Like his 5459 publicans Simon Townsend, the new chief executive of Enterprise Inns, is praying England go a long way in the World Cup.
“If I knew how well England will do I’d be down the bookies tomorrow,” said Townsend. “But we have put a lot of effort into marketing it for our publicans. Around 2000 of them have satellite sports with either Sky or BT and the extended trading hours is obviously good news.”
Townsend, who took over from Ted Tuppen in February, revealed first-half profits were flat at £55 million in the six months to March. But he is pleased by the resumption of steady growth.
“Like-for-like sales were up 1.1% and we had our third consecutive quarter of growth for the first time since 2008. London and the South-East were particularly strong but we are also seeing growth across the regions.”
Enterprise sold another 129 of the poorer performing pubs in the half with £41 million of the £42 million raised reinvested in improving other pubs. Townsend expects to offload another “hundred or so” pubs in the second half.
He added that the group is targeting growth throughout the rest of the year.
The heavily indebted group reduced its borrowings from £2.7 billion to £2.5 billion over the past 12 months.
