Fulham Shore, breweries, margin pressure, service sector & other:

A DAY IN THE LIFE:

Right, ahead of a long weekend, and not the last in the next few weeks, today’s one of those few days when people who insist on working in the office only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, know that they’ve made a short-term tactical mistake.

Because, just for the moment, so are the rest of us.

Anyway, it’s the first of a series of short weeks in April & May this week. And we have a slightly shorter email than usual due to holidays etc, but let’s nonetheless move onto the news:

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COULD MARGIN PRESSURE BE TEMPORARY?

The question: A feature of many recent reports has been sales up, profits down. That’s because margins are weaker. But will this be temporary?

Summary: There is a degree of wishful thinking behind many of the answers to the above question. And, though shares have recently been more restrained in their reaction to negative comments re margin, it was only late last year that companies such as Dr Martens saw their share price down 25% after…

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PUBS & RESTAURANTS:

Breweries:

The SIBA UK Brewery Tracker shows the number of UK breweries in Q1 was stable YoY, with a net change of just -4 (-0.22%)…

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Elsewhere, National Statistics figures show that there were 95 fewer breweries in the UK by the end of 2022, dropping from 1,545 to 1,450…

Business rates:

Commercial real estate agent Colliers claims that business rates reform will not cut costs for the sector but will, conversely, include a 7.1% increase in rateable values…

Service sector:

The S&P Global/CIPS UK services PMI was 52.9 in March, down slightly from February’s 53.5 but up a fraction on expectations of 52.8. Businesses told the survey they had seen the strongest increase in new export sales since 2014, when it began keeping records.

Property issues:

Robert Irving Burns reports that the supply of commercial property in the leisure sector is expected to increase by 2.8% in Q2….

COMPANY NEWS:

Fulham Shore yesterday announced that it had agreed to a recommended offer for the company by a newly-established bidco owned by Toridoll Holdings of Japan. Fulham Shore will be purchased for 14.15p in cash…

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Fuller, Smith and Turner has reopened its flagship pub, The Admiralty, located at 66 Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DS. The pub has been closed since July when a fire broke out.

Freestar 0.5% has achieved its crowdfunding goal in 48 hours, with proceeds to be invested to drive further draft listings and support the brand’s retail presence.

Balfour Winery has announced plans to double production to one million bottles per annum over the next five years at its Hush Heath Estate in Kent. Adam Williams, who first joined Balfour in 2017 as sales director, has been promoted to chief operating officer.

HOLIDAYS & LEISURE TRAVEL:

Hostelworld has announced the ‘voluntary early repayment of €10 million of its €30 million term loan facility…’

Liverpool John Lennon airport expects to handle more than 64,000 passengers over the Easter bank holiday weekend, up 40% YoY. The Merseyside airport said it was keen to remind passengers that restrictions on liquids taken in hand luggage remain unchanged.

OTHER LEISURE:

Gear4Music has updated on full year trading to end-March saying that revenues were up 3% at £152.0m. UK sales were down 1% and sales to the rest of the world were up by 8%. The company has downgraded expectations, saying that ‘FY23 revenues and profits impacted by weaker consumer demand during February and March’ and adds that ‘gross margin [is] expected to be 25.7% reflecting significant reduction in inventory levels through a challenging period for discretionary retail (FY22: 27.8%; FY20: 25.9%)…’

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FINANCE & MARKETS:

Rates to peak early? Bank of England MPC member Silvana Tenreyro has said ‘I expect that the high current level of Bank rate will require an earlier and faster reversal, to avoid a significant inflation undershoot.’

Soft housing market. A Zoopla survey has found that many sellers are still facing significant drops as demand tails off, with the average discount standing at 4% (£14,000). Buyer interest is 43% below where it was a year ago, with estate agents now listing 25 properties on average, compared to 14 a year ago.

Eurostat reports that EU house prices dropped 1.5% in Q4 2022, with declines in 15 of the bloc’s 27 member countries. The biggest declines were in Denmark and Germany, where house prices fell 6.5% and 5%, respectively.

The UK Treasury is reported to have paused all engagement with the CBI. This comes on the back of a meeting cancellation by Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey.

RETAIL WITH NICK BUBB:

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START THE DAY WITH A SONG:

Just taking an Easter break