Greene King reports managed like-for-like sales rise
Food LFL sales across it managed estate climbed 2.7% and room LFL sales increased 3.1%.
The group said that the second half was negatively impacted by a combination of tough comparatives and unusually poor weather. Despite these challenges, it said achieved LFL growth in every month of the year except March.
The company said that Easter was particularly strong this year. It sold a record 700,000 meals over the four-day period and delivered LFL cover growth of 5.2%. This drove LFL sales growth of 7.1%.
Rooney Anand, chief executive, said: “In support of our continued LFL sales growth in Retail, we have been able to improve operating margins during the year, despite the slower LFL sales in the second half. We expect the Retail margin to be around 70bps higher than last year following successful gross margin management, strong labour productivity improvements and a tight control of our costs.
“We have also continued to grow the estate with an expected 33 sites added during the year taking the Retail estate up to 987 sites at the year-end. Reflecting the brand’s strong performance, just after the year-end we will be opening our 200th Hungry Horse site, the Royal Horse, in Leamington Spa.”
Average EBITDA per pub in Pub Partners (tenanted estate) was up 4.6% after 48 weeks, with core estate LFL EBITDA up 0.2%.
Anand said: “Although trading conditions were more demanding in the second half of our financial year, our business has once again demonstrated its resilience and we have delivered good progress across all businesses.”
It expects to have reduced its trading estate by 108 sites to 1,272 sites through non-core disposals and reverse-transfers in the year.
Anand said: “We will participate fully in the Government’s consultation on pub companies. Independent surveys show the vast majority of our licensees value the support we provide them and we believe that a statutory code is an unnecessary additional burden on the tenanted and leased sector.”
Core brand own-brewed volumes up 0.8%.
