Inventive Leisure this morning said that it had seen positive like-for-like sales in October, after a dip in September.
In a trading statement, the company said that overall sales had increased by 6.0%, with Revolution like-for-like sales in the first 17 weeks of the financial year the same as last year.
Inventive added that despite increased capital expenditure, the cash generation of the business has enabled it to reduce further its financial gearing.
John Green, the company’s chairman, said: "We have been encouraged by the performance of the new sites and believe that this, coupled with our development pipeline, bodes well for our future."
The group is due to make a further announcement about September’s approach from an unnamed private equity group. Inventive said that discussions had continued, although no formal agreement had been entered into.
The company has opened two new Revolutions so far this financial year. The first, Revolution Electric Press, is the group’s second site in Leeds and opened at the end of July 2005. The company said that trading since opening had been "substantially ahead" of its pre-investment expectations, taking on average more than £50,000 gross per week.
The second opening was in Plymouth in mid-October and was the largest Revolution to date at approximately 8,000 square feet of customer space. Trading in its first two weeks was also described as ahead of expectations.
The group has exchanged contracts on a new site in the centre of Liverpool, Inventive’s third site in the city and the largest of the three, at around 6,000 square feet of customer space. The venue is due to open just prior to Christmas. Work also continues at Chiswick and with plans to open early in the New Year.
Inventive is also waiting for planning permission to convert a site in Beaconsfield to a Revolution, with plans to open next summer. The opening, along with others in the pipeline will take the Revolution estate to 43 sites.
The group said that it was continuing to seek new sites.
