Wednesday saw a clutch of positive trading updates covering the Christmas period from leisure sector firms, with an emphasis on 'going out'.
One-stop entertainment and bowling operator Ten Entertainment Group (TEG) reported 10.2% growth in total revenues for the year ended 29 December, up 8% on a comparable basis. The shares were marked up 1.1% to 313.5p.
The company expects earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to be in line with consensus expectations, which according to Reuters is currently £23.75m. That would represent growth of 15.5% year-on-year.
Broker N+1 Singer was slightly disappointed that the company didn’t best its revenue growth forecast, given the stronger second half like-for-like sales growth of 8.6%, but this can be explained by the delayed refurbishment of two recently-acquired sites.
The shares are up 40% over the last year and have almost doubled since coming to the market in 2017. It is perhaps not surprising to see director selling over the last few months.
READ MORE ABOUT TEN ENTERTAINMENT HERE
Meanwhile, independent cinema group Everyman Media (EMAN) saw record sales for the 52 week period ended 2 January, up 25% to £65m, driven by new openings as well as increased spend per head at each venue. The shares were 2.6% ahead at 220p.
Chief executive Crispin Lilly commented, ‘after record admissions in 2018, UK box-office fell by 1.9% in 2019; despite this we grew each of our key performance metrics and also increased our overall market share of the UK box-office.’
Everyman now operates from 33 venues and 110 screens across the UK, proving that the unique format can work across diverse locations. The company is actively sourcing opportunities to open further sites and has commitments in place to open 12 venues by 2022, with four openings confirmed for 2020, including Dublin, Lincoln, London Kings Road and Plymouth.
The company expects to report a 30% increase in EBITDA for the full-year to approximately £15.7m.
READ MORE ABOUT EVERYMAN MEDIA HERE
Premium bars operator Revolution Bars (RBG:AIM) reported 1.2% like-for-like growth in revenues for the 26 weeks to 29 December to £81.2m, an improvement on the 0.7% increase after 13 weeks, giving the shares a 4.2% boost to 88.1p.
FESTIVE CHEER
Christmas is a key trading period for the group and for the four weeks to 31 December the company achieved record sales for the seventh consecutive year, notching up 4% like-for-like growth.
Since the period end the company has agreed to give up the leases on five loss-making sites as well as agreeing a small rent reduction on a further four leases, which should improve annual cash flows by around £1.2m a year.
Chief executive Rob Pitcher commented, ‘whilst external cost pressures persist, we will continue to manage cautiously, using excess cash to reduce indebtedness below one times EBTIDA before we will consider further expansion opportunities.’
Revolution Bars was subject to a failed takeover approach from pubs group Stonegate for 203p per share in November 2017, after shareholders voted down the deal. Night club operator Deltic was in discussions to merge with Revolution Bars in 2018, but the talks didn’t lead to anything.
