Young’s is poised for a bumper summer it reckons and with good reason.
The London-centric beer and pub company has 14 boozers along the banks of the River Thames, places that are likely to be hugely popular during the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics.
“We are rather hopeful that it will be a nice day for the Jubilee procession up the Thames,” says chief executive Stephen Goodyear. “We are expecting big crowds.”
Goodyear said that it is less clear how good the Olympics will be for trade, because it is not certain just how many people will be in London and travelling easily.
Results for the year to April are solid to say the least. Sales soared 25% to £178.9 million and profit jumped 17% to £21.3 million. To Goodyear that is vindication for the strategy of aiming at the premium end of the market in southern parts of the country. Young’s has 200 pubs inside the M25.
The dividend, increased every year for the past 15, is up another 5% to 13.93p.
