Young & Co’s Brewery PLC returned to profit last year and has resumed paying dividends.
The misleadingly named pubs group – it sold its brewing operations years ago – posted an adjusted profit before tax of £41.8mln in the year to end-March, compared to a loss the year before of £43.2mln.
Revenue bounced back to £309mln from £88.0mln the previous year, as Britain emerged from lockdown.
The company has recommended a full-year dividend of 18.81p, which is covered roughly three times by earnings per share of 58.83p.
Sales since the end of March have performed “extremely well”, the company said, with managed house revenue for the last 13 weeks up 17.0% versus the pre-pandemic levels of 2019; for the last five weeks managed house revenue was up 38.5% on the corresponding period of last year.
“We have found ourselves navigating challenges at nearly every turn, whether it be storms, floods and tube strikes, or the unwelcome arrival of the Omicron variant which hampered our Christmas trading. I am delighted to announce a strong set of results that marks a return to normalised profitability with unrestricted trading towards the end of the year,” said chief executive Patrick Dardis.
Dardis is set to step down from the helm at the company’s annual general meeting in July.
“We are looking forward to the extended Jubilee weekend where we hope to break more records. Young's are firmly back in business, with the firepower to deliver further growth," he declared.