Just Eat Q1, 888 Q1, Naked Wines, business confidence, trading etc.:

A DAY IN THE LIFE:

The email may be a bit terse this morning as, a bit like the occasionally mighty Hull City, we seem to have hit the ground stumbling after Easter.

That because we’ve been treating deadlines as perhaps more flexible than they in fact are and it’s triple witching week or month or quarter end, or whatever. Again. The VAT people are on at us, there are the normal monthly & (now somewhat overdue) quarterly things to be doing and we’re getting on with our accounts for the FCA.

Which is a surprisingly complicated job. Particularly if you put your receipts in an office draw and sprinkle them occasionally with crumbs and empty chocolate wrappers in the hope that the task will somehow miraculously do itself.

And then the accounts will need to be done again later in the year for Companies House and then at calendar year end yet one more time for the tax authorities who still seem to live in the hope, much as we do ourselves, that we’ll one day make a profit and they can put on their party hats and demand that we give some of it to them.

The accounts, of course, are pretty similar for the above recipients. They’re not, in the strictest sense, a work of fiction but, as anyone who’s ever heard three versions of the same road traffic accident will know, similar does not mean identical and there aren’t enough hours in the day, blah, blah.

Anyway, onwards an upwards. Here’s the news:

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JUST EAT TAKEAWAY – Q1 UPDATE:

Just Eat Takeaway has this morning released order numbers and GTV figures for Q1 2022 and our comments thereon are set out below:

The numbers:

• Just Eat reports orders down 1% at 264.1m with Gross Transaction Value up 4% at €7.24bn. This may represent flat numbers in real terms. We comment on margin and revenues below. The group’s comments on slowing growth are underlined.

Company comment:

• The group says it has ‘maintained the high level of Orders that were processed during the Covid-19 restrictions in the first quarter of last year.’

• It says ‘while growth in the second quarter of 2022 will remain challenging, key growth drivers, such as Average Monthly Order Frequency and Returning Consumers are expected to remain above pre-pandemic and even above pandemic levels.’

Outlook for the full year:

• JET comments on the outlook for the full year and says GTV should ‘grow by mid-single digit year-on-year in 2022 (previously mid-teens)’.

• It adds ‘as such, management is currently, together with its advisers, actively exploring the introduction of a strategic partner into and/or the partial or full sale of Grubhub.

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PUBS & RESTAURANTS:

Late Night Sector: See also CGA & Alix Partners’ comments on net unit closures across various sub-sectors).

Rekom’s latest survey of the late-night sector has suggested that it is ‘back with a bang’ with ‘robust spending for the late-night leisure sector, with £68 average spend on a night out – on par with three years ago.’

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WFH:

University of Sheffield research has suggested that city centre pubs, restaurants & cafes could lose £3bn of spend per annum as a result of would-be customers working from home. It suggests that the City of London will be most affected. The £7 pint is here now. Arguably that won’t help much.

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Footfall:

Springboard has its numbers in for Easter. It says footfall was down by 1.4% on 2021 and down 4.7% on 2019. That’s perhaps counterintuitive (re 2021 comps) as the UK was in lockdown last year. The numbers are maybe somewhat disappointing. Footfall was up week on week.

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Inflation & real incomes.

Made.com has said that it is noticing customers changing their buying habits. It told the PA news agency that there was some evidence of ‘holding back’ on spend. The company says ‘the customer has definitely held back in the short term financially. The macroeconomic backdrop means that, however big a customer’s budget, they are thinking about spending.’

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Operating costs:

Big Four accountancy firm Deloitte reports that a ‘record proportion of UK CFOs expect significant operating cost rises.’ No surprise there. Some 98% expect costs to rise in the next year and 78% believe that it will still be above 2.5% (the Bank of England’s target is 2.0%) in two years’ time.

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New openings (and closures):

The latest (Q1) Market Recovery Monitor from CGA and Alix Partners reports that UK site numbers are ‘down slightly in first quarter as cost pressures threaten fragile businesses.’ Numbers are some 0.9% lower than they were at the end of Q4. As this is a Q-on-Q number, we’ll need to watch it closely to see if it accelerates. Things could get rather ugly, rather quickly.

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Lloyds Bank has updated on the UK’s recovery from Covid saying that the number of business sectors reporting output growth has risen but that inflation issues have cast a shadow over further recovery. It says that UK services businesses benefitted from strong demand and a further loosening of Covid restrictions, but it adds that manufacturing in particular has been impacted by the situation in Ukraine.

