San Carlo Group reports record turnover of £76.9m: San Carlo Group has reported turnover increased to a record £76,949,811 for the year ending 30 September 2023 compared with £68,942,784 the previous year. The company – which operates 24 sites in the UK, eight in the Middle East and one in Bangkok, under brands including San Carlo, Cicchetti and Signor Sassi – saw pre-tax profit fall to £2,657,847 from £3,571,603 the year before. The group incurred exceptional costs of £1,236,096, which included £679,893 arising from a major refurbishment of its restaurant in Liverpool. In their report accompanying the accounts, the directors stated: “During the year the group opened a new site in Alderley Edge as well as a major refurbishment of the San Carlo site in Liverpool. Both sites have traded very well since opening and ahead of expectation. Post year-end, the business continues to grow and is currently completing a relocation of the Cicchetti Piccadilly site, and has refurbished and re-opened the Flying Pizza site in Leeds, a restaurant that celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2024. At the period end, the group had shareholders’ funds of £11,383,599 (2022: £9,607,947).” A dividend of £157,595 was paid (2022: £57,595). The company is just starting on the build stage for its first opening in the US, in Miami, and speaking at Propel’s Multi-Club Conference in April, San Carlo Group chief executive Marcello Distefano said there are great opportunities overseas for premium dining concepts. He added: “We’ve got an opening in Bahrain coming up. We’ve got Morocco and Egypt in the pipeline, and one in Vietnam. There are huge amounts of opportunity with a lot of these places, because there’s very little in the premium end of the market especially from international brands. I think the world’s become a much smaller place. Successful brands, especially in London, are wanted and looked for. So, I think the opportunities are there internationally. Because of tax laws and not having maybe the same business rates and all that kind of stuff, the potential for Ebitda generation in some cases we’ve seen is double what we can achieve in the UK.”
Premium Club members to receive new searchable and segmented New Openings Database this week: The next Propel New Openings Database will be sent to Premium Club members on Friday (5 July). For the first time, it will also be delivered in an easy to search excel sheet and segmented into seven key categories of cafe bakery, casual dining, experiential leisure, fine dining, hotels, pubs and bars and quick service restaurants. The database will show the details of 160 site openings, including which company has opened a site or its plans to open one in the future. It will have details on what type of site it is and its location, and there will also be a website link to the businesses. The database is published on a monthly basis and Premium Club members will also receive a 12,356-word report on the 160 new additions to the database. It includes new openings in the casual dining sector such as
Shrimp Shack opening its second site;
Giggling Squid increasing its presence with an opening in London; and
Dhakaah, a new Bangladeshi restaurant opening in Camden. Premium Club members also receive access to five other databases:
the Turnover & Profits Blue Book; the Multi-Site Database, produced in association with Virgate; the UK Food and Beverage Franchisor Database, the UK Food and Beverage Franchisee Database and
the Who’s Who of UK Hospitality. Plus, all Premium Club members will be offered a 20% discount on tickets to Propel paid-for events including Social Media for Profit (18 July), the Talent and Training Conference (1 October) and Restaurant Marketer and Innovator (two days in January 2025). Operators that are Premium Club members are also able to send up to four members of staff to each of our four Multi-Club Conferences for free. Premium Club members receive their daily Propel Info newsletter 11 hours earlier than standard subscribers, at 7pm the evening before. They also receive videos of presentations at eight Propel conference events two weeks after they are held. This represents around 100 videos of industry insight over the course of the year. Premium Club members will be sent a dedicated monthly newsletter that will highlight key updates in the sector and direct subscribers to all the vital content their membership offers. Premium Club members also receive exclusive opinion columns every Friday at 5pm, which include the thoughts of Propel group editor Mark Wingett and a host of industry leaders from across the sector. 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.
UK economy ‘will grow faster than forecast’: The economy is poised to grow more rapidly than initial forecasts with the economy “turning a corner”, according to new forecasts. The Times reported that consultancy KPMG has said GDP growth is set to rise to 0.5% this year from 0.1% last year. The 2024 growth rate was revised up from 0.3% in the firm’s previous projection. The economy is predicted to expand by 0.9%in 2025, helped by a series of cuts to interest rates by the Bank of England as inflation eases. KPMG said the bank’s base rate could fall towards 3% next year from its present 5.25%, a 16-year high. Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said: “Political uncertainty will now resolve sooner with a summer election and a potential fiscal event in the autumn, setting out the new government’s economic agenda. This could be aided by gradual cuts in interest rates, which look likely despite a small rise in inflation above its target expected later this year.” Evidence suggests the incoming government is set to benefit from more settled economic conditions after the election. Inflation has fallen to the bank’s 2% target for the first time since July 2021 and last week the Office for National Statistics upwardly revised its estimate for first-quarter GDP growth to 0.7%, from 0.6% previously. The bank is expected to start cutting interest rates at its next meeting on 1 August. KPMG predicted that a slowdown in prices growth could convince the central bank to lower the base rate several times over the next 18 months. However, the consultancy warned that, despite growth picking up, the next government would face a challenging fiscal environment.
Des Gunewardena to invest £10m in London Olympia opening, sees opportunities to expand overseas: Des Gunewardena, co-founder and former chief executive of restaurant group D&D London, will invest £10m opening his third site – and said he sees opportunities to expand overseas. Propel revealed in April that Gunewardena was to launch a new flagship venue in London’s Olympia and was in advanced talks to open a venue in Pillar Hall, a circa 30,000 square-foot space, which is part of the Olympia development. Gunewardena told The Times he plans a £10m restaurant, bar and events space. The new site, which is due to open next year, will become the third restaurant for D3 Collective, Gunewardena new hospitality company. The first, set to open on Thursday (4 July) is a 5,000 square-foot Japanese-Korean venue with a “1920s Berlin vibe” at the Royal Exchange in the City of London; while the second will be a 10,000 square-foot site in Canary Wharf, east London, due to open in November. The Olympia restaurant is part of a £1.3bn redevelopment of the 14-acre site spearheaded by Yoo Capital and Deutsche Finance International. Their aim is to turn the 138-year-old site into a state-of-the-art culture and entertainment hub. There will be a main restaurant, a less formal café-grill, a central bar, outdoor dining and a basement “speakeasy”. It will feature a 370-capacity music and events space that will cater for a wide range of events. As the 200-room Hyatt Regency hotel next door does not have its own restaurant, D3 Collective will supply breakfast in Pillar Hall. Gunewardena told The Times that, despite its location in an exhibition centre, the new hospitality venue would produce “a menu that is purely destination, not appealing to crowds of people. We’re aiming to be a world-class restaurant”. Although his wife declared three restaurants to be “quite enough”, he said: “I don’t think that is going to be the case. There are lots of opportunities and sites being offered to my company and I think that as the company develops there will be more overseas moves.” He said he had been to Mumbai and had talked to a well–established business about opening there, while he had seen great opportunities in the United States. On funding, Gunewardena said the first site at Royal Exchange had been financed by family money, while Giles Rothwell, a former investment banker with Barclays Capital and a close friend, was backing Olympia. “So I have no private equity and no bank debt. It’s a different way in which I’m building my new world,” he said.
