Express & Star

Hollywood Bowl strikes a profit

Ten-pin bowling alley operator Hollywood Bowl has revealed a 15 per cent rise in annual profits, driven by higher game volumes and increased customer spending on food and drinks.

Published
Hollywood Bowl at Bentley Bridge, Wolverhampton

The company, which operates sites in Shrewsbury and Wolverhampton, saw pre-tax profits for the year through September rise to £27.6 million, up from £23.9 million on-year.

Revenue rose 7.8 per cent to £129.9 million and was up 5.5 per cent on a like-for-like basis.

The company said it had six more bowling centres in the development pipeline from the 2021 to 2023 financial year.

A centre in York and three mini-golf trial centres in Leeds, York and Rochdale were due to open in the current financial year.

Chief executive Stephen Burns said: "I am delighted to report another year of strong profitable and cash generative growth, demonstrating the consistent delivery of our proven, customer-led strategy. In addition to driving these further strong returns, we also achieved excellent customer feedback following the ongoing investment in our centres, further innovation of our industry-leading customer proposition and the continued development of our team members.

"We also increased the size of our portfolio to 60 high-quality, all profitable centres. 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 £47.7 million being returned to shareholders since IPO.

"In addition to our new bowling centre pipeline, we look forward to the FY2020 launch of three trial Puttstars mini-golf centres, as we look to leverage our operational expertise to offer another family focused, value for money, leisure experience.

"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. I am confident that we will continue to deliver value for all of our stakeholders."

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.