Everyman profit rises amid new site openings, admissions growth

Cinema chain Everyman Media posted a jump in full-year profit on Wednesday, with revenue up as the company opened more new sites.

In its preliminary results for the 53 weeks to 3 January 2019, Everyman said pre-tax profit increased 67% to £2.7m on revenue of £51.9m, up 27.7% on the year. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation were up 38.2% to £9.2m and admissions pushed up 25% to 2.8 million.

The company opened a further five new Everyman venues in the last 12 months, taking the estate to 26 sites and 84 screens at 12 March 2019, up from 21 sites and 65 screens at the start of 2018. In addition, it has a further 14 committed venues, seven of which are due to open this year.

By the end of last year, Everyman had become the fifth largest cinema business in the UK.

The group said trading since the year end has been in line with expectations and the film release schedule for this year looks "both strong and diverse".

Chairman Paul Wise said: "The Everyman experience continues to be embraced and enjoyed by our customers across our ever-growing variety of locations throughout the UK. Whether our venues are located as part of urban communities in larger cities, or smaller, more rural towns, the business model continues to deliver against our expectations.

"The board's long-held confidence in the business and its differentiated proposition continues to be vindicated by the significant opportunities that continue to arise in order to expand the business."

Canaccord Genuity said Everyman had an "excellent" year, with results fractionally ahead of expectations on nearly all metrics. The broker, which rates the stock at 'buy', lifted its EBITDA forecasts by around £100k for FY19 and £300k for FY20.

"The film slate remains very family orientated this year which should drive retail spend per head rather than average ticket prices. We now assume a small but increasing interest charge as interest is no longer capitalised once a cinema is open and trading. We have also tweaked up the diluted share count slightly to reflect share options."

At 1320 GMT, the shares were up 7.7% to 195p.