Pub and brewery firm The Liberation Group is looking to significantly expand the number of rooms across its estate of inns after reporting “strong demand” for its accommodation.
The Jersey-based parent company of West Country beer and hospitality brand Butcombe currently oversees an estate of around 140 pubs, made up of managed and tenanted sites, with accommodation of more than 400 rooms.
Bosses at Liberation said they have now “identified opportunities” to add a further 300 rooms within its existing estate through further investment in rooms and pods, which the firm said it would start later this year.
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It comes as the group said it had seen occupancy rates “consistently in excess of 80%” during the first half of the financial year.
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The company said it has seen overall like-for-like growth of 8.1% across its operations on the 海角视频 mainland operations, including a 14.7% rise for its accommodation business.
During the period the group integrated 22 pubs it had taken on at the end of last year in a combination deal with Cirrus Inns, stretching its portfolio to cover an area spanning the Channel Islands to London.
The board said Liberation’s pubs had benefited from the good weather in June. It added that the group’s “resilient” estate of around 60 tenanted pubs were “on track to deliver solid growth” on an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation per pub basis by the end of the year.
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Meanwhile the firm said its drinks business had also had “a strong start to the year”, driven by sales of its beer produced at the Butcombe brewery in Wrington in North Somerset, with Butcombe Original now a top 10 cask ale in pubs and restaurants across the 海角视频. A 6% rise in OBV Volume was recorded for its brewery business.
Jonathan Lawson, chief executive of the Liberation Group, said: “Having navigated a potentially difficult Q1, which included the integration of the 22 new pubs following the Cirrus Inns combination and an unseasonably cold Easter, we have seen momentum building in both our existing business and the new pubs. This in turn has enabled us to view the rest of the year with some confidence, despite the obvious uncertainty for our customers caused by rising interest rates.
“We have commenced our investment plans for the year, with two substantial investments completed already in Dorset and Jersey and a further two investments signed off and commencing imminently, one in Somerset and another in Jersey, plus some investment into our Butcombe Brewery to create much-needed additional brewing capacity for next year given the record volumes over the last few months.”
Mr Lawson said “strong headwinds”, specifically in utilities, food inflation and payroll, had continued in the first half of the year. He added that the firm had secured a new utilities contract, which would “significantly improve” costs for the remainder of this year and the following one, though he expected the headline rate of inflation to remain a challenge ”well into the autumn”.
Earlier this year Mr Lawson warned Liberation’s utility bills were set to double and slammed the government and suppliers over the handling of the energy crisis.
The businessman said Liberation, which employs around 1,400 staff, had also completed its second recruitment trip to South Africa during the period, where it had been searching for chefs and managers to join the business. The group has previously said it has struggled to hire young chefs, and it had been working with schools and colleges in the South West to try to encourage more young people into hospitality careers.
Mr Lawson said the second half of the year would pose “a number of uncertainties and challenges”, including inflation and the impact of rising interest rates and higher mortgage costs on consumer confidence and disposable income.
He added: “But we remain positive about our opportunity to deliver growth and market share in both our pubs and drinks divisions and increasingly see our integrated group as a model that is very much fit for the modern market and where the value of the total proposition is greater than the sum of its parts.”