Hollywood Bowl strikes a profit
Ten-pin bowling alley operator Hollywood Bowl has revealed a 15 per cent rise in annual profits, driven by higher game volumes and increased customer spending on food and drinks.
The company, which operates sites in Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton, saw pre-tax profits for the year through September rise to £27.6 million, up from £23.9 million on-year.
Revenue rose 7.8 per cent to £129.9 million and was up 5.5 per cent on a like-for-like basis.
The company said it had six more bowling centres in the development pipeline from the 2021 to 2023 financial year.
A centre in York and three mini-golf trial centres in Leeds, York and Rochdale were due to open in the current financial year.
Chief executive Stephen Burns said: "I am delighted to report another year of strong profitable and cash generative growth, demonstrating the consistent delivery of our proven, customer-led strategy. In addition to driving these further strong returns, we also achieved excellent customer feedback following the ongoing investment in our centres, further innovation of our industry-leading customer proposition and the continued development of our team members.
"We also increased the size of our portfolio to 60 high-quality, all profitable centres. As a result of this strong financial and operational performance, we are delighted to announce a special dividend for the third consecutive year, which will result in a total of £47.7 million being returned to shareholders since IPO.
"In addition to our new bowling centre pipeline, we look forward to the FY2020 launch of three trial Puttstars mini-golf centres, as we look to leverage our operational expertise to offer another family focused, value for money, leisure experience.
"We have made a solid start to the new financial year and we expect to make further progress in our ongoing refurbishment programme, investment in technology and continued roll out of customer innovations. I am confident that we will continue to deliver value for all of our stakeholders."
