Wetherspoon highlights government’s serious pandemic response flaws: JD Wetherspoon has produced a 23 page online edition of Wetherspoon News, its pub magazine, with articles from leading academics, doctors and other commentators, highlighting serious flaws in the government’s reaction to coronavirus. In addition, Wetherspoon is producing a 120 page edition of the print magazine, which will be available in the company’s pubs from 3 December. Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin said: “When pubs reopened after the first lockdown in July, a sensible set of regulations was agreed between UK Hospitality, the civil service, local authorities and other interested parties. These regulations worked well, trade slowly recovered from very low levels and transmissions of the virus in pubs, as verified by the test and trace system, were extremely low. However, since then, the rules have constantly changed, without consultation, on an arbitrary basis, causing mayhem, unemployment and economic dislocation across the hospitality industry. No one in the government seems to have any experience of running a business – and their current policies seem destined to cause the loss of a million jobs in hospitality, with further ‘ripple effect’ job losses throughout the economy. A range of articles in the Wetherspoon magazine takes issue with the government. For example, Jonathan Sumption, a former Supreme Court judge, says that the government has used fear tactics and emergency powers, in an unconstitutional way, undermining civil liberties and democracy. Kamran Abbasi, executive director of the British Medical Journal says that “covid-19 has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale”, by pressure for “political and financial gain”. Oliver Shah, business editor of the Sunday Times, says “most SAGE members have never had to meet a payroll or rent quarter date” and refers to “Johnson and his punch-drunk government stumbling after the Pied Piper onto a barren mountainside where commerce and employment count for nothing”. Dr Mike Yeadon, Professor Johan Giesecke and others excoriate faulty research from Imperial College and SAGE, upon which the government frequently relies. Freelance journalist Ross Clark, writing in the Daily Mail, undermines much of the evidence the government uses to justify its actions – effectively unchallenged, as Wetherspoon News highlights, by the government itself. The most disturbing aspect of government behaviour is its lack of candour. It is now purporting to end lockdown in December. However, for pubs on tier two and tier three, lockdown, in effect, continues and unprofitable trading is certain to continue for the indefinite future – combined with the impossibility of making plans in the face of capricious and unpredictable regulations.”

Compass Group reports it is well-positioned for the future: Compass Group, the world’s largest contract caterer, has reported sales down 18.8% to £20.2bn in the year to 30 September. Underlying profit was down 71.2% to £533m. Chief executive Dominic Blakemore said: “2020 was a challenging year for Compass. I am extremely proud of how the organisation responded to the pandemic. I have been humbled by the commitment of our people in the face of unprecedented adversity and want to thank them for their continued dedication and hard work. We began the year on track to deliver our strongest performance ever, and over the course of a fortnight in March, we saw the containment measures to stop the spread of covid-19 close half of the business. We rapidly enhanced our health and safety protocols, mitigated our costs, increased our liquidity and strengthened our balance sheet. Through the summer, our performance began to improve slowly as we helped clients in education and business and industry return to schools and offices safely. Importantly, in the fourth quarter we returned the business to profitability and are now cash neutral. This was achieved mainly through contract renegotiations to reflect the difficult trading environment, continued discipline in terms of costs and some improvement in volumes. We are executing at pace and expect the underlying operating margin in the first quarter of 2021 will be around 2.5%. Although the prospects of a vaccine are encouraging, the resumption of lockdowns in some of our major markets shows that we have to continue to take proactive actions to control the controllable and ensure the business can thrive despite the ongoing pandemic. We are innovating and evolving our operating model to be more flexible and to provide our clients and consumers with an exciting offer that is delivered safely and provides great value. This combined with our existing scale, ability to flex costs and focus on operational execution, will allow us to return to a group underlying margin above 7% before we return to pre-covid volumes. The scope for growth from first time outsourcing and share gains is significant. In addition, we have a strong pipeline of new business in healthcare and seniors, education and defence, offshore and remote that will diversify and broaden our revenue base. We are investing in the business organically and inorganically to support our long term growth prospects, enhance our competitive advantages, and further consolidate our position as the industry leader in food services. We are improving the quality of the business and will emerge from the pandemic stronger than we’ve ever been. We recognise the importance of the dividend to our shareholders and the board looks forward to reinstating it when considered appropriate. Finally, we remain as excited as ever about the significant structural growth opportunities globally, the potential for further revenue and profit growth, and returns to shareholders over time.”