The company that owns the Palace Pier has reported record revenues, with annual turnover topping £40 million in its most recent financial year.
The Brighton Pier Group PLC said that trading had been “ahead of expectations” with revenues of £40.1 million in the 52 weeks to Sunday 26 June.
The company said: “The group is pleased to report unaudited total net sales for the 52-week period of £40.1 million, up 196 per cent on the equivalent period in 2021 and up 25 per cent on 2019, being the last full year of uninterrupted trading prior to the covid pandemic.
“Exceeding £40 million of sales is a record result for the group. Furthermore, with EBITDA for the same period expected to be at £10.8 million, the group has again exceeded market expectations.
“This robust performance underlines the continued strong demand for the group’s diverse offering of leisure experiences across a range of demographics in the UK.”
In a trading update for investors, the company made a London Stock Exchange announcement and said:
“On a divisional basis
- Brighton Palace Pier like-for-like sales are up 12 per cent on 2019
- The Bars Division’s like-for-like sales (for 49 weeks, division reopened from end of July) are up 21 per cent on 2019
- The Golf Division’s like-for-like sales are up 23 per cent on 2019
- Lightwater Valley theme park, acquired in June 2021, continues to trade ahead of our expectations at the time of acquisition
…
“The Group continues to generate strong cash flows, enabling the repayment of £7.7 million of debt (37 per cent of borrowings) during its financial year.
“This leaves the group well positioned for the future, with a strong balance sheet, underpinned by high-quality assets.
“The group’s preliminary results for the year will be announced on Monday 26 September 2022 together with an update on trading over the summer period.
“This period represents a significant portion of the group’s sales and profits for the 26 weeks leading up to Christmas and the new financial reporting period ending on Sunday 25 December 2022.”
Chief executive Anne Ackord said: “I have been delighted by the strength of the group’s recovery following the covid-19 pandemic and am pleased that we have surpassed £40 million of sales for the first time in the group’s history.
“This must be attributed to the endeavours of all the group’s employees, for which we are very grateful.
“This trading period has been exceptional, benefiting both from pent-up customer demand and from hospitality-targeted government recovery packages.
“The cash-generative nature of the group’s diverse businesses puts us in a unique position to capitalise on new opportunities as and when they arise.”
Outrage. This money could be used to build afford housing for low income families on benefits
‘Group turnover’ does not equate to ‘after-tax profits’. People need to wait for the actual results to see what the actual profit is. And there is also more than one business in the group, not just the Palace Pier.
Apart from all that, why should any business (and I repeat, we do not know yet what the profits after tax actually are) give over their profits, however much they may be, to build affordable housing for low income families on benefits?
But the i360 says it is a struggle to make money.
The need to sack the i360 management and get a team in from the Pier to run it.
Allegedly offered to the Pier Group a few years back but they wouldn’t go near it. They know a lost cause, (unlike certain councilors)
The headline suggests that the Pier has made this money when in fact it is part of a chain’s profits. I do not go on the Pier – in protest at the theatre being taken away for “restoration” and never brought back.
You do realise that was under the custodians the Noble Group?
With all that money shud be more disabled friendly and offer cheaper drinks for real locals and more expansive for tourists and students who have rich parents
Profits should be used to build much needed council flats on the seafront
The Comments above regarding the i360 are interesting.
And (from negative 2016 onwards TripAdvisor reviews) it’s clear that trying to pretend that a trip up the i360 was the equivalent of a plane flight, with lots of associated bureaucracy etc, was a major marketing error!
Just compare with the beautiful and ultimately iconic Brighton Wheel!
Almost every marketing person knows that maximising the variety of similar shops & attractions builds overall trade!
As typified in our City by West Street, Preston St, Western Rd, London Rd etc, + the large number of retailers clustered together in the Churchill Square mall!
And whilst BHCC rented the site out to the Brighton Wheel (to ensure it must be taken away to not compete with the i360) apparently BHCC Cllrs and officers failed to apply the revenue-sharing terms almost universal for property firms renting out retail units.
So just a basic rent plus a percentage cut of the gross sales turnover.
