Fulham Shore, the David Page-led owner of the Franco Manca, The Real Greek and Bukowski Grill concepts, has reported that it generated revenue of £19.9m (2015: £13.9m) in the six months to 25 September 2016.
The 42-strong group said it had achieved EBITDA for the period of £3.7m (2015: £2.6m), whilst operating profit stood at £2.4m (2015: £1.7m).
The company said it expected to end the current financial year in March 2017 with around 43 restaurants, dependent on how quickly its builders work in the spring.
In the six months ended 25 September 2016, the company opened 7 Franco Mancas in London, Brighton and Guildford. This took Fulham Shore’s restaurant portfolio as at 25 September 2016 to 36 restaurants made up of nine The Real Greek, 26 Franco Manca pizzeria and one Bukowski Grill.
During the period, the group had net cash inflow from operating activities of £6.4m (2015: £3m). It invested £5.7m (2015: £3.4m) on property, plant and equipment.
Overall there was a net cash inflow for the period of £1.1m (2015: outflow of £1.8m) resulting in net debt as at 25 September 2016 of £3m (2015: £0.3m).
Since 25 September 2016, the group has opened three The Real Greek restaurants in Muswell Hill (London), Boxpark Croydon and Southampton and three Franco Manca restaurants in Westfield London, Westbourne Grove (London) and Southampton.
It is currently fitting out a further Franco Manca pizzeria in Nova Victoria (London), which is scheduled to open in February 2017.
Contracts have recently been exchanged on three sites in very different locations in and around London: Putney (near Putney Bridge), Russell Square and Richmond, Surrey, all expected to open in the Spring of 2017.
Page said: “Great sites continue to be offered to us as we continue to open in London and now around the UK. However, we are determined that our customers and shareholders should be the beneficiaries of our expansion, not property owners or agents. Therefore, we will continue to take space that is just about big enough for us so that we are not paying for space we don’t use and the rent roll is that much lower. This helps us to keep our menu prices below our competitors for the benefit of our customers.
“Franco Manca is now occupying some spare window space at Debenhams in Westfield London. This has proved successful and we are now looking at building more relationships with retailers and licensed premises owners who have surplus space facing the high street which could be utilised by the Group.
“We source our food directly from both Italy and Greece plus from some great local UK producers. We get closely involved with all our suppliers, visiting them regularly, checking consistency and working together to develop new ideas. The Brexit vote has had some of our suppliers in Europe nervously watching the UK. However, we are working with them to make sure any adjustment of our input prices is kept to a minimum. We are helped that much of our fresh produce is sourced locally in sterling in the UK.
“A key concern for us is maintaining the consistency and quality of our food and service offer. To this end, over the past 18 months, we have developed dedicated central teams running each part of the business. Each restaurant brand has its own operational management and we have property, people, training, opening and financial systems in place. These support functions are essential when growing a restaurant business leaving the front of house teams free to concentrate on the food and the customers. As the number of restaurants we open per year grow, and the eventual number we can finally achieve in the UK also grows, we will continue to invest in our central functions to ensure we have adequate resources to deliver growth.
“All this puts us in a sound position for our future expansion of the group’s excellent restaurant businesses. We have slowly increased the number of openings per year we can manage. Our progress so far was nine for the year ended 27 March 2016 and 13 year to date for the year ending 26 March 2017. We expect to increase this number in London and across the country in the next financial year. Sites are available, our restaurants are busy and popular, our prices are good value and our staff are well motivated.”
