Five Guys UK reports £150m turnover: Five Guys JV, the UK joint venture between Sir Charles Dunstone and Five Guys founders Janie and Jerry Murrell and their three sons, has reported turnover rose by 23% to £149.6m in the year to 28 December 2018. Ten stores opened during the year and one closed to leave the store count at 88 – the company incurred onerous lease expenses and impairment costs totalling £1.5m. Five Guys reported extreme weather conditions and the adverse impact of the World Cup produced a challenging start to 2018 but the company ‘performed exceptionally well in the later part of the year’. It stated: “Delivery proves to be an exciting new revenue stream and continues to help the business grow and reach out to new customers. In 2019, two stores have closed and the company plans to open ten to 15 new restaurants.” In 2018, the group secured a new £100m bank facility from Goldman Sachs to aid UK and European expansion and to repay UK shareholder debt, significantly reducing the cost of debt. The new bank debt has been secured at Libor plus 6%. Previous bank debt was £35m and shareholder debt is being reduced by £25m. Operating profit was £7,125,945 (2017: £7,730,023) whilst the loss before tax for the period was £3,948,905 compared to £3,067,383 the year before. In Europe, Five Guys more than doubled in size, opening 17 stores, taking the total number to 29. The company stated: “Stores continue to perform in line with expectations and we anticipate doubling our store number again in 2019. As store numbers expand overheads will be covered and we anticipate all countries to start covering overheads excluding pre-opening costs in the second half of 2019.” Revenue in Europe is circa £57m.

BigDish to launch in Brighton next week: BigDish, the food technology company that operates a yield management platform for restaurants, is to launch in Brighton next week. It stated: “The company believes that Brighton is a significant location for BigDish and upon launch expects to increase the restaurant numbers quickly. The company aims to have all Territory Managers in place across the United Kingdom, subject to finding suitable candidates, by early September. BigDish is (also) pleased to announce the launch of its Brand Ambassador Program. Following discussions with celebrities and well-known personalities over recent months, the company expects to announce the first Brand Ambassador in due course. The role of brand ambassadors will be to act as influencers in order to increase user acquisition and customer engagement. This is expected to be achieved through social media, video advertisements and attending key events. Brand ambassadors will be remunerated in shares rather than cash and any shares will have a restricted period from being able to sell. As such, the company has issued 12,000,000 shares that are ring fenced for the Brand Ambassador Program. The company expects to sign up several brand ambassadors and to launch various media initiatives from the fourth quarter of this year onwards as BigDish increases its national footprint.” Chief executive Sanj Naha said: “It has been a very busy period for BigDish with the recruitment strategy. Having all territory managers in place across the United Kingdom by September would drive our growth, as well as having additional developers and restaurant and customer support personnel in Manila. Having worked previously at booking platforms such as TripAdvisor and Bookatable, I am aware of the importance of ensuring that every part of the business is built for scale. The recent focus on account management in our first two territories is very healthy for us at this stage. The summer period enables us to put our heads down and work hard on the ‘non visible’ aspects of the business. From September onwards, I expect BigDish to be firing on all cylinders across the whole country. I have also been particularly pleased with ongoing interest in BigDish from restaurant groups. I am confident that we will see restaurant groups on the BigDish platform in due course. It has been a deliberate strategy to date to only approach independent restaurants and small groups. This has been done to ensure that the platform has a good selection of cuisines and restaurants and is not dominated by one particular brand. The launch of our brand ambassador program is a fantastic milestone for the company. I believe that this will significantly boost our user acquisition strategy as well as bringing national awareness of BigDish both to the general public and to the restaurant sector. It is also great to see brand ambassadors becoming aligned with the vision of the company by becoming long term shareholders.”