Profits and revenues soar at Manchester brewery
Manchester brewer and pub company JW Lees reported a turnover increase of 10.7% to a record £78,385,739 for the last 12 months.
The company operates 142 pubs, inns and hotels, alongside a growing Free Trade and National Accounts business.
Like-for-like sales in the JW Lees 39-strong managed estate were up 1.9% with total sales in the Managed estate growing 14.2% as it saw the benefit of recent acquisitions and refurbishments.
The 103-strong pub partnership estate saw like-for-like net income growth of 2.1% with average EBITDA per pub up 4.5%.
The company said the increase reflects the improved quality of its pubs which are now all on a strict five-year refurbishment cycle.
Underlying EBITDA was up 41.8% to a company record of £10.3m compared with £7.3m the previous year.
Group operating profit increased by 59.8% to £7.2m compared with £4.5m the year before, with pre-tax profit up by 51.1% to £6.8m compared with £4.5m the previous year.
During the year the company invested £5.5m in capital expenditure; this compares with £15.5m the year before and includes the acquisition at the end of March 2019 of The Goshawk in Mouldsworth, Cheshire.
The company completed its investment in the new Boilerhouse small-batch Brewery which is already operating at full capacity and is allowing the company to brew 10-barrel brews of interesting and challenging new beers.
Since the year-end, JW Lees has exchanged contracts with Redrow Homes and been granted planning permission for a new-build site at Woodford Garden Village.
Tony Spencer retired at the AGM on 12th July as director of operations – hotels & inns after four years with JW Lees and has been succeeded by David Grosfils.
Similarly, Mission Mars founder Roy Ellis has stepped down as an external advisor after five years and has been succeeded by solicitor Jim Tully, a partner at Manchester law firm Slater Heelis.
Managing director William Lees-Jones said: “We always planned for 2019 to be a great year for JW Lees after two years of significant CAPEX and associated closures of larger properties like the Alderley Edge Hotel.
“We remain totally committed to our model of running managed houses, pub partnerships and free trade and have now grown our hotels & Inns business to 291 bedrooms.
“We are encouraged to report that JW Lees beer volumes increased by 2.3% and we are looking forward to more beer innovation through our new small-batch brewery, The Boilerhouse.
“We also hope that the government will listen to concerns that brewers like JW Lees have raised about the need to reform Progressive Beer Duty to allow brewers like us to compete on a fair playing field in the free market.
“Our strategy remains unchanged and we will continue to grow JW Lees, with the brewery at the heart of the business, developing our people to be the best that they can be and growing the business in a balanced manner adding new hotels, inns and pubs to our estate.
“We have had a slow start to 2019, with retail sales down 1.2% in the first 14 weeks of the year but it was always going to be tough going compared to last summer’s heatwave and the optimism that Gareth Southgate and the England team inspired by getting to the semi-finals of the World Cup in Russia.”
