Mitchells & Butlers announces its half year results today (for the 28 weeks ended 13 April 2019). The group sees a return to profit growth and continued market outperformance in each of its segments. Mother’s Day has been hailed as a record-breaker – the third highest taking day for M&B ever, one of which was Christmas this year.
Trading results:
- Like-for-like sales(a) growth of 4.1% in the first half
- Adjusted operating profit(a) growth of £10m to £151m (H1 2018 £141m)
- Adjusted earnings per share(a) growth of 15.8% to 16.1p (H1 2018 13.9p)
Operational highlights:
- Strong first half with market outperformance and return to profit growth
- Improved returns from capital programme with 208 projects completed
- Sales focused initiatives driving improved performance across the portfolio
- Efficiencies resulted in increased operating margin of 12.7% (H1 2018 12.5%)
Reported results:
- Total revenue of £1,186m (H1 2018 £1,130m)
- Operating profit of £140m (H1 2018 £137m)
- Profit before tax of £75m (H1 2018 £69m)
- Basic earnings per share of 14.3p (H1 2018 13.0p)
Balance sheet and cash flow:
- Capital expenditure of £90m (H1 2018 £104m), including 2 new site openings and 206 conversions and remodels (H1 2018 220)
- Adjusted free cash flow(a) of £23m (H1 2018 £(3)m)
- Net debt reduced to £1.63bn (H1 2018 £1.72bn) representing 3.8 times adjusted EBITDA(a) (H1 2018 4.1 times)
Phil Urban, Chief Executive, commented “This is a strong set of results, demonstrating that we continue to build momentum in the business, delivering sales growth, sustained market outperformance(b) and a return to operating profit growth all while reducing leverage to below four times. This strong performance comes from the progress we continue to make in our three priority areas: building a more balanced business; instilling a more commercial culture; and driving an innovation agenda.
Success in this highly competitive market is dependent on a continuous stream of improvements, and that is what we are delivering with many small advances at site level driving significant benefits in aggregate. We will maintain our focus on these initiatives which we believe are transforming the business.”
Definitions:
a – The Directors use a number of alternative performance measures (APMs) that are considered critical to aid the understanding of the Group’s performance. Alternative performance measures are explained later in this announcement.
b – As measured by the Coffer Peach business tracker.
All disclosed documents relating to these results are available on the Group’s website at www.mbplc.com