Other news:

HGEM has reported that nearly three in four consumers want ‘lack’ of accessibility in hospitality venues addressed. Its ‘Accessibility in Hospitality’ survey found that hotels were seen as having addressed the issue more sympathetically than some other hospitality operators.

UKH has commented on the enhanced powers that the Government is to give to the Competition and Markets Authority, saying ‘we welcome these moves…in particular, we recognise that enhanced powers for the Competition and Markets Authority will help stamp out the practice of fake reviews, which do irreparable damage to businesses. We therefore believe it is imperative that online review platforms be required to act and remove malicious and false reviews where appropriate.’

THE RETAIL ENVIRONMENT (2 of 2)…

LDC summarises major changes between H1 and H2 last year.

Introduction:

• Commenting on the retail environment, the Local Data Company reports that voids (as measured by the vacancy rate) have fallen for the first time in a number of years.

• Retail matters because a) hospitality numbers are included within many of the retail measures referred to by LDC and b) the drawing power of retail (on the high street or in shopping centres & retail parks) is important for the F&B operators that are co-located with it.

Redevelopment activity reaches a record high:

• LDC says ‘redevelopment activity increased by a record 49% in 2021. After property laws relaxed, investors had the opportunity to be more proactive and planning authorities became more flexible.’

• This may increase further as it could, in some situations, be positively correlated with evictions.

• Some 26% of all redevelopment activity was to be found in Greater London with a further 14% in the South East.

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COMPANY NEWS:

Guinness has announced that its Cold Brew Coffee Beer is available in a 440ml can format across supermarkets in the UK.

In the US, Panera is expanding its coffee subscription program.

Dorset brewer & pub-co Hall & Woodhouse has reported that it is back in profits for the 2021/22 financial year having made a loss of £10.5m in the previous year.

Nightcap has announced a further opening in Bristol for the Adventure Bar Group. CEO Sarah Willingham says ‘since adding the Adventure Bar Group to the Nightcap group back in May 2021, the business has performed very well and we are now starting to see the significant efforts invested in readying their brands for nationwide roll-out, as we announce the second, of several new sites, in just the last week.’

Naked Wines has updated on trading saying (for the year to 28 March 2022) ‘we delivered full year results in-line with our expectations highlighted by strong execution, expense control and positive EBIT.’

HOLIDAYS & LEISURE TRAVEL:

Cirium has announced that the number of flight cancellations at UK airports has fallen to its lowest level since March 28.

The government is cutting background checks on some airport staff in order to attract staff and shorten queues.

Multiple operators have come together to cut the price of a million rail tickets between 25 April and 27 May.

Jet2 is reportedly adding capacity to the Canary Islands, Turkey, mainland Spain and the Portuguese Algarve.

OTHER LEISURE:

Netflix yesterday reported the first loss of subscribers in its history and its shares fell by 23%. The company’s numbers were far worse than observers had imagined. Some 200,000 subscribers pulled their subscriptions in Q1. The company had initially estimated it would add 2.5 million subscribers in the first quarter.

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The Guardian reports that ‘online casinos face a crackdown on exploiting gamblers’ superstitions, after the advertising regulator launched an investigation into one firm’s claims about certain games being “hot or cold”’

The Racehorse Lotto, which is owned by Furlong Gaming Ltd, is seeking to raise £2 million to develop and grow its activities.

888 Holdings Plc has updated on Q1 trading saying that it has made ‘strong strategic progress.’ It says total revenues were down 18% on the same quarter last year.

FINANCE & MARKETS:

Economists are beginning to suggest that the UK economy could shrink in Q2. A recession could follow in the summer as it is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

The IMF is cutting its estimates for global growth. It has cut estimates for the UK and says it will be the slowest-growing G7 economy next year. It is looking for growth this year of 3.7%, down from earlier estimates of 4.7%. The UK is forecast to grow by only 1.2% next year.

The Times’s David Smith has reported that ‘Britain is now a stagflation nation’ but he asks how long will this continue?

Sterling mixed at $1.3036 and €1.2046. Oil price lower at $108.50. UK 10yr gilt yield up 10bps at 1.98%. World markets mixed to better yesterday.

RETAIL WITH NICK BUBB:

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