Hollywood Bowl Group PLC (LSE:BOWL) has described its performance for the year to end-September 2022 as “excellent” with resilient customer demand driving growth in revenue and profit.
Total revenue in the 12 months to September 30, 2022, was £184.9m, a rise of 42.3% compared with full-year 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Underlying profit (EBITDA) is expected to be up 40% on the £38.2mln achieved in 2019, ahead of market forecasts, the UK's largest ten-pin bowling operator said in a trading update.
“The group has continued its excellent momentum following a record first half with another period of strong trading and further growth”, Hollywood Bowl noted.
Like-for-like revenue growth was 28.3% compared with 2019, and in the UK, revenues rose to £178.7mln from £71.9mln last year and £129.9mln in 2019.
The company completed 10 refurbishments and rebrands during the year and opened three new centres. Two new centres, Hollywood Bowl Speke and Puttstars Peterborough, are due to open early in the current year, with two new Hollywood Bowl centres due on site in 2023. The company is aiming to open a further 10 centres before the end of 2025.
Hollywood Bowl said it is controlling costs and is “well insulated” from inflationary pressures. Its UK electricity costs are hedged to the end of full-year 2024, and its programme of solar panel installations is on track with a total of 22 centres now completed or under construction.
By simplifying its menus, the company said it has been able to keep food and drink costs competitively low for its customers. Meanwhile, labour costs account for less than 20% of revenue at centre level, it noted.
The company had net cash of £56mln as of end-September 2022 and an undrawn £25mln revolving credit facility.
It said it expects to pay a final ordinary dividend of at least 7.5p per share.
"Looking ahead, we see a significant opportunity to grow our business to more than 110 centres across our three experiential leisure brands: Hollywood Bowl and Puttstars in the UK and Splitsville in Canada,” said Stephen Burns, the company’s chief executive officer in the results statement.
“Our strong balance sheet and cash-generative business model, combined with our resilience to inflationary pressures will allow us to capitalise on this organic and international growth potential and continue to create value for all our stakeholders.," he added.
Hollywood Bowl shares climbed 3.16% higher to 212.00p in early trading Monday.