Camerons, the Hartlepool-based brewer, has reported EBITDA of c£5.8m in the year to 28 April, in line with the previous year, despite reporting a pre-tax loss and seeing a dip in turnover.
The company saw its pre-tax profit of £1.9m in 2012 turn into a pre-tax loss of £100,000 after incurring impairment costs of £500,000 associated with its debt refinancing, plus a £1.8m impairment charge relating mainly to four outlets; two were sold shortly after the year end, and there had been a “permanent diminution in value” the other two.
Turnover, net of duty, fell from £21.8m to £19.8m. Camerons cited “a change to the beer production mix”, saying: “There has been a movement in volumes from packaged to bulk sales within the 12 months to April 2013 and these sales are moved excise duty suspended resulting in a significantly reduced turnover.”
Gross profit margin was £9.1m (2012: £9.3m)
The two disposals generated c£1.1m. “We have identified a number of further non-core outlets for disposal and will progress these during the forthcoming year,” the firm said.
“We are continuing to invest in our core pub estate whilst maintaining our strategy of disposing of underperforming , non-core assets.”
Camerons’ ratio of net debt to EBITDA was 4.8 at the period end, down from 5.5 one year earlier.
The company, which had 69 pubs at the year end, reiterated its plans to grow to 200 sites.
“Pubs remain a core element of our business and therefore in parallel with the disposal of non-core assets, we have invested in an improved operational pub management team and embarked upon an acquisition strategy to acquire additional freehold and leasehold sites. Our ambition for growth are to achieve a combined pub estate of around 200 pubs in the next five years.”
It added: “Own brands are a key element to our business and we have developed a clear focused strategy for growth within our cask ale brands. We have recently launched a number of new core cask ale brands including in IPA and Gold Bullion as well as re-branding the business and we are seeing the fruits of our labour as we gain a number of significant local and national listings for our products.”
Camerons said its contract brewing business “remains robust and we see a significant opportunity for expanding our contract volumes in the forthcoming years”.
Last week Camerons placed 10 non-core pubs on the market with Colliers International.
