Brasserie Bar Co
Annual report 2010
The Group continued to grow during the year with turnover up by 12.5% to £11.6m, with only one new opening in the period.
In January 2010 we successfully raised £4m, mainly from existing shareholders, to continue to expand the business, on terms set out in the Shareholder’s Memorandum circulated at that time. We were particularly pleased with this response, which has allowed us to proceed with our plans for opening more new sites, including three opened after the year end. Future openings will depend on increasing the level of funds available to us. To achieve this, we are hopeful that, despite the well reported difficulties in the debt market, we will be able to obtain increased facilities from our bankers. But we have sought to develop alternative sources of finance, outside the banking sector, because even if we succeed with the bank, we will need more funds to deliver our expansion plans. The documents for the AGM which accompany this report show what we now intend.
In March 2010 we opened our eighth restaurant, in the City of London. Opening in the City represents a step away from our history of operating restaurants in major provincial towns and cities. The restaurant is trading to expectations and has been well received, giving us further confidence in the adaptability and suitability of our brand to different trading environments.
Shortly after the end of the year the Company changed its name from Blanc Brasseries Holdings PLC to Brasserie Bar Co. because, while the Company will continue to expand the Brasserie Blanc concept, we were about to launch and expand a sister brand. In September 2010 the Company opened two businesses under the name of the White Brasserie Company. This new venture reflects the Company’s intention to open brasseries in the sites of existing pubs as “pub/brasseries”, without the overt branding support of Raymond Blanc’s name. By doing so the Company can replicate the skills, ethos and style of Brasserie Blanc in a different formula, thereby expanding our opportunities to grow. Raymond will, of course, be interested in the success of the new business as a shareholder but both he and we are anxious not to spread his direct influence too thinly as we continue to grow, so his principal involvement in the Group will continue to be in the pursuit of the success of Brasserie Blanc. Consequently Raymond has resigned as director of Brasserie Bar Co. but retains his directorship of Blanc Brasseries Limited.
The Board is satisfied with the trading performance of the Company in the year with restaurant EBITDA of £2.34m marginally ahead of budget in a nervous marketplace. The Company’s projections for the coming year are cautious, as we believe that our customers’ spending power is likely to diminish in the short-term, and we are concerned that our peers in the restaurant business seem determined to continue aggressive discounting and promotions. We are equally determined not to be dragged down this route, because the integrity of the brand and the business in the long-term is paramount. To succeed we must continue to offer value for money and our operational standards must remain excellent. That is where the focus of our activity will continue to be centred.
Irrespective of new funding becoming available, we aim to start development of one further restaurant this financial year and beyond that we have an exciting pipeline of sites on which we are working.
Thus I am pleased to report that our restaurants are successful and profitable and appear to be pleasing our market, that we have significant and exciting expansion plans, and can start to deliver them now subject only to obtaining the necessary additional funds.
As always, it is the people who make a good business and I pay tribute here to an exceptional team at all levels of our operations. They do an outstanding job.
C J M HARDIE CBE
15th December 2010