9th Apr 2019 10:54
LONDON (Alliance News) - City Pub Group PLC boosted its dividend by 22% on Tuesday after strong revenue growth helped it return to profit.
The company, which owns 44 pubs throughout southern England and Wales, reported revenue growth of 22% for the 52 weeks to December 30 to GBP45.7 million. On a like-for-like basis, sales increased 1.6%.
Pretax profit was GBP2.6 million versus a loss of GBP200,000 the year before. On an adjusted basis, the figure climbed 59% to GBP5.1 million.
City Pub Group is to return 2.75 pence per share to its shareholders, compared to 2.25p a year prior.
During the year, the company opened 11 new pubs, and four are currently in development and two exchanged sites are set to complete "imminently". The target is for between 65 and 70 pubs by mid-2021.
Executive Chair Clive Watson said: "Our performance has been driven by both organic growth and the new pubs coming on stream. Considering the continued strong performance we are delighted to increase our dividend, by 22% for shareholders."
"We believe the combination of further acquisitions, fine tuning the management of our existing estate and the benefits of our new divisional structure will enhance our performance further."
For the first 14 weeks of 2019, sales have risen 36% year-on-year, and City Pub Group is confident on its future prospects ahead of further pub opening.
"We are positioned to meet the number of well-trailed headwinds, not least the challenges brought through Brexit, and to take advantage of the softening market for acquisitions with our robust balance sheet and strong cash generation," said Watson.
Shares were 4.9% higher on Tuesday at a price of 233.50 pence each.
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