Jennings Bothers reported a 13.4% rise in operating profit for the year to 28 February, to £3.81m, backed by growth in its pubs division and increased market share for its ales.
John Rudgard, Jennings’ chairman, said: "Jennings is a very different company today from that of two years ago.
"Jennings has successfully implemented its new strategy to concentrate on growing a quality leased pub business and Free Trade, brewing and brands business; it has been substantially de-risked, and it is now in a period of steady sustainable growth."
Normalised pre-tax profit increased by 13.5% to £2.85m and, after stripping out the effects of pub acquisitions and disposals, like-for-like pub profits had increased by 8.9%. Operating margins improved to 22.1% from 20.6%
Turnover increased by 5.4% to £17.24m, with the company commenting that growth of around 9% was ‘a more realistic indicator if turnover from residual managed houses in the previous year is excluded’.
The pub owner and brewer said that InnVentures, its 126-strong leased and tenanted pub estate saw turnover grow by 14.7% to £11.29m and operating profit by 16.2% to £5.39m.
Operating profit per pub increased by 8.9% on a like-for-like basis. Like-for-like drink turnover increased by 3.2%.
The success of InnVentures was attributed its lack of exposure to ‘the competitive branded High Street market beset with problems of heavy discounting and ever increasing lease rentals’.
Sales volumes of Jennings' ale brands increased by 7.5% overall, with the lead brand, Cumberland Ale, growing by 24%. Ward's Best Bitter was re-launched in draught form in March 2004, with the company saying that early indications were positive.
Free Trade turnover increased by 7.0% to £5.95m, with operating profit growth restricted to 1.1% at £0.93m as the company reinvested.
The company said that it planned to expand over the coming year and beyond through both organic growth and pub acquisitions. Since the year-end, Jennings has spent £2.2m on four more pubs.
