Clapham House Group has warned that it expects UK trading to remain challenging until spring next year amid "fragile" consumer confidence. However, the Gourmet Burger Kitchen owner reported a 50% rise in annual profit and reiterated plans to open new restaurants.
The company, which runs six "Real Greek" restaurants in London and 52 Gourmet Burger Kitchens, said pretax profit rose to £1.5m in the year to 28 March 2010, from a restated £1m a year earlier.
David Page, executive chairman at Clapham House, said: "While we saw generally improving trading trends in April and May, the World Cup, as expected, had a negative impact on sales in June. For the remainder of the financial year we expect trading conditions in the UK to remain challenging. Following the placing of shares in May, we will press on with the selective expansion of GBK into high-quality locations."
The company, which has grown GBK from the six restaurants it acquired in 2005, has opened new GBK restaurants overseas in the past year, including in Istanbul, Athens and Dubai.
It said that it was building one new GBK restaurant and hoped to open two more.
Clapham House said that its Real Greek restaurants continued to "trade satisfactorily" over the past year.
The group's Tootsies' burger chain restaurant collapsed into administration last year. CPH said that it had received £2.6m before costs from the sale of 15 of the of the 21 Tootsies restaurants.
Clapham House to focus on expanding Gourmet Burger Kitchen >>
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Restaurant discounts are hurting net margins, warns Clapham House >>
By Nick Huber
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