Tue 7th Jan 2014 - Breaking News - Oakman Inns reports core sites Ebitda up 55% Oakman Inns five core sites report Ebitda of £1.5m: Oakman Inns and Restaurants, the award-winning operator led by Peter Borg-Neal, has reported group turnover rose by 18.77% to £8.98m in the year to 31 March 2013. The company made a loss of £844,000 after taking a bridging loan from shareholders to secure the freehold of the Crown and Thistle in Abingdon. Of the sum, £660,000 related to depreciation and £189,000 related to exceptional costs such as finance arrangement fees. The company five core sites – The Akeman, The Old Post Office, The Red Lion, The Kings Arms and the Blue Boar – grew like-for-like sales by 14.6% to £7.97m and Ebitda for the five grew 55.5% to £1.5m. Average sales per core Oakman site per week exceeded £30,000 per week and average Ebitda per mature site reached £300,000. The company stated: “Increase in administrative expenses and large singular costs associated with trading losses at The Crown and Thistle and legal fees, design fees and pre-opening costs relating to acquisitions negatively impacted on Ebitda. Despite these factors group Ebitda rose 5.7% to £244,000. Net cash flow from operating activities increased by 7% to £501,000. This sum comfortably covered our interest costs. Capital expenditure of £2.67m was funded by a net increase of £2.72m of financing which meant there was a net increase of cash of £122,000 over the year. We continue to pay our bank debt aggressively and that reduced by £328,000 to £1.458m over the course of the year. However, the increase in shareholder loans (mainly pertaining to the aforementioned bridging loan) meant that net debt increased by £1.992m to £5.654m.” Accommodation has become a significant part of the company sales mix reaching £610,000 for the year. The company’s sales mix is 40% wet and 60% dry and it aims for a 3.5 year pay-back on site refurbishments. In December last year, Oakman completed a £5.5m fund raising. Borg-Neal said last month: “The decision by the government in the 2012 Autumn Statement to extend the Enterprise Investment Scheme provided the opportunity we needed. In February this year we launched a new EIS fund-raising round. Our initial target was £4.5 million, but due to impending acquisitions we upped the target to £5.5 million. The entire sum was finally realised on 29 November 2013. All the funds taken in are either straight-forward equity or shareholder loan notes. In addition, all existing loan note holders agreed to novate their agreements for another three years. This leaves the business with a very strong balance sheet with circa £7m of equity, £3.9m of shareholder loans and (now) only £1.2m of bank debt (all of it secured via EFG and freehold property). We believe the value of the business, net of debt, is around £15m and our freehold property alone is worth over £7m.”