Hollywood Bwl Regulatory News (BOWL)

10 April 2019

Hollywood Bowl Group plc

("Hollywood Bowl" or the "Group")

Half Year Trading Update

Continued strong revenue growth with good progress in new centre programme

Hollywood Bowl, the UK's largest ten-pin bowling operator, is pleased to announce a trading update for the six months ended 31 March 2019.

The Group has continued to trade well through the first half of the financial year with total revenue growth of 5.3% and like-for-like ("LFL") revenue growth of +4.4%. This strong performance, across all our revenue lines, has been driven by the continued successful execution of our simple and effective customer-led strategy.

Further organic growth has been delivered through our focus on enhancing our customer experience through the ongoing investment in technology, the trialling and rollout of proven initiatives, all while maintaining our competitive price point.

Our refurbishment programme remains on track with the refurbishment of High Wycombe Hollywood Bowl, and the rebrand and refurbishment of Wigan AMF to a Hollywood Bowl, both completed in the first half. We expect to complete our target of between seven and nine refurbishments this financial year. 

The Group continues to trade in line with the Board's expectations for the full year.

Two new centres opened

We successfully opened two new centres in the first half of this year, in line with our target to open an average of two new centres per annum. Our 59th centre in Watford opened in December 2018 and our 60th, which opened in late March 2019 is the largest bowling centre to open in the UK in the last ten years. This new 34,000 sq. ft. centre is based in the new leisure extension at intu Lakeside, in the same catchment area as the AMF Gravesend centre which closed in July 2018 following an end of lease redevelopment plan.

We have a strong pipeline of new centres secured to the end of FY2022 and we continue to focus on looking for high quality locations which meet our strict investment criteria.

Stephen Burns, Chief Executive Officer of Hollywood Bowl Group, said:

"I am delighted to report a strong start to the year, as our continued focus on customer experience underpinned another consecutive period of LFL sales growth, with a successful Christmas and New Year period. We are pleased with our half year performance, with results in line with our expectations. We remain focused on delivering further organic growth through our ongoing investment in technology, refurbishments and our new centre programme, supported by our teams who work hard to ensure that every customer enjoys their time in our centres."

The Group expects to report its interim results for the six months ended 31 March 2019 on Thursday 23 May 2019

Enquiries:

Notes to Editors:

Hollywood Bowl Group is the UK's largest ten-pin bowling operator, with a high quality portfolio of 60 profitable centres operating across the UK under the Hollywood Bowl and AMF brands. The Group specialises in operating large, high quality bowling centres, predominantly located in out of town multi-use leisure parks (typically co-located with cinema and casual dining sites) and large retail parks. The centres are designed to offer a complete family entertainment experience with each centre offering bowling lanes, on-site dining, licensed bars, and state-of-the-art family games arcades.