British pub groups report positive performance
JD Wetherspoon reported a record year for sales, profit and earnings, seeing a 10 per cent increase in revenue to a little over £1.4b for the year up to 27 July 2014. The group’s profit before tax stood at £78.4m and it took on another 3000 employees during the year.
Peach also reported a successful year with the group’s turnover increasing by six per cent. The company also opened a number of new pubs, aiming to eventually create a portfolio of 22 venues.
‘Record’ year
J D Wetherspoon opened a total of 46 pubs during the year, and closed or sold five, which took the company to a total of 927 pubs owned. It also reached new levels of food hygiene, with 824 of its pubs rated on the Food Standards Agency’s website.
The chairman of J D Wetherspoon Tim Martin said: “I am pleased to report another year of progress, with record sales, profit and earnings per share.”
Martin also used the report to highlight the possible danger that VAT disparity can present to the pub industry, with concerns over the number of pub closures in the UK over the last few years.
“The biggest danger to the pub industry is the VAT disparity between supermarkets and pubs,” explained Martin. “Wetherspoon, along with many pub and restaurant companies, is supporting Jacques Borel’s VAT Club on Tax Equality Day to publicise this inequality.
“A similar danger relates to the general tone of corporate governance advice and practice which has helped to create unstable board rooms, often preoccupied by the wrong considerations. For example, many do not even recognise the danger from the VAT disparity, despite the high weekly level of pub closures which has lasted for many years.”
Battling storms
Peach reported a positive end to the year, with the group’s turnover increasing by six per cent to £20.5m. The group also reached a total of 16 pubs and is opening its 17th in Edgbaston later this month. Peach had a difficult start to the year, but saw a profitable July which was helped by the good weather.
“It’s a positive set of results and another year of growth under our belts, with plenty more to come as we continue moving ahead,” said Peach co-founder Hamish Stoddart. “We battled the storms both literally and figuratively at the start, but as the year moved on, so did we and by the end we were ahead of plan and sales were showing a strong like-for-like growth.
“We’re feeling energised by the arrival on Monday of our new finance director Joe Garthwaite, who brings big retail experience from both Sainsbury’s and Bravissimo, and we’re recruiting for the next stage of Peach as a growing individual pub group by looking for a senior operations director.”
