(Alliance News) - Fulham Shore PLC on Thursday reported a significant jump in annual revenue, underpinned by a "steadily rising number of customers per week".
For the year ended March 27, the London-based Franco Manca and The Real Greek owner swung to a pretax profit of GBP3.9 million from a loss of GBP7.5 million the year before.
Revenue more than doubled to GBP82.7 million from GBP40.3 million. The company said this increase was driven by the "return to unrestricted trading since the middle of July 2021".
Covid-19 curbs had hampered most of the previous financial year.
Fulham Shore said Franco Manca serves well over 100,000 customers each week, and more than 310,000 customers are registered to the Franco Manca loyalty app, which is an increase of almost 50% compared to the year before.
Separately, Fulham Shore said The Real Greek performed even more strongly, aided by some new openings. "These included two new restaurants in Manchester which opened within a few weeks of each other and quickly became amongst the group's strongest performing Real Greek sites by revenue," it noted.
It said headline earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation more than doubled to GBP20.3 million from GBP9.0 million a year earlier. Fulham Shore said its effective cost saving measures in both variable and fixed costs reduced the cost base of the group.
As at 20 July 2022, the group operated 89 restaurants. It said it aims to have around 100 locations by the spring of next year, including the 18 new sites that it plans to open in the current financial year to March 2023. Fulham Shore said it now regularly takes over GBP2 million per week in net group revenue.
Executive Chair David Page said: "The group continued to make excellent strategic progress, investing in new restaurants across the UK and creating jobs. During the year we opened 10 new restaurants across Franco Manca and The Real Greek and signed an exciting franchise agreement for Franco Manca in Greece. We have continued this momentum in the current year to date and have an excellent pipeline of new sites as we continue to grow our two outstanding restaurant businesses."
The company declared no dividend for financial 2022, unchanged from the prior year.
Shares were up 8.9% at 12.53 pence each on Thursday afternoon in London.
By Xindi Wei; xindiwei@alliancenews.com
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