Premium Bars and Restaurants, owner of Living Room and Prohibition, today admitted it is cautious about the future because of the “fragile state of consumer confidence”.
The company, formerly Ultimate Leisure, felt the benefits of its purchases last year, when it snapped up Living Room from Living Ventures in a £8.75m deal and Bel and The Dragon from Gourmet Holdings for £28m in June last year.
As a result revenue was up by 95% to £35.4m while pre-tax profits rose by 127% to £4.1m for the six months ending 31 December 2007.
The Living Room averaged sales of £83,000 per site in the three weeks leading up to Christmas and will look to open sites in Milton Keynes, Bristol and Sheffield this year.
Chairman Mark Jones said: "These results show an encouraging return to sales and profit growth. The benefit of our investment programme, as well as the performance of our recent acquisitions, is now clear.
“Although the well-chronicled, fragile state of consumer confidence leads us to view the future with some caution, we believe that the group is in a much stronger position for the current year and beyond with strong brands.”
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By Christopher Walton
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