Fri 18th Jul 2025 - JW Lees reports strong current trading after sales reach record £100m JW Lees reports strong current trading after sales reach record £100m, Budget to cost company extra £2m per year: North west brewer and retailer JW Lees has reported strong current trading after its sales reached a record £100m in the year to 31 March 2025. However, the company said chancellor Rachel Reeves’ October Budget is set to cost the business an extra £2m per year, and that it is lobbying the government to scrap its inheritance tax plans. JW Lees’ turnover for the year increased to £99.9m (2024: £95.8m) while its pre-tax profit stayed in line at £7.1m (2024: £7.1m). The company said: “Despite the headwinds during the course of the financial year and the significant shift in its cost base relative to prior to covid, JW Lees is pleased to report, with continued careful cost and financial management, the continued steady growth and progression of the business, enabling the company to achieve record sales and to maintain levels of profitability in the face of an increasing cost base. In the current year’s first 15 weeks commencing April 2025, JW Lees has experienced strong like-for-like retail sales growth of 8.6% and overall retail sales growth of 17.0%, with invested sites showing sales growth of 32.0%. In her first Budget on 30 October 2024, Rachel Reeves introduced several fiscal measures that will have a major cost impact on business and the hospitality sector in particular. For JW Lees, these changes have increased the company’s cost base by more than £2m per year, which represents nearly a third of pre-tax profits. Potentially even more significant for JW Lees, in her Budget, Reeves also announced major changes to UK inheritance tax, with effect from 6 April 2026, removing the benefit of 100% business relief, which allows family-owned businesses, like JW Lees, to be transferred from one generation to the next without a tax hit. JW Lees remains hopeful the government will listen to reason and decide not to enact the changes as announced, but the chancellor has not yet disclosed details of the changes, and so JW Lees continues to lobby for industry consultation to this change. JW Lees feel aggrieved that the government would want to disadvantage UK business at a time when business is fragile enough and the UK needs to offer domestic businesses incentives to grow the economy rather than taxing them to the hilt.” Managing director William Lees-Jones said: “We have been very lucky with the weather in the early part of the year but we brew great beer and have great pubs run by great people, and that’s why we’re outperforming the market. Our performance in our invested sites is particularly strong and we can see how much our guests enjoy the JW Lees pub experience, with guest satisfaction for the year running at 92%. That said, the increased costs that the chancellor imposed on us in her Budget mean the business will inevitably be less profitable, and so we need to be cautious and focus on productivity. We are calling on the chancellor to put measures in place to support hospitality in her next Budget, and this would mean a choice between the long-awaited review of business rates, lower VAT, lower beer duty or less onerous national insurance contributions.” The company said it invested £11m in its pubs in the year (2024: £8m) and sold one, The Park in Wythenshawe, for a profit of £184,000 (2024: £689,000 profit on disposals). It also acquired two more freeholds sites – The Craigside Manor Hotel Llandudno, a 20-bedroom hotel and pub, from Whitbread, and The Bellflower Pub and Kitchen in Garstang, from Marston’s. The company also continued its trial of a new retail agreement, whereby a retail operator runs a pub with direct responsibility for the operation of the site, including all of the wages, in return for a percentage of the sales. The company extended this trial into three sites and continues to review this operating format, with plans for three more sites that will be converted in the current year. The sites tend to be wet-led, with pub games, including live sports and darts, featuring heavily in the offering. The company said: “During 2025-26 JW Lees will continue to grow predominantly by investing in its existing estate and, where opportunities arise, with the acquisition of new freehold pubs, inns and hotels in the north west, as the company continues to build to its 200th anniversary in 2028.” The company is also now the exclusive brewer of Boddingtons cask ale, which it will brew and distribute under licence from Budweiser Brewing Group (BBG). As part of a new long-term partnership, BBG brands will also be available in JW Lees’ pubs. Lees-Jones added: “When I joined JW Lees in 1994, Boddingtons was ‘The Cream of Manchester’, and we were in awe of its position in leading the cask beer revolution. We are planning to put Boddingtons back where it rightly deserves to be, as one of the leading premium UK cask beers, particularly in our heartland of the north west. We also look forward to working with BBG, with its portfolio of market-leading lagers and premium packaged beers in our pubs.” JW Lees features in the Propel Turnover & Profits Blue Book, the latest version of which was set to Premium subscribers this week and features 1,138 companies. JW Lees’ turnover of £99.9m is the 125th highest in the database. A Premium Club subscription costs an annual sum of £495 plus VAT for operators and £595 plus VAT for suppliers. Companies can now have an unlimited number of people receive access to Premium Club for a year for £995 plus VAT – whether they are an operator or supplier. Email kai.kirkman@propelinfo.com today to sign up.