UK-listed bar owner increased pre-tax profits by 11%
Companies: Revolution Bars Group Plc
Revolution Bars Group, one of the UK's leading bar operators, announced its preliminary results this morning showing strong financial performance across the group, with revenue up 7% to £119.5m, LFL sales up 2.3%, adj EBITDA up 7% to £15.6m, and adj PBT up 10.8% to £9.2m.
The company's gross margin improved by 40 bps, as it posted adj earnings per share of 14.6p (pre-results yield of 9.5%) and a final dividend of 3.3p per share (pre-results yield of 2.2%).
The bar group, known colloquially as Vodka Revs, opened 5 new sites in the last year and has 5 more planned for the year to 30 June 2017 (three of which will be in H1).
finnCap said FY16 numbers were just ahead of its expectations:
"The balance sheet remains debt-free and the Group is on track to open 5 new estates as planned in FY17. Current trading, however, appears to have moderated with LFL sales +1.8% for the first 12 weeks of FY17 compared to +2.3% for FY16 overall (we forecast 3% LFL growth for FY17) and our headline forecasts for FY17 (revenue +12%, EBITDA +13%) have downside risk."
Mark McQuater, CEO, said he was delighted to have delivered the growth in revenue, margin, and profit that the company had in its maiden listed year, saying, as a result, EPS was 14.1% higher:
"We have achieved this through continually improving the performance of our existing estate and through successfully opening five new bar restaurants.
The Group is benefitting from its growth in scale and the establishment of its second brand Revolucion de Cuba brand which expanded from five to nine branches. We also opened a Revolution in the year...
Reflecting our confidence in our strong operating model and overall debt free balance sheet we will open another 5 bars in our current year building on the success in 2015. Three new Revolucion de Cuba bars in Harrogate, Reading and Aberdeen are expected to open before Christmas 2016.
This financial year has begun well with recent trading robust with like for like sales of 1.8% in the first 12 weeks of the current financial year."
Revolution Bar's share price is up 2% in early trading looks likely to open up around 2% this morning and is down nearly 8% over the last 3 months.