Costs, late night market, Red Engine, Gusbourne, Keystone & other:

A DAY IN THE LIFE:

I was considering the other day the definition of intelligence which, when you think about it, it’s hard to disentangle it from both a) instinct and b) trial and error.

I mean, sans map, atlas or satnav, the tiniest bird might fly south in the winter and squirrels, as both I and the birds in our garden know only too well, can work their way into, up to or across to the birdfeeders almost irrespective of where I put them.

Of course that might just be because they have a compelling desire not to starve to death and they try a lot of things, remember the ones that work.

And the individuals that don’t stumble on the ‘right’ idea right peg it and those that do, remember what they did and somehow look clever.

Still, whether that’s ‘intelligence’ or not, it’s a sight better than pigeons, who seem to try a lot of things, get them all wrong, and then just try them all again.

Perhaps they should be in politics.

On to the news:

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PUBS & RESTAURANTS:

Upcoming cost increases:

Whilst more attention has been focused on changes in NIC rules (and rates) and on the minimum wage increases, outgoing Manchester late night advisor Sacha Lord tweets ‘the UK could lose up to 9000 pubs. From April, pubs with a rateable value of £100,000, will see business rates jump by £19,000 per year….’

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Jobs market

Lloyds Banking Group is reported to have said that some 6,000 jobs in its IT division could be at risk per City AM. Not all of the jobs might be lost but, on the margin, job worries impact the ability to spend of those losing their incomes and they impact the desire to spend of a much larger number of employees.

Train services:

The Times reports that London’s rail network will run in full on only one weekend in the next six months as a result of engineering work entailing planned closures. Hospitality bodies have pointed out that this is most unhelpful for trade.

Selling prices:

Work undertaken by The Morning Advertiser has found that ‘the average price of a pint of draught beer has smashed the £5 mark after going up 10p’ since August last year. The rise takes the average price from £4.98 for a pint in a pub to £5.08….

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Late night market:

CGA and the NTIA have produced the first edition of the Night Time Economy Market Monitor saying that ‘Britain’s late-night hospitality sector has been hit by hundreds of closures in the last year—but a wave of new bars and experiential venues is revitalising the evening economy.’ The Monitor says that ‘as at December 2024 Britain had 2,264 nightclubs, late-night bars and casinos – 2.8% fewer than at the end of 2023, and 25.2% down on the pre-COVID level of March 2020….’

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Other news:

The Society of Independent Brewers & Associates has announced that ‘a new UK-wide beer week has been launched by independent beer campaigners to promote ‘independent beer, pubs and people’, with a string of events set to take place in community pubs, bars and brewery taprooms….’

• Events will run from the 11th to the 20th April in order to take in two weekends. SIBA says ‘Indie Beer Week is a National celebration of great independent beer and a chance for our superb pubs and breweries to attract new customers, or give regulars a great new beer experience by running special events, beer festivals, tap takeovers, meet the brewer evenings or tasting experiences which celebrate local beer and producers.’

The Telegraph reports that ‘pubs and restaurants are in a more perilous state now than they were during the pandemic’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme.’ It argues that Covid-era support may be necessary for the sector to secure its future.

COMPANY NEWS:

Red Engine, the hospitality group behind the activity bars Flight Club and Electric Shuffle, has announced Q4 sales of £38.4 million, up 23% year-on-year. The company says it plans to open eight new venues in 2025, taking its global estate to 39 venues by year end….’

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Gusbourne Plc has this morning announced that majority shareholder, Lord Ashcroft, who holds an interest in 40,628,009 ordinary shares, representing 66.8% of the issued share capital in the Company, has requested a General Meeting to consider a resolution to delist the Company from the AIM market….

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Keystone Brewing Group has acquired beer brands of North Brewing Co. Keystone also recently took over craft beer brands Magic Rock and Fourpure. Keystone says ‘we believe real quality brands have a life beyond the existing doldrums, as such we’re continuing to invest selectively in brands that have real substance and longevity.’

The Ivy will pay an additional £6m yearly as a result of NIC changes reports The Times. The Ivy is for sale but The Times quotes sources as saying that the increase to national insurance would not blow the sale off course….

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Guinness owner Diageo is facing something of a backlash as a result of the company raising the price of Guiness at a time of high demand, reports The Telegraph….

In the US, Pizza Hut has bought 18 stores from franchisee EYM Pizza in Georgia, Illinois and Wisconsin at a bankruptcy auction. The remainder of EYM Pizza’s 77 stores were said to have been acquired by a number of other bidders.

OTHER LEISURE:

Elon Musk is reported to have quashed stories that he might buy TikTok.

Netflix has raised subscription prices in the UK from £10.99 to £12.99. Netflix says this will allow it to ‘continue to invest in programming and deliver more value for our members’.

The UK government has told Apple it needs to be able to access encrypted data stored by the company worldwide in its cloud service.

The PlayStation Network came back online yesterday having suffered from connectivity problems that began on Friday evening.

The Guardian reports that gambling companies ‘are covertly tracking visitors to their websites and sending their data to Facebook’s parent company without consent in an apparent breach of data protection laws….’

The parents of four British teenagers who died after attempting so-called ‘blackout challenges’ are suing TikTok claiming that the deaths were ‘the foreseeable result of ByteDance’s engineered addiction-by-design and programming decisions’.

FINANCE & MARKETS:

The Halifax reports that UK house prices reached a new record high in January. They were up by 0.7% on December to stand some 3.0% up on a year ago…

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The US economy added some 143,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate fell to 4% from 4.1% a month earlier.

President Donald Trump has said he will shortly announce 25% import taxes on steel and aluminium entering the US.

Sterling mixed at $1.2399 and €1.2029. Oil higher at $75.05. UK 10 year gilt yield up 3 basis points at 4.49%. World markets down on Friday but Far East better today & London set to open around 11 points better as at 6.30am.

RETAIL WITH NICK BUBB:

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