The Directors of Oakman Inns & Restaurants have reported on a year of significant progress across the group, ending 2 April 2017, showing turnover was up by 20.4% at £23.3m.
Like-for-like sales rose by 3.5%, and average sales per core Oakman site continued to exceed £30k NET per week. Site EBITDA grew by 31.1% to £4.04m, and Group EBITDA more than doubled to £1.68m.
In addition to a pleasing financial performance the group continued to successfully execute its longer-term strategy. Two new sites opened in Solihull and Royston bringing the total number of developed site at the year end to 16.
A substantial freehold pub, The Royal Foresters in Ascot, was purchased for £3.6m in December 2016 and will re-open after a major refurbishment in the summer of 2018.
Since the year end, Oakman Inns has acquired three more sites: The Walter Arms, Sindlesham (Hunky Dory Pubs Ltd), The Dog & Badger, Medmenham (OIRL), and The Anchor, Hullbridge (OIRL). All three were purchased as going concerns, are currently trading and will receive further development into fully fledged Oakman Inns in due course.
Four sites are currently under construction are: The Cherry Tree, Olney (Hedderwick Ltd), The Beech House, Amersham (OIRL), The Four Alls, Welford-upon-Avon (Hunky Dory Pubs Ltd), and The Royal Foresters, Ascot (OIRL). The company is building a significant pipeline and currently are in negotiations on seven further sites.
Commenting on the audited figures, Oakman Inns’ CEO and Founder, Peter Borg-Neal, (pictured), said, “2016/17 was a good year for us. As well as achieving strong sales and profit growth we were able to raise considerable sums and to build an exciting pipeline. Like everybody else we have been negatively impacted by the weakness of Sterling and the ever-increasing burden of taxation. However, we have genuine momentum within the business and the current year is also going very well.”
Oakman Inns delivered very pleasing LFL growth of 5.9% during the four-week Christmas trading period ending on 31st December 2017.
The first week of the period was badly hit by the snow that fell on the Sunday - which also impacted negatively on the first half of the second week. The destination sites were particularly badly hit and, accordingly, the business was in 2.5% decline at the half way stage. However, a really strong second half saw a complete turnaround to deliver the +5.9% outcome.
Average weekly sales per site stood at £45k net of VAT. A new record day was reported of £205k net of VAT, and a new record week of £898k net of VAT. The company saw total sales of £3,173k, which was £230k above budget.
For the 39 weeks ending 31st December 2017 Oakman’s Like-For-Like sales growth stands at +6.6% cumulatively.
Commenting on the Christmas sales, Borg-Neal, said, “Although the Like For Like sales were slightly down on our year to date run-rate I am delighted with our performance over Christmas. The snowfall had a negative impact of around £100k on our business and, even after allowing for the fact that some customers rebooked for another day, we estimate it knocked around 2.5% to 3% off the like-for-like increase.
'Accordingly, to achieve +5.9% despite the impact of the weather is a superb result. Even more so when you consider that we were rolling over strong comparables of +6.7% LFL growth in the same period last year.”