Flourishing Toads cheer Eldridge

PUBS group Eldridge Pope has found another three sites for its flourishing chain of Toad-branded outlets. It will open seven new Toads during this financial year, taking the total to 22. In the Rugby and Staines branches, launched in the first half, sales have hit £24,000 a week since opening.

Across the group, like-for-like sales in the 26 weeks ended 30 March were up 2.5% with total turnover up 6.8% to £33.1m. This produced a 22% rise in pre-tax profits to £1.9m, before £482,000 of one-offs. The halfway dividend is 6.5% higher at 2.94p a share.

New chief executive Mike Johnson said the interim results demonstrated the benefits of being a dedicated licensed retailer. 'There have been marked improvements in our key measures; earnings per share are up 16.9% and return on capital in the on-going business is up to 9.3%,' he said.

Eldridge Pope has 120 managed houses and 63 tenancies. It wants to sell four non-core managed houses before the end of the year to finish its restructuring. Like-for-like profit on the managed estate was up by 6.1%. Total profits for tenanted pubs were up 3.9%.