Brulines sees profits leap

Brulines, the manufacturer of beer flow monitoring equipment, announced its maiden annual results today, with underlying pre-tax profit up 27 per cent to £3.45m.

The group, which raised nearly £7m when it floated on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) last year, said turnover in its core business rose 37 per cent to £16.5m.

Trading was boosted by a contract to install the group's beer dispense monitoring systems across the Enterprise Inns estate, as well as upgrades to existing systems in Punch Taverns and Marston's pubs.

Brulines has also moved into data management in the AWP market, acquiring a majority stake in Coin Metrics, a game machine monitoring group.

James Dickson, Brulines' chief executive, said trading and financial performance had been "slightly ahead" of the group's expectations at the time of the AIM float.

"We're delivering what we promised at the time of coming to the market. We've seen five years of solid year-on-year growth, installed 4,400 new systems and upgraded 1,500 in the past year, while the evaluations of our Brand Quality Monitoring (BQM) system in a number of managed houses is going well."

While currently in the tenanted and managed sector, Brulines ultimately wanted to get its BQM systems into the independent pub sector, he added. "Given the need to improve quality there is a strong rationale for people to have our systems in their pubs."

Dickson said key drivers for the group including on-going consolidation in the pub sector, while factors such as the smoking ban and economic uncertainty were "all good news for us. The more pressure there is on the sector to deliver, the more companies will look at how they can operate more efficiently. The need for more transparency will grow and we can help with that".

He said he believed Brulines was "recession proof".