Wed 30th Sep 2015 - Coaching Inn reports profits doubled, record JW Lees results Coaching Inn Group doubles profits as turnover tops £10m: The Coaching Inn Group, led by Kevin Charity, has doubled its profits and increased turnover to over £10m as its extensive investment programme continues. Reporting its audited accounts for the last financial year, the recently renamed company – previously Bulldog Hotels – saw turnover to March 2015 reach £10,065,972, a 22% increase on last year’s figure of £8,283,773. Operating profit before exceptional deal costs more than doubled from £388,500 to £800,000 and pre-tax profit climbed to £510,000 from £271,000 the previous year. Across the group’s seven quality coaching inns operated in the last financial year, site level Ebitda reached £2m – an average of £285,000 per site – with food and beverage accounting for 68% of revenue. Finance director Edward Walsh said: “We’ve seen excellent growth across the estate, with investments at the Old Bridge, Holmfirth and the Three Swans, Market Harborough in particular helping to drive turnover over £10m. The resulting growth in site level profitability has been key in helping us to secure further external investment and gives us a strong platform for the next stage of our development. With the completed acquisition of the Royal Oak in Welshpool and two further sites expected to complete in October, we remain ahead of our acquisition target for the year as we aim to double the size of the estate before the end of 2018.” The Coaching Inn Group operates individually styled coaching inns, each with an all-day offer, across the UK and has built a strong reputation in the industry for transforming under-performing establishments into busy and profitable businesses. The company, chaired by Andrew Guy, saw investment from the Business Growth Fund this year and is in advanced negotiations for two more sites. Its Talbot Inn site in Oundle, Northamptonshire, is currently Routiers Hotel of the Year. JW Lees reports record year: JW Lees has posted a record year in the 12 months to 31 March 2015 with turnover at £64m (+£1.1m/+1.8%) and pre-tax profits at £5.6m (+£1m/+22.3%). During the year JW Lees invested £4.9m in its business including the acquisition of three new pubs, The Parrswood in Didsbury, The Kingfisher in Kirkham and The Hinchliffe in Cragg Vale. There have been several senior personnel changes with Tony Spencer joining in July 2015 as director of retail with the brief to lead the growth of JW Lees managed pubs and hotels division. Roy Ellis, co-founder of Inventive Leisure, and Collette Roche, director of Manchester Airport Group, both joined JW Lees as non-executive advisers during the year succeeding Sally Hopson, chief executive of Pets at Home Vet Group, and Stephen Kalton, founder of Watling Street Inns, who both stepped down. Other highlights included Moonraker winning a gold medal at the CAMRA Winter Ales Festival, JW Lees winning the Family Business United 2015 Northern Family Business of the Year and JW Lees team members collecting a total profit-share of £440,812 as a result of the company’s strong results. During the year the company sold some land ancillary to its pub estate and used this as an opportunity to accelerate the churn of 12 bottom end pubs, meaning that JW Lees has now has an estate of 149 pubs comprising 36 managed houses, 111 tenancies and two hotels. William Lees-Jones, sixth generation managing director of JW Lees said: “2015 has been a landmark year for JW Lees and we believe that our strong values and no-nonsense ‘Be Yourself’ approach are at the heart of our success. We have delivered against our five-year plan that we drew up following the challenges and effects of the ban on smoking in public places. Aggregated sales over the last five years from 2010 to 2015 have been £297m and aggregated pre-tax profits in the same period of £23.1m: this means that pre-tax profits over the five years have grown by 60% in total with steady growth in most years and pre-tax profits before property disposals at £3.5m, £3.9m, £5.2m, £4.6m and £5.6m in each year. JW Lees is a long-term family business and we are proud to continue to build a high-quality brewing and pub business. We are attracting top talent to work with us including our new and now expanded graduate trainee programme and in 2015 we created 66 new jobs including a series of high level appointments who will help us with the capacity that we need to deliver future growth. We see the government’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’ strategy as a great opportunity for JW Lees to cement our position as the leading vertically integrated brewer in the north west of England.”