Tenanted pubs giant Enterprise Inns toasted two milestone deals yesterday as it served up annual profits nearly double the level seen a year ago.
Chief executive Ted Tuppen said the group’s potential performance had “improved significantly” with the size of its estate soaring to 5,266 pubs.
Enterprise splashed out £875m to buy 1,860 sites from rival Laurel in April, a month after it took a stake in the Unique Pub Company.
The spending spree meant pretax profits rocketed to £114.5m before one-off costs in the year to 30 September, from £62.6m 12 months ago.
Tuppen said the group had also benefited from strong organic growth with operating profits across its core estate rising by an average of 9% per pub.
He added Enterprise worked with its licensees “unlike the branded pub chains, where a standard format is decided centrally and imposed nationally”.
The Solihull-based group’s total estate is 1,767 pubs larger than a year ago after the sale of 140 underperforming sites for £25m.
Turnover across the business climbed 50% to £368.9m and Enterprise said the value of its estate was now more than £2bn.
The group took a 16.8% stake in the consortium that bought Unique in March and has the option of buying the rest between January and November 2004.
Unique, sold by Japanese bank Nomura, runs 4,200 sites and Enterprise said it should at least get a 20% return on its initial £75m investment.
Enterprise was floated in 1995 and is now one of the biggest pub groups in the UK alongside Punch Taverns and Hartlepool-based Pubmaster.
After one-off costs, bottom-line pre-tax profits were £92.3m against £40.7m a year ago. Shares closed up 14.5p at 579.5p.
EGi News 27/11/02
