Hollywood Bowl announces special dividend as profit rises
By Sean Farrell
Date: Friday 13 Dec 2019
(Sharecast News) - Hollywood Bowl announced a special dividend on Friday after posting a 15% rise in annual profit as the tenpin bowling operator increased like-for-like sales and opened centres.
Pretax profit for the year to the end of September increased to £27.6m from £23.9m a year earlier as revenue rose 7.8% to £129.9m. Underlying operating profit, excluding exceptional items, rose 12% to £28.1m.
Like-for-like revenue rose 5.5% as the company used dynamic pricing to attract players during quieter periods and customers spent more on food and drink. The company opened two new centres during the year and refurbished six sites.
Hollywood Bowl announced a final dividend of 5.16p a share, up 22%, and a special dividend of 4.5p. Total dividend per share rose 12.7% to 11.93p. The company's shares rose 5.5% to 248p at 0817 GMT.
The business is riding a wave of renewed interest in tenpin bowling in the UK by buying and refurbishing existing centres to make them more family-friendly. It is Britain's biggest tenpin bowling operator with 60 centres.
Stephen Burns, chief executive, said: "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.
"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."
Email this article to a friend
or share it with one of these popular networks:
You are here: news
10 Lower Thames St,
London EC3R 6EN