Hollywood Bowl (LON:BOWL) shares rose on Friday after the company posted a 15% increase in its full year profit.
Shares in the bowling alley operator were up almost 9% during Friday morning trading.
Hollywood Bowl said that, for the year ended 30 September, profit before tax grew by 15.3% to £27.6 million, compared to the £23.9 million figure recorded the year prior.
Meanwhile, total revenues grew by 7.8% to £129.9 million, up from last year’s £120.5 million.
Hollywood Bowl added that it has six further bowling centres in the development pipeline from 2021-2023.
The company said that food and drink revenue was up 6.3% on the year before, amounting to £35 million. It said that more customers chose to spend as a result of the launch of its new menu and its enhanced bar and diner experience.
“I am delighted to report another year of strong profitable and cash generative growth, demonstrating the consistent delivery of our proven, customer-led strategy,” Stephen Burns, Chief Executive of Hollywood Bowl, commented in a statement.
“In addition to driving these further strong returns, we also achieved excellent customer feedback following the ongoing investment in our centres, further innovation of our industry-leading customer proposition and the continued development of our team members,” the Chief Executive continued.
“We also increased the size of our portfolio to 60 high-quality, all profitable centres. As a result of this strong financial and operational performance, we are delighted to announce a special dividend for the third consecutive year, which will result in a total of £47.7m being returned to shareholders since IPO.”
The Chief Executive said: “We have made a solid start to the new financial year and we expect to make further progress in our ongoing refurbishment programme, investment in technology and continued roll out of customer innovations. I am confident that we will continue to deliver value for all of our stakeholders.”
Shares in Hollywood Bowl Group plc (LON:BOWL) were up on Friday, trading at +7.34% as of 11:57 GMT.
