XP Factory PLC on Friday announced the acquisition of Boom Battle Bar Cardiff Ltd for £2.2 million.

Shares in the Crawley-based experiential leisure business were trading 8.3% higher at 13.00 pence on Friday afternoon in London.

Boom Cardiff delivered a turnover of £3.8 million and profit before tax of £201,000 for the financial year ended June 2022. It also has net debt of £620,000.

Since the announcement in May of the company’s full year results, XP Factory has acquired the boom franchise site in Norwich for £100,000 in cash and has opened two further franchise sites in Ealing and Sheffield.

As a result, the boom battle bar network today comprises 18 sites, of which six are owner operated and twelve are franchised.

The company also issued an update on trading. Trading in both boom and escape hunt sites has been ‘encouraging’ in the context of the economic backdrop, the company said.

The escape hunt owner-operated estate reported a turnover of £1.4 million in the eight weeks to August 2022, an increase of 16% compared to the same eight-week period in 2021.

The boom battle bar owner operated sites delivered a turnover over of £1 million in the same period.

Chief Executive Officer Richard Harpham commented: ‘We are delighted to have been able to add the Boom Cardiff site into our owner operated estate on attractive terms. It is consistently a strong performing site. Likewise, the acquisition of the Boom Norwich site is expected to provide an excellent cash on cash return.

‘We continue to see growing and attractive operating metrics at our Boom sites whilst Escape Hunt has become a consistently high margin business.’

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