Investors eager to get a slice of pizzeria owner Fulham Shore
THE owner of the Franco Manca pizza chain delivered a boost to investors yesterday as it revealed it was considering introducing a dividend.
Fulham Shore, the Aimlisted company whose other businesses include the Real Greek restaurant chain, announced pre-tax profits of £1.4m for the year to the end of March, against a loss £0.1m last year.
Sales rose 17pc to £64m as the company reported an increase in the number of diners at its existing restaurants. It also benefited from an expansion programme that included the opening of four new Franco Manca pizzerias during the financial year, with a further eight to 10 to follow in the current year.
Many restaurants have struggled in recent months but Fulham Shore hit out at its troubled competitors, saying that “much of the capital invested in the UK restaurant sector over the past five years has not been spent wisely”.
Analysts at Peel Hunt said that the company’s results were “consistent with our view that the restaurant market should remain tough for legacy operators, with the smaller brands having the competitive advantage”.
Shares added 1.4p, or 12.2pc, to close at 12.9p, giving the company a valuation of £73m.
Mpac Group, a specialist in high speed automation and packaging, was another big riser on Aim, up 37.5p to 194p, after it said it was trading ahead of expectations. “We suspect that a big chunk of this incremental revenue is coming from the ‘economically resilient’ healthcare sector, where a large contract was secured in 2018,” said analysts at Equity Development. They said the sector presents opportunities for Mpac to “upsell” by offering additional services to customers.
On the FTSE, Burberry rose 286.5p to £22.77 on booming sales, while
Rightmove shed 13.7p to 518.3p after UBS said it had found a further deterioration in advertising. The benchmark FTSE
100 index rose for a second day, adding 45.48 points to close at 7,577.2, up 0.6pc. The rise was likely helped by the weakness of the pound, which plunged to a 27-month low against the US
dollar, briefly falling below $1.24 as investors took fright at no-deal rhetoric from Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt. Sterling also fell to a six-month low of €1.1053 against the euro.
In Europe, the German
Dax index put on 0.35pc despite worse than expected readings from the ZEW economic sentiment survey. In France, the Cac 40 gained 0.65pc.
In the US, strong figures on retail sales, factory output and housing stocks helped to boost the dollar but stock markets remained broadly flat during London trading hours.