Warm weather helps JDW quarterly numbers
Like-for-like sales at Wetherspoon increased by 5.6% in the 13 weeks to 27 April 2025.
The latest financial results for pub company J D Wetherspoon have been helped along by the recent warm weather in the UK.
Like-for-like sales increased by 5.6% in the 13 weeks to 27 April 2025, compared to the same period last year. Year-to-date (YTD) like-for-like sales increased by 5.1%.
Total sales increased by 5% in the quarter and by 4.2% YTD. The business says that total sales are slightly less than like-for-like sales as a result of a small number of pub disposals.
During the period, Wetherspoon has opened two pubs and sold seven. It intends to open a further four or five pubs in this financial year and approximately 10 pubs in the following financial year.
Seven freehold reversions, where Wetherspoon was previously the tenant, have been acquired in the YTD, at a total cost of £17m.
"Bearing in mind that recent trading has been helped by favourable weather, the company anticipates a reasonable outcome for the financial year, notwithstanding previously reported wage and tax increases of approximately £1.2m per week," says J D Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin (pictured).
"The company’s main ambition, as always, is to improve its appeal to staff and customers. In this connection, for example, the company has invested in new staff facilities in 520 pubs (49 in the current year), including staff rooms and changing rooms, with approximately 270 planned for the future. The investment per pub is approximately £100,000."
Franchise update
An additional seven pubs now operate under a Wetherspoon franchise agreement, four of which opened during the last quarter, all operated by Haven Holiday Parks. They are The Red Rocks, Devon Cliffs, Devon; The Humber Stone, Cleethorpes Beach, Lincolnshire; The London Stone, Kent Coast, Kent; and The Sir Thomas Haggerston, Haggerston Castle, Northumberland. The company currently operates 795 pubs across the country.
In the YTD, the company has purchased 7,236,487 of its own shares for cancellation at an average price of £5.76 a share.
It currently anticipates year-end net debt of between £720m and £740m, with headroom, under existing facilities, of approximately £200m.
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