Young's serves up heady growth in preliminary results

Young & Co’s reported a 3.9% improvement in revenue in its preliminary results on Thursday, to £279.3m.

The AIM-traded brewer and pub operator said its adjusted operating profit in the 52 weeks to 2 April was £46.9m - a rise of 1.7% - while operating profit was 1.9% higher at £43.5m.

Its adjusted profit before tax was up 1.5% at £41m, and profit before tax rose 1.6% to £37.6m.

Young’s generated net cash from operations of £61.4m, which was down 3.3% year-on-year, while its adjusted basic earnings per share rose 2% to 67.74p.

Its basic earnings per share eked out gains of 0.1% to 61.6.

Taking into account the board’s recommended final dividend, Young’s total dividend for the year was 6% higher than in the 2017 financial year at 19.61p.

Net assets per share were up 11.3% at £11.24.

“I am delighted with this strong set of results, delivered against a challenging market backdrop, as they demonstrate the benefit of our strategy of running a differentiated, premium and well-invested pub estate in superb locations and with a highly customer-centric approach,” said chief executive Patrick Dardis.

“We have continued to invest in our future growth through a combination of exciting acquisitions and investment in our existing estate while also upgrading our technology to enhance the customer experience and realise productivity gains.”

Dardis said the company started the year well and, despite being up against very strong comparatives in the previous year, managed houses revenue in the first seven weeks was up 11.0% in total and up 7.5% on a like- for-like basis.

“Although uncertainty prevails in both the political and economic environment, we are confident that our strategy will continue to deliver superior shareholder returns.

“I am a firm believer that the traditional British pub will never go out of fashion and, as a result, I'm both excited and optimistic about the year ahead.”