Butcombe Group, a leading privately owned premium pub operator and brewing group with sites stretching from Mayfair in London to St Aubin in Jersey, is today reporting results for the year ended 25 January 2025.
Full Year Financial highlights
- Record revenues of £149m versus £144.4m in the previous year.
- Managed pubs strongly outperformed the sector with like-for-like revenue of +7.8%.
- Enhanced EBITDA margins across the group, with 150 bps improvement in the managed estate.
- 7.4% growth in underlying group EBITDA and 8.1% growth in Divisional EBITDA.
Operational and strategic highlights
- Continued investment in our estate with ten pub investments during the year.
- Embracing changing consumer trends:
- Investment in menu development with all day brunch, small plates, sandwiches and classics.
- Improved all day offer with breakfast the fastest growing mealtime.
- Harnessing the power of our data and loyalty:
- Customer segmentation and personalisation growing visits and spend.
- Rollout of Butcombe Boutique Inns, our premium room offering, to ten sites during the year, and one since period end, driving encouraging results.
- Brewing and Drinks achieved 8.4% growth in the UK Free Trade, our largest drinks channel.
Q1 Trading Update (ending 26th April 2025)
- Managed pub LFL of +11.1%, with growth in all three categories of Food (+10.3%), Drink (+13.3%) and Accommodation (+5.3%).
- Our loyalty programme gives us significant advantage in the market with loyalty sales continuing to grow and now making up 22% of our total sales.
- Good spring weather has also provided an early benefit for our external spaces, with around 40% of our covers now outside.
- The Punch Bowl in Mayfair has just been named London’s Best Pub 2025 by lifestyle guide Muddy Stilettos, underscoring the exceptional quality and appeal of our premium pub offering
Jonathan Lawson, CEO of Butcombe Group, said: “We are delighted to report another strong year across all divisions of Butcombe Group. We have delivered record revenues and sector-leading like-for-like growth of 7.8% in our managed pubs, a clear indication of our continued operational strength and effective strategic investments. This result is especially pleasing considering the strong comparatives we faced against last year.
We have made substantial progress in harnessing our data and loyalty capabilities, which have significantly enhanced our customer understanding and engagement. With loyalty transactions across our managed pubs now representing 22% of total sales and a greater percentage of our like-for-like growth.
Encouragingly, we’ve carried this momentum into the new financial year, achieving impressive Q1 like-for-like sales growth of 11.1%, underpinned by strong performances in food (+10.3%), drink (+13.3%), and accommodation (+5.3%). Notably, we delivered our highest-ever trading day on Mother’s Day, surpassing our previous record set on Christmas Day, further highlighting the strength of our proposition.
The Brewing and Drinks division was broadly flat versus last year in Q1, once again the UK Free Trade performance lead the way growing by 8% vs LY, with online ordering now adding a further service provision to our customers and driving basket spend. The success of Goram IPA Zero, our award-winning low alcohol IPA has encouraged us to develop Tall Tales Pale Ale Zero, a refreshing Pale Ale that will be perfect for the summertime.
While we remain mindful of the ongoing inflationary pressures and changes to National Insurance contributions that impact the broader hospitality sector, we are confident in our strategy. Our continued focus on premium segments, operational efficiencies, and customer-centric innovation positions us strongly for sustained EBITDA growth and margin enhancement through the rest of the year.”
The full report can be viewed in the news section of butcombe.com/butcombegroup.
