LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Hollywood Bowl reported a 10.5% rise in half-year earnings and lifted its dividend by a fifth on the back of record revenues, driven by strong trading in the UK and Canada.
Pre-tax profit for the six months to March 31 came in at £29.5m as revenue rose 8% to £119.2m. The dividend was increased 21.7% to 3.98p a share.

UK like-for-like revenues increased by 1.3% and hit more than £100m for the first time. The Canadian business saw LFL sales up 8% on a constant currency basis, while revenue surged by 46.9% to 27 million Canadian dollars (£16m).

"The group made further progress with investment in growing the estate in UK and Canada while our overall refurbishment programme remains on track and is delivering returns," the company said on Monday.

"These refurbishments continue to evolve our customer proposition, resulting in an increase in the number of games played and spend per game alongside growing customer service scores."

"As UK families continue to face cost of living challenges, we have worked hard to ensure that our customer offer remains a great value for money, high quality experience, keeping our prices low so that a family of four can bowl at peak times for less than £25."

On a LFL basis, UK spend per game increased by 3.2% to £11.21, while volumes, on the back of "exceptionally strong" growth over the previous two years, were down 1.6%. Headline prices were lifted by only 1.4%, well below inflation.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com

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