Oakman Inns & Restaurants has reported a continued strong sales performance for the first half of financial year 2016/17, with like-for-like sales of +4.2% for the 26 weeks ending Sunday 2nd October.
Oakman Inns’ CEO, Peter Borg-Neal, said:
“This is a pleasing result in the current environment and the business has also done well regarding key ratios, a reflection of the ongoing benefits of strengthening our operations team over the past year. As a result, we are comfortably ahead of our profit budget for the half year. Whilst we are happy with our sales performance we have seen a degree of volatility in recent months. Much of this can be explained by the variable weather and assorted sporting events. However, there is a general sense of commercial uncertainty and unease. The current trading environment is not for the faint-hearted, but we remain committed to our business plan.”
Oakman Inns also reported that the recently acquired Banyers House in Royston will open to the public on December 2nd and is already seeing strong forward bookings. The company has also exchanged contracts on a substantial freehold property acquisition in central Olney and hopes to achieve completion within the next ten days. The company has also taken possession of the second site for the Hunky Dory Pubs partnership with Enterprise Inns, The Four Alls in Welford upon Avon, with a total refurbishment planned for the Spring of 2017 – the first Hunky Dory site, The Beech House in Solihull, which opened in August, is trading well ahead of expectations. Further additions to both the Oakman pipeline, which already includes a major site in Amersham, and the one for Hunky Dory are expected in the coming weeks. These acquisitions will bring the number of sites in the Oakman group to 22 by June 2017.