The Restaurant Group reports 'excellent performance' for first half of 2013

Like-for-like sales for the 26 weeks to 30 June at the 400-strong group were up 5 per cent while total revenue rose 11.5 per cent to £280m. 

Pre-tax profit across company is up 15 per cent to £30m enabling it to reduce its debt to £27.1m. 

TRS chief executive Andrew Page said: “This is another strong performance from The Restaurant Group, with an 11.5 per cent increase in revenues and a 16 per cent increase in earnings. All of our brands grew like-for-like sales and profits, with the Group’s margins nicely ahead of the prior year. Free cash flow was also significantly higher, being 30 per cent ahead of the prior year and net debt reduced by more than £11m to £27m."

New sites​

The first half of the year saw The Restaurant Group open seven new sites and it plans to open up to 35 by the end of the year. 

Four new sites have opened to date in the second half of the year and trade is reportedly strong with like-for-like sales growth for the 34 weeks to 25 August at 4.25 per cent. 

"Our new restaurants are trading ahead of expectations, are on track to deliver high returns and the forward pipeline of new sites to 2015 and beyond is the best we’ve seen for many years and the quality is first class," said Page. 

“As always, our team has worked extremely hard to deliver these results; we are fortunate to have such a professional and dedicated team at TRG whose efforts are now focused on ensuring that we maintain this strong momentum going forward.

"After eight months, our like-for-like sales are 4.25% ahead of last year, with August’s like-for-like sales coming in ahead of the year to date run rate and, notwithstanding the fact that we enjoyed a very strong final quarter last year, we are confident of delivering another year of further profitable progress.”