Wed 20th May 2015 - Patisserie Valerie reports Ebitda of £8.7m, up 23.1% Patisserie Valerie reports Ebitda of £8.7m, up 23.1%: Patisserie Valerie has reported sales up 22.2% at £43.7m in the six months to the end of 31 March 2015. Ebitda rose 23.1% to £8.7m. Pre-tax profit was £7m, an increase of £2.2m or 45%. Ten new stores opened in the half year to take the total to 156. Executive chairman Luke Johnson said: “We have delivered another strong set of results in the first half of 2015. Sales across all of the different formats in the Group continue to perform well and our brand awareness continues to grow. We have opened ten new stores since the beginning of the year and trialed several new product launches, such as afternoon tea, all with pleasing results. The Group is well placed for a successful second half of the year and beyond.” Chief Executive Paul May said: “Basic earnings per share of 5.50 pence per share represented a 14.7% increase on last year (2014: 4.79 pence per share) and diluted earnings per share was 5.46 pence per share, 19.7% higher than last year (2014: 4.56 pence per share). All of our brands performed very well in the first six months of the year. Revenue from Patisserie Valerie (106 stores) was £28.9m, up £4.6m or 18.8% (2014: £24.3m). We launched several new seasonal products in the period, including a winter menu and afternoon tea, which have all helped drive increases in revenues. We also trialled voucher deals via promotional websites which sold exceptionally well, and due to the strength of our brand, we were able to offer these deals at little or no discount. On the back of our growth in online sales, we developed a new website which went live in January. The website has new features including 360 degree virtual tours of our cafes and a “create-a-cake” feature which is proving to be very popular. Revenue from our other brands was also encouraging. Druckers (22 stores) and Baker & Spice (four stores) grew from £8.5m in 2014 to £8.7m in 2015, whilst revenue from Flour Power City (one site), our wholesale business, grew from £1.0m in 2014 to £1.1m in 2015.Revenue from Philpotts (23 stores), a premium sandwich retailer which we acquired in February 2014, was £5.0m. Philpotts is now fully integrated into the Group and is operating with a streamlined back-office function and is benefiting from the Group’s purchasing power. In the 12 months since acquisition, the business has performed ahead of expectations and contributed £1.3m of profit before tax to the Group and is on track to meet our payback hurdle rate set for acquisitions. During the period we successfully opened 10 new stores (2014: 8) located across the UK in high-streets and shopping centres and across different formats from brasseries (1), service station (1), counter service (2), concessions (1) and full service (5). All of our new stores were acquired from existing cash and are all performing in line with expectations and trading profitably. All 19 stores opened in the prior financial year continue to trade well and a number of these have already paid back the initial capital outlay, well ahead of the 24 month target. The pipeline for new stores remains healthy. We have identified and secured or are in advanced discussions to secure new sites to enable us to deliver the 20 store target for the year. Notwithstanding our focus on delivering on the organic store rollout, we are continuing to assess selective acquisition opportunities that we believe would be accretive to the Group.”