A Brighton pub and brewing business is planning to spend more money on pub makeovers as sales and profits continue to grow.
The Laine Pub Company said that its turnover rose to £50.5 million in the 14 months to the end of last August. Sales rose from £34.9 million in the previous year – to the end of June 2017.
The accounting period was extended to allow the company to bring its financial year into line with its new owner, the Vine Acquisitions Group, which bought the business in May last year.
At the same time group operating profit rose from £2.28 million to £2.57 million and pre-tax profit went up from £909,000 to £1.25 million.
The company has more than 50 pubs, with about 30 of them in Brighton and Hove. It has been expanding in London by buying – and often refurbishing – existing pubs.
The number of staff jumped to about 150 as the group grew, taking the pay bill to £4.42 million, up from £2.06 million. With pensions and social security costs, pay totalled £4.87 million.
The company has five directors – long-serving board member Garry Pettet left last September.
Boardroom pay totalled £686,000, up from £604,000, or £781,000 when pensions and social security costs were included, up from £681,000. The highest paid director received £197,000.
In its group strategic report and financial statements, filed with Companies House last week, the directors said that they were “pleased to report continued growth in sales throughout the pub and brewing business”.
They said: “Overall sales grew by 20.7 per cent on the same 14-month period from 2017, enhanced by the sites acquired in the previous year trading throughout the period.
“Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), the metric used by the group to measure business performance, grew by 2.7 per cent on the same 14-month period from 2017.
“In May 2018, the company’s shares were acquired by Vine Acquisitions Limited, backed by Patron Capital V and May Partners LLP.”
The board’s business review mentioned Brexit, saying: “While outside the control of the group, the uncertainty surrounding the impact of the UK’s exit from the EU (European Union) is considered a risk to the generation of sales.”
And the report flagged up future developments, adding: “The directors have planned new investment for the pub estate and a programme of expenditure and refurbishments in the existing estate.”
The business also runs a brewery at Adversane, near Billingshurst, in West Sussex, with a “brew pub” – the North Laine Brewhouse – in Brighton, another in London as well as “an experimental brew lab”.
It would be useful if the piece mentioned some of these thirty pubs.