Rev Bars Share News (RBG)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Revolution Bars Group PLC on Friday posted a narrowed interim loss driven by higher revenue, but warned on lower earnings for the full-year due to a sales slump.

The company, which operates 79 bars under the Revolution and Revolution de Cuba brands also suspended its interim dividend payout. A year ago it paid an interim payout of 1.65 pence per share.

Shares in the company were trading down 15% at 67.38 pence each on Friday morning.

For the six months to December 29, the company posted a pretax loss of GBP3.5 million compared to GBP4.0 million in the comparative year ago period. Revenue increased to GBP78.5 million from GBP73.5 million, but on a like-for-like basis sales fell 4.0%.

Revolucion de Cuba saw positive like-for-like growth in the half as it prioritised investment in different offering.

"While Revolucion de Cuba has performed well and delivered growth in the reporting period, it is clear that the lack of investment into the Revolution proposition is impacting performance," Chief Executive Rob Pitcher said.

He added: "Revolution has been reviewed, the issues identified, and workstreams are being implemented to restore it to growth. Our confidence in achieving this is underpinned by the good performance of the new Revolution venues, while the recently refurbished sites are also seeing uplifts."

"We have therefore decided to prioritise the refurbishment programme over new openings. We expect trading to improve as we come up against softer comparatives for the rest of the financial year."

Looking at the current performance, the company said its third quarter has been challenging, with like-for-like sales down 7.3%, in the eight weeks to February 23.

The "slow start" to the second half means that the company now expects financial 2019 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to come in between GBP11 million and GBP12 million.

A year ago, Revolution Bars posted adjusted Ebitda of GBP15.0 million on revenue of GBP141.9 million and a pretax loss of GBP3.6 million.