Fri 10th Oct 2014 - Results - Soho House, Black Sheep, D&D Soho House pushes UK turnover up 12.3%: Soho House, which operates members' clubs, restaurants and hotels in London, Berlin, New York, Los Angeles and Toronto, has reported a rise in UK turnover for the period ending 29 December of 12.3% over 2012, to £73.3m. In a financial statement issued by Companies House, Soho House UK Ltd said gross profit was £58.02m, up 5.6% from £52.46m in 2012. However, after depreciation, pre-opening costs and exceptional items, operating profit was just £880,000, down from £3.91m in 2012, and a £3.11 loss on the disposal of fixed assets, up from 2.6m in 2012, meant a lost before tax of £2.23n, against a profit in 2012 of £1.28m. Adjusted ebitda was up 3.8% to £9.3m, with ebitda at Babington House up 23.2%, at Dean Street Townhouse up 22.4% and at Hoxton Grill up 29.2%. The adjusted ebitda margin, excluding proceeds from the insurance claim after a fire at the Electric House in 2012 was up 1.5 percentage points at 11.7%, although the gross profit margin slipped 1.2 percentage points to 79.1. Staff costs rose for the year to £27.1m from £24.3m. The group, which runs some 19 food outlets in London, including three under the Pizza East brand, four Dirty Burger outlets and four Chicken Shops, as well as the Soho Kitchen and Bar, Cafe Boheme and Cecconi's, said it was continuing to look for opportunities to expand the Soho House brand at home and abroad. Soho House Limited, which controls the UK and European interests of Soho House Group, including several of its UK restaurants not under Soho House UK, reported that turnover for Pizza East Ltd was up £2.6m to £11.2m for the 52 weeks ending 29 December 2013, with gross profit improving 1.1 percentage points to 73%, and adjusted ebitda for the period of £2.4m, up from £1.8m. In the first quarter of 2014, its Cowshed subsidiary opened a new spa in Primrose Hill, North London and a concession spa at Selfridges in London. Black Sheep 'on track to return to profit': The Yorkshire brewer Black Sheep is on track to deliver its planned return to profitability after entering the keg beer market , the company's chairman and founder, Paul Theakston, said yesterday. In a statement with the company's accounts for the year ended 31 March 2014, Theakston said operating profit had recovered from a loss of more than half a million pounds in 2012/3 to £19,000 in the black for 2013/4, and "I am glad to be able to say that after three months of trading in the current year, we are on track to deliver our planned return to profitability. Turnover slipped 2.1% to $18.4m, with gross profit at £4.71m, down from £4.85m. The off trade's share of business grew from 26% to 32%, with volume growth of 15%. The on trade "remains a challenge, especially for cask Best Bitter," managing director Robert Theakston said, "but we have countered that with a solid seasonal cask range of beers, produced as a result of the five-barrel micro plant that we installed in 2013. In addition, our keg Best Bitter roll-out through the second half of the year has been very positively received and is starting to deliver some good volume in the sort of venues that in the past have not suited cask beer, such as hotels and sports clubs. This is an additional and completely fresh market for us." Overheads ere cut by £500,000 during the year, Robert Theakston said, and the loss before tax had been reduced from £740,000 to £182,000. Black Sheep paid just over £7.5m in duty during the year, and Theakston said  the company continued to lobby to alter the structure of Progressive Beer Duty, which was currently distorting the pricing in the market", to allow all brewers, and not just the smallest, to benefit. D&D restaurants 'to pass £100m barrier in 2014': Sales at D&D London, the  fine dining group that owns restaurants including Bluebird, Quaglino's, Le Pont de la Tour and Coq d'Argent, will top £100m barrier for the first time this year, Des Gunewardena, the company's eponymous chairman and chief executive, said today. Gunewardena said revenues for 2013 rose 18% to £93.1m and underlying profits rose 18%, with growth in D&D's City restaurants higher than those in the West End for the first time since the financial crash. Like-for-like turnover rose 7% in the last six months. This was an acceleration over last year when underlying sales grew by around 5%, Gunewardena said. He said: "In the past couple of years we have opened South Place Hotel and the restaurants at the Old Bengal Warehouse, bought Madison in the City, relaunched Avenue and now Quaglino's and this reflects the fact that we are very, very confident about the business in London. Revenue growth is the fastest we have seen in 10 years. This year feel like London is really back in the swing of things. Longer term we have secured a number of landmark restaurant sites which will deliver a continuation of growth in earnings in future years. We are also actively considering a number of sites for our second hotel after the critical and financial success of South Place." The group will invest more than £10m in the present financial year, he said.