVID restrictions.  With his leadership and support, the group was able to successfully navigate that difficult period and subsequently acquire and develop the Boom Battle Bar business whilst concurrently growing Escape Hunt. In the six years of Graham's tenure as CFO, the group has been transformed, and the board would like to thank him for his leadership and contribution during this time.

On 29 September, the Company announced that Richard Rose would be standing down as chairman. May 2026 will mark Richard's ninth anniversary as Non-Executive Chairman and his decision to stand down is in line with best practice under the QCA Corporate Governance Code.  A process is currently underway to appoint a successor and further announcements will be made in due course.

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Financial performance

Group revenue in the twenty-six weeks to 28 September 2025 was £28.2m (six months to Sep 2024: £24.9m).  Escape Hunt owner operated revenue was £7.3m, up £0.8m (12.7%) on the prior year. The increase came from positive like-for-like growth of £0.1m with £0.7m impact of Escape Hunt openings in the prior year and from the new site opened in May.  Boom owner operated revenue grew £2.8m (16%) to £20.4m.  The increase comprised £4.0m from sites opened or acquired in the prior year together with turnover from new sites opened in the current period offsetting a £1.2m decline in like-for-like sales. Franchise sales fell from £0.8m to £0.5m largely due to the acquisition of franchise sites during the last financial year.

Group Adjusted EBITDA pre IFRS16 rose 15.5% to £1.7m an increase of £1.5m over the six months to 30 September 2024.  Adjusted EBITDA after IFRS16 was £4.7m, up 48% compared to the £3.2m reported in the six months to September 2024, benefitting from a one-off £0.7m IFRS adjustment. 

£487k of expenditure in the period related to pre-opening costs covering the new Boom site in Reading and new Escape Hunt sites in Canterbury and Sheffield, and the work done in an adjacent unit at Escape Hunt Birmingham before its opening.  £66k site closure costs relate to the closure of Escape Hunt Birmingham Central, together with costs relating to the Boom site in Swindon which closed to the public in March 2025.  We have since reached agreement with the landlord to surrender the lease, the costs of which have been fully provided for in prior periods.

At a site level, Escape Hunt owner operated segment continued to perform strongly, delivering site-level pre IFRS16 EBITDA of £3.0m at a margin of 40.4%. The increase in NLW and employer's national insurance contributions in April 2025 has impacted margins, although savings in other areas are expected to mitigate this increase over time.  With the traditionally busier second half ahead, we expect margins to improve for the full year. Boom generated £2.6m of site level pre IFRS16 EBITDA, up 26% compared to the prior year (H1 FY2025 £2.1m) at a margin of 12.8% (H1 FY2025 11.8%), likewise reflecting higher labour costs, but more efficient cost control at site level. In the case of Boom we have been able to offset a greater proportion of costs in other areas, notably through improved terms with suppliers.  Similar to in the prior year, the margin reflects the seasonality in Boom's business as well as an element of dilution from loss making sites in H1, although the impact of loss making sites has been reduced compared to the prior period. 

Central costs of £4.3m represent a 5% increase on the six-month period to 30 September 2025, reflecting cost savings initiated a year ago to curb cost growth offset by inflation and NI increases earlier in the year.  

Interest costs of £386k reflect the utilisation of our bank facility with Barclays, signed in October 2024.   

Unaudited Group operating loss was £11k (H1 FY2025: loss £0.8m) and the loss after tax was £1.8m (H1 FY2025: loss £2.2m) leading to a reduction in the loss per share from 1.26p to 1.05p.  The adjusted loss per share improved 18% from 0.87p to 0.71p.

Cashflow

The Group generated £4.8m of cash from operations (H1 FY2025: £4.2m) on a post IFRS16 basis, and £2.3m pre IFRS16 (H1 FY2025: £2.3m), demonstrating the strong cashflow characteristics of the business.  £2.8m was invested in plant and equipment and intangibles, offset by £0.5m landlord contributions received. This investment comprised capital expenditure of £1.2m within Boom owner-operated sites, of which £0.3m represented maintenance capex, capital expenditure of £1.4m in Escape Hunt owner operated sites, of which maintenance capex was £0.1m, and £0.1m of group capital expenditure.

£0.8m of loan repayments were made, predominantly vendor and fit out finance, and interest payments totalled £0.4m.  Rental payments, classified under IFRS16 as capital and interest payments totalled £2.5m. 

Since the period end, the Group has refinanced its revolving credit facility (RCF) with a new £20m RCF with HSBC, details of which are provided above. £9.0m of the original Barclays facility was drawn at period end, of which £3m was repaid in November 2025 leaving £6.0m drawn at the date of this report. 

Cash at 28 September 2025 was £4.5m, offset by £9.8m of debt leaving net debt of £5.3m, an increase of £0.4m over the net debt position at 31 Mar 2025 (£4.9m).

Financial position

Movements on the balance sheet largely reflect the capital investment and related funding undertaken during the period. 

Current assets increased to £11.3m, driven by an increase in cash and receivables (landlord contributions and supplier related rebates and listing fees).    Net current liabilities reduced from £10.6m to £5.4m, strengthening the group's overall financial position.

Net assets as at 28 September 2025 stood at £21.9m (31 March 2025: £23.8m).

GOING CONCERN

As detailed in note 2 to the Interim Financial Statements, the Directors are satisfied that the Group has adequate resources to continue in operation for the foreseeable future, a period of at least 12 months from the date of this report. 

POST PERIOD END TRADING AND OUTLOOK

The group has delivered a robust performance in the period amidst tough conditions.  Escape Hunt's performance has bounced back strongly after a challenging first quarter.  Like-for-like sales growth in the thirteen weeks to 28 September was 6.8% and this has improved further to 8.3% in the nine weeks to 30 November 2025. Cost savings at site level are largely offsetting the increase in labour costs such that the division is generating strong margins ahead of our internal benchmarks.

Boom, which has traded better than the experiential leisure market as a whole in the period, has nevertheless experienced ongoing negative like-for-like sales trends against a strong prior year comparative. Corporate pre-bookings for the critical Christmas weeks are significantly ahead of prior year, partly offsetting reduced levels of consumer spend.   Improved terms achieved with drinks suppliers together with effective cost controls at site level are mitigating the impact and have helped and will continue to help site level margins.  The outcome for the full year is heavily dependent on the final weeks before Christmas and, in the case of Escape Hunt, the two weeks following Christmas.  We will be providing an update on trading in late January / early February 2026.

Richard Harpham 

Chief Executive Officer

8 December 2025

Note on alternative performance measures (APMs) 

The Group uses APMs alongside statutory measures throughout the interim report ("Report").  The APMs are not intended to replace statutory financial measures but are provided for the following reasons:

1.     to provide users of the Report with a clear view of what the Company consider to be its underlying operations and enabling a consistent comparison over time as well as across the industry and sector

2.     to provide additional information to users the Report about the key performance indicators used in the business consistent with the measures used by the Company leadership

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME

FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 28 SEPT 2025

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION

AS AT 28 SEPT 2025