Eclectic eyes expansion on sales boost

The Lola Lo and Po Na Na operator reported sales of £15.5m (2010: £13.5m), with site ebitda up £0.3m to £3.7m and company ebitda up £0.2m to £2.2m.

Eclectic, which currently operates 16 sites, said it bought four new venues and undertook four refurbishments over the past 15 months.

It increased sales at its refurbished Lola Lo bars - by 125% at the Brighton outlet, which re-opened in July 2010, and 79% at its Norwich venue, which re-opened November 2010, while the Oxford site saw like-for-like sales up 121% for the three months since re-opening in April 2011.

Its fourth Lola Lo opened in Cambridge in May, and a fifth, in Bournemouth, was acquired in June and is to open before Christmas.

Other trading highlights include opening a new site in Manchester’s Deansgate, its third Japanese-themed Sakura; the site opened in November and now has the second highest sales across the company.

Eclectic said: “The team continues to search for suitable sites to further roll out the Sakura and Lola Lo brands. Since the year end, Edinburgh has closed and reopened in mid-August as another Lola Lo and a further unit has been acquired in Reading which opened in mid September - bringing the total number of Lola Lo’s to seven in just over a year.

“The strong performance of the new opening and refit programmes has been underpinned with quality service, strong product, table service (with over 80% of tables pre-booked at the weekends), quality music and premium student nights throughout the week days. Once again Eclectic’s management team have demonstrated their ability to continue to develop and grow the Eclectic group.”

Avanti’s investment, which is predominantly in the form of a secured loan, as a book value of £7.4m (2010: £7.5m), or 92p per share (2010: 94p per share). Its debt to Barclays at the year end was £1.9m (2010: £1.8m), and the company said Barclays has continued to support the refit and acquisition programme with new lending.