Tue 29th Sep 2015 - Revolution Bars Group reports sales and profits up Revolution Bars Group reports sales and profits up: Revolution Bars Group has reported sales rose 2.9% to £111.8m in the year ended 30 June. Like-for-like sale rose 3% and it had record profits, as measured by adjusted Ebitda of £14.6m. Five new sites will open this year, three before Christmas. The company was debt-free at 30 June. It reported adjusted profit before tax of £8.3m (2014: £7.4m). Chairman Keith Edelman said: “The future, in a highly competitive and changing market, is an exciting one and one in which the board and management are highly alert to the challenges created. Our performance in 2015 has given us a solid platform and our current pipeline of new bars gives us the confidence that we can grow the footprint of the group. With a clear strategy and our depth of management experience, we remain confident that the business is well positioned for future growth and we expect to make continued progress in 2016.” Chief executive Mark McQuater said: “I am delighted that Revolution Bars Group is now a public listed company after having had several successful years of private equity ownership. With our listing, I believe we will have an even greater opportunity to implement our strategic plan to grow our proven, successful brands. The company has a well-established track record in both creating and growing stand-out national brands in the drink and food retail sector and this forms the basis of our strategic plan. I would highlight in particular: our clear strategic plan for organic growth; strong results for FY15 with positive like-for-like performance across both brands; and confirmed development pipeline with attractive sites across the UK. Like-for-like sales in the first ten weeks of the year to 30 June 2016 have been in line with FY15. The underlying result, as measured by adjusted Ebitda, was £14.6 million, representing a £1.4 million increase year on year as the Group benefited from significant brand repositioning and upgrade to create a more food-friendly environment, as well as introducing more premium products. Enhanced commercial arrangements also supported the performance. This was a record financial performance for the business. Our strategy continues to focus on: providing our customers with an exceptional and premium drinks and food experience; continued profit improvement from existing sites; and estate expansion through organic growth for both brands. I believe there is more to achieve within the existing estate. We have already benefited from capital investment so that we now have a highly invested estate. We have also seen benefits from changing and strengthening our products, particularly within the cocktails category, and from improved commercial arrangements. But there is always more to do. We strive to improve all areas of our business by constantly finding new ways to keep our bars and products relevant and appealing. The Group’s national brands, uniquely in the sector, focus on a core of female customers in the 20 to 40 age bracket, who value strongly our highly invested, quality environment, service standards and range of premium products. The high value placed on our retail brands by our core customer groups drives significant levels of loyalty and frequency of visit. Our drinks sales have grown as we have launched a new cocktail range and successfully migrated customers into our new premium range of wines, beers, ciders and spirits. Further developing our catering skills remains another central objective as many customers prefer to blend the food and drink occasion. This was successfully driven with a new burger range in the year, new menus and the introduction of a “specials” section that changes regularly. The Group is one of the leaders in the sector at communicating and marketing to customers. We have a strong and growing presence on social media with 550,000 Facebook friends and around one million live email and mobile contacts on our database. This substantial digital presence matches the user habits of our core customer group. During the year we successfully renewed our principal drinks supply contract with Matthew Clark. This now secures a key supply and logistics component of our business for a further three years. The listing of our Company has assisted us greatly in the property market and I am delighted that we already have five planned openings for next year. Three of these will be open prior to our key Christmas trading period. We are reviewing many opportunities and assessing all potential new sites against our rigorous and proven investment criteria. We will only proceed on those units that meet our challenging return on capital criteria. We are planning to open five new outlets in our financial year ending 30 June 2016. We will open Revolución de Cuba venues in Milton Keynes, Leeds and Nottingham before Christmas.”