75% of Enterprise hosts' profits in line with last year
Three-quarters of Enterprise Inns licensees are making profits in line with or ahead of this period last year, chief executive Ted Tuppen has reported.
Tuppen said licensees' performance had been resilient in what had amounted to the "most difficult six months for the pub trade ever".
The "perfect storm" of difficult trading conditions had seen everyone - Enterprise staff and licensees - having to work a "hell of a lot harder than this time last year".
The company had increased its tenant support in areas like rent concessions by between £2.5m and £3m in the first six months of its financial year to help those who had been struggling.
Tuppen said that 70% of those licensees who had "got into a spot of bother" and been helped by the company managed to "get going again".
City analyst Kate Pettem, of Landsbanki, said: "We estimate that EBITDA per pub was down approximately 1.5%.
"This result is better than Punch Taverns' -2.0% and we suspect reflects Enterprise Inns' somewhat better quality estate."
Last week, Enterprise confirmed that it had been given outline consent to convert into a tax-efficient real estate investment trust (Reit).
The company re-iterated this week that it would need a few months to do the analysis required to proceed with the idea.
Analyst Douglas Jack, of Panmure Gordon, said: "Enterprise Inns has not slowed the pace of pub investment, which remains at £10,000 per pub annualised."
However, both the acquisition and disposal programmes are slightly behind schedule with 40 pubs acquired (for £32m) and just 18 pub sold (for £12m) of a full-year 90 site disposal programme."
Profit before tax and exceptional items reduced by 11% to £132m.
