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Hollywood Bowl Group PLC on Monday highlighted strong growth in its Canadian business as it announced record revenue in the first six months of the financial year. Shares in Hollywood Bowl were up 0.1% to 332.30 pence in London on Monday morning. The stock earlier had risen to 349.00p. In the half-year to March, the Hemel Hempstead, England-based ten-pin bowling centre operator said pretax profit rose 11% to £29.5 million from £26.7 million a year prior. Revenue increased 8.1% to £119.2 million from £110.2 million. UK like-for-like revenue increased by 1.3%, surpassing £100 million for the first time. Total revenue growth in Canada was 47% to £15.9 million, with the Canadian bowling centres growing by 8.0% on a LFL basis. Hollywood Bowl said demand was ‘resilient’ and growth would be supported by its ‘strong balance sheet and cash generative business model’. Reflecting the improved profitability, Hollywood Bowl raised the interim dividend 22% to 3.98 pence from 3.27 pence a year prior. Chief Executive Stephen Burns said: ‘We continue to expect further, modest like-for-like growth, even with the very strong prior year comparative, as a result of our customer-led innovation and investment in our profitable growth strategy. We are confident in the outlook for Hollywood Bowl and in our ability to capture the longer-term opportunity to grow our estate to over 130 centres in the next ten years.’ Hollywood Bowl said two UK centres and one Canadian centre are due to open in the second half of the current financial year with the onward pipeline continuing to build. ‘Our new centre pipeline is strong with six already signed and more in heads of terms and legals stages. We remain confident in our ability to continue to deliver on our plan of an average of at least three new UK openings a year,’ the company said. Copyright 2024 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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