Restaurant Group gives confident outlook after solid first half

30th Aug 2013 07:25

Frankie & Benny's and Chiquito owner The Restaurant Group (TRG) delivered strong top-line growth in the first half helped by an increase in customers and higher levels of spend per head at its food chains.The company also gave an upbeat outlook for the rest of 2013, saying that its newly opened stores are trading ahead of expectations.Revenues increased by 11.5% to £280m during the six months to June 30th, ahead of the £252m reported in the first half of 2012. Like-for-like (LFL) sales rose by 5%. The company said the higher levels of spend were partly due to menu-price increases and partly through customers trading up.Pre-tax profit rose 15% from £26.1m to £30m while operating margins improved by 30 basis points to 11.1%, "reflecting strong sales and tight cost controls", the restaurant and pub operator said.The company declared an interim dividend of 5.25p per share, an increase of 17% on last year.Frankie & Benny's - bar far TRG's largest division with a total of 226 restaurants - delivered strong growth during the period with a "sizeable uplift in revenues and profits". The company said: "The breadth of appeal and excellent value for money of our offerings continued to encourage more customers to visit our restaurants including a significant increase in the sale of breakfasts, an area of potential growth that we have been focusing on."While growth has slowed slightly in the third quarter - with year-to-date turnover up 10.5% and LFL sales up 4.25% - the firm said gave a confident outlook for "another year of good progress" in 2013.TRG opened seven new restaurants during the first half and has opened a further four since the end of the period. A total of 30-35 are expected to open during 2013."Our new restaurants are trading ahead of expectations, are on track to deliver high returns and the forward pipeline of new sites to 2015 and beyond is the best we've seen for many years and the quality is first class," said Chief Executive Andrew Page.Shares were up 3.34% at 557p by 08:25 on Friday.BC