13th Dec 2019 09:03
(Alliance News) - Hollywood Bowl Group PLC on Friday upped its dividend and reported an earnings rise during a year in which it opened one of the largest ten-pin bowling centres in the UK.
In the year to September 30, revenue rose 7.8% to a record GBP129.9 million from GBP120.5 million last year. On a like-for-like basis, revenue was up 5.5%.
Pretax profit climbed 15% year-on-year to GBP27.6 million from GBO23.9 million.
The ten-pin bowling operator's total dividend for the year was 11.93 pence per share, up 13% from 10.59p last year. This was after the firm paid a special dividend, for the third successive year, of 4.5p, up 3.9% from 4.33p.
Chief Executive Stephen Burns said: "As a result of this strong financial and operational performance, we are delighted to announce a special dividend for the third consecutive year, which will result in a total of GBP47.7 million being returned to shareholders since IPO."
During the year, Hollywood Bowl opened a new centre at Intu Properties PLC's Lakeside centre in Essex. The site, Hollywood Bowl's 60th, is the largest bowling centre to be opened in the UK in the last 10 years, the firm said.
Turning to its new financial year, the company said trading is line with expectations.
Looking ahead, Hollywood Bowl will also make a foray into mini-golf in the current financial year, opening three trial units of its new "Puttstars" centres in Leeds, York and Rochdale, a town in Greater Manchester.
Also, the company eyes opening a further six bowling centres between financial 2021 and financial 2023.
Burns added: "I am delighted to report another year of strong profitable and cash generative growth, demonstrating the consistent delivery of our proven, customer-led strategy.
"In addition to driving these further strong returns, we also achieved excellent customer feedback following the ongoing investment in our centres, further innovation of our industry-leading customer proposition and the continued development of our team members. We also increased the size of our portfolio to 60 high-quality, all profitable centres."
Shares in Hollywood Bowl were 5.4% higher at 247.76 pence each in London on Friday morning.
By Eric Cunha; [email protected]
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