The merit of such terms for BHCC would have been valuable access to the Wheel’s trading figures.
From that data BHCC could have gained an insight to the prospects for the future i360; the merits of encouraging the Wheel to stay; and probably to get a higher revenue from that part of the seafront?
However the i360 can never become profitable, due to the financial burden of its £52m total cost, and heavy major inspection and maintenance costs (grossly under-estimated at present – typical BHCC!).
Thus the logical and least-worst possibility seems to be for our Council to exercise its step-in right to repossess the i360?
And then to strengthen the Royal Pavilion’s team to manage the i360?
That team have been marketing the Pavilion to visitors from around the globe for decades, and during those years they’ve also managed major and minor repair and refurbishment works to the RP Estate, so possibly only an extra electro-mechanical engineer needing to be added to the RP team?
With all that professional effort visitor numbers, to view a truly special and unique building which the RP clearly is, have plateaued at around 300,000 pa. So that says that proposing to fund the i360 on the basis of some 800,000 paying visitors per year looks to be very close to the crime of ‘Obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception’!
With a large legal team employed by BHCC why did those professionals not dissuade Cllrs to abstain from such gross and obvious financial foolishness?
Rather worrying is the i360’s corporate structure with three similar-sounding companies stacked one above the other!
To get to the interesting figures from the master company (albeit its accounts for 2020-21 fell overdue on 1-7-2022!) an internet search on:
beta i-360 attractions ltd
should lead to the Filing History webpage, where all filed records can be freely downloaded from Companies House (no registration needed, nor any fees to pay).
All those interested also need to recognise that in a liquidation sale the nett return to BHCC, after deduction of sale costs etc, is thought unlikely to be more than about £3.5m; because the only way a buyer can make some money, before abandoning the ride once a/the first major inspection and maintenance works become legally required (as it actually is a Passenger) Lift) is to pay less than £5m (including the auctioneer’s premium).
Naturally no building society would lend some £46m against an ‘asset’ with a nett repossession value of only about £3.5m – so why have our Councillors dared to land City taxpayers in this predictable and predicted financial disaster?
An intriguing legal point is the extent to which BHCC might be sued and/or prosecuted for ‘conspiring’ with the promoters to assist the apparent ‘Trading whilst Insolvent’ activity of the private-sector promoters?
The Council’s actions are all the more egregious due to the fact that back in 2014 (and probably earlier?) the then Green BHCC administration were being told (in writing) by several civically-minded residents that the i360 could never turn a true profit during it’s 50-year design life!
Also back in 2014 it was pointed out that an observation tower of similar height, and slowly revolving as the doughnut rises and falls, could have been built at the seafront for about £9m (including foundations etc).
In those days the promoters said they had some £6m available – which suggests that with ‘only’ a £3m top-up by BHCC such a tower could indeed be profitable, with rapid re-payment of that £3m kindly provided by City taxpayers!
For over 50 years an originally-Swiss maker of major theme-park rides, Intamin, has been the global go-to tower specialists – as can be seen from an internet search along the lines of:
Intamin gyro tower 1300
Also rather ironic is that the previous Green administration (which voted for the i360 loans) fell under the malign influence of Town Hall officers to such an extent that Cllr MacCafferty + other Green back-benchers attempted to overthrow the inner clique of Cllr Jason Kitcat – and with the May 2023 municipal elections so relatively close it looks like the present Green administration will also be booted-out for similar faults (mainly ill-conceived expensive vanity projects, and a failure to actually become the People’s Party which we really, really need!).
Indeed, there are voices saying that some Council officers are going an extra mile to support the Greens demagogic proposals – whereby the electorate in May 2023 will have even more reasons to vote ‘Any Party other than Green’!
Politics – a dirty business, but why?
Most City taxpayers just want a municipality run honestly and competently, surely?
So a City to be proud of, rather than one blighted by the multiple Council failures over the past 25 years since the 1997 merger of Brighton with Hove – looks like we need to elect 50 more independent Councillors with the integrity and competence of Cllr Bridget Fishleigh?