Thwaites, the Lancashire brewer and pub operator, intends to invest between £3m and £3.5m in around 40 pubs during this financial year, chief executive Rick Bailey has told M&C Report.
The company invested in 46 pubs in the year to 31 March at a cost of £3.9m.
“We’ve done a range of developments, from smaller refurbishments from low-10s of thousands of pounds to some really big refurbishments; we did one investment this year that was about £500-600,000.
“We want our pubs to be the best on the block and where we’ve had to do structural work to make the pub work better, we’ve been doing that for a few years to position them more towards food, in some instances, but also we’ve been investing in bedrooms.
“We’ve got a plan this year to do about 40-odd projects and we’ve set aside between £3m and £3.5m. Over the past four to five years we’ve invested between £15m and £20m in the pubs.”
Thwaites made 15 disposals in the year and Bailey said he “wouldn’t be surprised if we see a similar number this year”.
On acquisitions, he said: “We didn’t find anything last year that particularly satisfied all of our criteria and it’s a competitive market. But we think we’d like to make more acquisitions and we think we will this year.”
Thwaites saw profits before tax and exceptionals grow from £6m to £7.8m in the year to 31 March following the culmination of a three-year restructure process at the company.
Turnover grew 2% to £138.7m. Pre-exceptional operating profits fell 2% to £10.3m; Bailey attributed this to a higher depreciation charge mitigating the growth in EBITDA due to the higher level of investments in recent years.
Turnover in the Beer Company and Pubs divisions decreased by 1% to £96m, “due primarily to the exit from contract work in the brewery in the early part of the year”. Turnover in the Hotels and Inns increased by 9%.
Bailey said: “We’ve been invested hard which has seen our EBITDA grow and our turnover grow. We’ve had a lot of disruption in the Inns this year from investment, where we’ve had properties shut, and they’re well placed to grow next year.”
