Everyman – FY revenue and market share up, positive momentum in Q1 2025: Everyman, the independent, premium cinema group, has reported an increase in revenue and market share in the year to 2 January 2025, as it said it had seen positive momentum in Q1 2025. The company reported that admissions of 4.3m in the year (2023: 3.75m), up 15%. Group revenue stood £107.2m (2023: £90.9m), up 17.9%, with adjusted Ebitda of £16.2m (2023: £16.2m), flat year on year. It said that food and beverage spend per head was £10.64 (2023: £10.29), up 3.4%, while paid for average ticket price was £11.98 (2023: £11.65), up 2.8%. Its market share increased to 5.4% (2023: 4.8%), up 12.5%. It said that the positive momentum seen in Q1 2025, was driven by the film Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy. The company said that its measured expansion continues, with a new venue in Brentford opened last month and The Whiteley (Bayswater) to follow in Q3 2025. The group said it expects to further reduce leverage over the coming year, while maintaining its expansion. It said: “Having experienced significant disruption in 2024 arising from a lack of content due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, management expects a much improved and consistently-phased film slate in 2025 and beyond.” Key titles over the period include Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, Lilo & Stitch, F1, Superman, Downton Abbey 3, Wicked: For Good, and Avatar: Fire and Ash. Alex Scrimgeour, chief executive of Everyman, said: “Despite a heavily disrupted film slate in the first half of the year, we delivered strong growth across all key revenue generating metrics in 2024, with admissions, average spend and market share all up year-on-year. Our distinctive blend of film and hospitality continues to resonate with audiences and with a rapidly expanding membership base, it is clear that guests continue to choose Everyman. Our measured approach to expansion remains a priority, with two exciting new venues opening in 2025 and several further opportunities in the pipeline. With the impact of recent industry strikes now behind us, we are confident of strong performance in 2025 underpinned by a well-balanced, consistently-phased film slate.”

Carlsberg CEO says there will be ‘no winners’ from US tariff: Carlsberg’s chief executive has warned that the impact of US tariffs on already weak consumer spending means there will be “no winners”, even though the Danish brewer is “insulated” from the direct fallout of the levies. Carlsberg’s chief executive Jacob Aarup-Andersen told the FT that the brewer was largely protected because it sells only a small amount of beer to US consumers. However, he cautioned: “We look at it with the same concern as everyone else because this [risks] creating a slowdown in the global economy…that could impact consumer spending.” European businesses with less direct exposure to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on US imports are bracing themselves for aftershocks, including the potential dent to already fragile consumer confidence, inflationary pressures and the impact of diverted exports on demand and raw material costs. “There are no winners…but from a Carlsberg perspective, this [will not have] a material impact,” Aarup-Andersen said. The US accounts for less than 0.1% of Carlsberg’s total volumes, with the bulk of its business in Europe and Asia. Aarup-Andersen said consumers had been subdued “for the better half of more than two years now” and that this was unlikely to change given the geopolitical uncertainty, heaping pressure on the company as it tries to build back sales volumes. Like the rest of the consumer goods sector, Carlsberg raised prices to pass on higher commodity costs to consumers during a period of runaway inflation. However, customers have started to balk at rising costs, hitting the company’s sales volumes. The Danish executive, who took the helm at Carlsberg in 2023, said the “big unknown” for the brewing industry was what would happen to the cost of the raw materials involved in beer production, including aluminium, glass and barley. Half of Carlsberg’s sales are now made up of low and no-alcohol products since the brewer completed its £3.3bn acquisition of UK soft drinks group Britvic in January. Aarup-Andersen said he had made the acquisition to scale up Carlsberg’s UK business, but also to pivot to faster-selling categories. Britvic’s brands include products such as 7Up, J20 and energy drink Rockstar. “Britvic are exposed to higher-growth categories than the traditional beer category,” he said. “And we’re strategically pivoting our business towards higher-growing categories, maintaining a strong core around our brewing business.”

Big Mamma Group to open Barbarella site in Canary Wharf: Big Mamma Group, the McWin-backed restaurant group, has confirmed that its upcoming site in London’s Canary Wharf will be called Barbarella and is going to be a retro-inspired self-styled “wild and jungle-themed city pad”. The company, which operates circa 30 sites across Europe, including sites in Madrid and six in the UK, will open on the former All Bar One site in the YY building on the South Colonnade. Hot Dinners reports that the business is taking over the ground and first floor, with the latter going to house a 70s-style chrome lounge bar. In total, there’s going to be room for 225 diners. The theme is inspired by the golden age of Roman cinema in the 70s. The all-Italian menu, presided over by head chef Marco Rastelli, will serve up Roman-style, extra-thin pizza. The bar upstairs will offer the group’s biggest cocktail menu to date, with pistachio espresso martinis alongside a range of vintage Italian wines. And outside, on the waterfront terrace, they’ll have a special gelato menu. Earlier this year, Big Mamma Group confirmed its plans to open a second UK site under its Circolo Popolare concept, in Manchester. The company will open the new Italian restaurant and bar in Gary Neville’s Relentless Developments’ St Michael’s scheme in the city’s Jackson Row. The group has also submitted plans to turn part of the ground floor of the former Scottish Provident building at 1-6 Lombard Street into a new restaurant. McWin, the investment firm of food industry entrepreneurs Henry McGovern and Steven Winegar, acquired a majority stake in the Big Mamma Group in September 2023. The long-term investment, made out of the McWin Restaurant Fund, saw Big Mamma Group valued at €270m. The investment will help the business expand further in its existing territories and into new ones, including the Middle East and the US.