City Pub Group cautious over new acquisitions despite turnover boost
City Pub Group (CPG), which owns and operates 44 pubs nationwide, said it has “strict criteria” for new acquisitions, despite a period of solid trading.
The group said that it had been offered a number of opportunities for new sites in the last few months, but turned them down as it expects pub prices to soften in the near future.
This statement came alongside a trading update in which CPG announced a turnover of £57.6m for 2022, an increase from £35.4m the year before.
Compared to pre-Pandemic levels in 2019, trading in the fourth quarter saw a like-for-like sales increase of 7.8%, which the group said was a result of improved planning to maximise revenues from events such as the World Cup and Christmas.
CPG added that these numbers would be higher if not for rail strikes, which it estimates cost the business around £0.75m in revenue.
Rival firm Fuller Smith and Turner on Monday also said that industrial action had cost the pub group sales over the Christmas period.
CPG said the increase in turnover was mostly due to a mostly normalised trading environment and a largely restriction free year. Christmas 2021 was also a comparatively difficult period for the hospitality industry as a result of pressure imposed by the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
It added that trading in the first four weeks of 2023 has been above expectations, with like-for-like sales 25% above 2022.
CPG has also announced a shuffling of senior management roles, with a change in managing director, company secretary, and chief marketing officer.