Fuller's half-year adjusted profit rises 25% and Christmas bookings run 16% ahead
The pub and hotel group now expects full-year profit to beat market forecasts, despite £5 million a year of extra wage costs from National Living Wage increases.
By Daily Oracles News Team2 min read
Fuller, Smith & Turner made adjusted profit before tax of £28.2 million in the 26 weeks to 26 September, up 25% from £22.5 million, on revenue 6.5% higher at £220.9 million. The pub and hotel group credited a hot summer and the football World Cup, and said it now expects profit for the year to March 2027 to come in ahead of market expectations.
Like-for-like sales in its managed pubs and hotels were up 5.8% over the first 32 weeks of the financial year, to 7 November. Christmas bookings stood 16% ahead of the same point last year.
In the half itself those managed sites grew like-for-like sales by 6.1%, which the company put at 3.0 percentage points better than the market on the NIQ RSM Hospitality Business Tracker. Drink sales rose 6.4%, food 4.6% and accommodation 8.9%, with revenue per available room up 9.3%, and the division's EBITDA margin widened from 23.5% to 25.1%. An extra £1.5 million went on pub gardens, adding 14% more bookable outdoor space.
Wages are the main cost pressure. Increases in the National Living Wage have added £5 million a year, partly offset by more efficient staffing and some modest price rises. Energy bills were flat year on year because Fuller's buys ahead: it is fully hedged on gas and electricity for the current financial year and 82% hedged for the year to March 2028.
It bought 12 pubs for £37.5 million before fees, half of them completed after the period ended. Eleven are in London, among them The Shipwright's Arms at London Bridge and The Blue Anchor in Hammersmith, and the twelfth gives it a fourth pub in Bath. Nine have joined the managed estate and three, which already had tenants, the tenanted inns business. The estate now runs to 194 managed pubs and hotels with 1,040 bedrooms, plus 153 tenanted inns, mostly across the southern half of England.
Those purchases, the freehold of The Fence in Farringdon and the expected reversal of a £16.3 million working capital inflow will take net debt excluding leases from £140.2 million to around £190 million to £195 million by the year end. Fuller's raised its unsecured bank facilities from £185 million to £220 million in October.
The interim dividend is 8.35p a share, up from 7.85p and payable on 4 January 2027. A trading update follows on 14 January, with full-year results on 9 June.
Spending on the existing estate came to £14.2 million in the half, and another £19 million is planned for the second. Next on the list are 25 new bedrooms and a full refurbishment at The Barrowboy & Banker on London Bridge.
