JD Wetherspoon PLC (LON:JDW) said sales at its pubs continue to struggle despite most of its branches having reopened following the relaxation of UK Coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown restrictions.
In a trading update, the FTSE 250 pub chain said that as of July 4 850 of its 860 branches were now open, with the remaining closed pubs located mostly in airports.
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From April 12 to May 16, when only outdoor trading was permitted, the company reported that 500 of its pubs had opened but like-for-like (LFL) bar and food sales were down 49% compared to its pre-pandemic 2019 financial year.
This had improved to a 14.6% decline between May 17 and July 4, when the pubs were fully open, while from May 17 to June 10, before the start of the Euro 2020 football tournament LFL sales were down 8.1%.
However, Wetherspoons said the between June 10 and July 4, when the tournament was ongoing, LFL sales had slumped 20.8%, with the company saying it has not televised any of the matches apart from a “limited number of exceptions for individual matches”.
Looking ahead, the company’s chairman Tim Martin said its continues to expected to make a loss for the year to July 25, while also reiterating the group’s previous estimates that its new financial year beginning July 26 will be “in line with financial year 2019” based on the assumption that the UK’s lockdown restrictions will end this month.
The company also said it is proposing to enter discussions with lenders regarding waivers on its debts for the next financial year, predicting that its net debt will fall to £833mln by the end of its current financial year from £865mln on July 4.