LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Yalla Yalla and Comptoir Libanais owner Comptoir Group said on Wednesday that losses narrowed in the first half as revenue rose despite a "challenging" backdrop.
In the six months to 30 June, pre-tax losses narrowed to £417,387 from £755,833 in the first half of 2017, as revenue grew 19.8% to £15.7m. Gross profit was up 19% to £11.3m and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation increased to £0.5m from £0.2m.

Comptoir - which opened a new restaurant in Birmingham in March - said the performance of its various brands and restaurants was steady despite "the persistent challenging" economic climate, with growing revenue from both the current estate and new sites.

"A number of well-known national restaurant chains, with a fairly generic homogenous offering and no real 'differential' in their proposition to customers, have fallen recent victim to the challenging marketplace.

"We have observed a significant increase in the level of promotional activity within the restaurant sector, however, we have refrained from discounting and instead have focussed all of our efforts on further improving the customer offering."

The group will open a new Comptoir restaurant by London Bridge railway station in the second half and another franchise operation with HMS Host in Cheshire Oaks in November. Meanwhile, it's currently in advanced negotiations with two new locations for Comptoir and one for Shawa for next year and is reviewing other potential sites to strengthen its pipeline for 2020 and beyond.

Non-executive chairman Richard Kleiner said: "I am pleased to announce that despite the continuing well publicised turbulence within the UK restaurant sector and the increase in costs, Comptoir Group have proven their strength as a resilient operator with a robust set of results delivering performance as per the board's expectations.

"This has been driven through revenue growth in the existing estate, focus on cost management, efficiencies, innovations and continued selective investment in new restaurants. Our proposition provides our customers with a unique offering in the market place with a welcoming warm team hospitality."

At 1025 BST, the shares were up 2.6% to 11.70p.

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