Member Article

Yorkshire pub operator Wear Inns looks to expand after turnover hike

Yorkshire and North East pub operator Wear Inns is set to expand again after seeing its turnover rise from £11.7 million to £13.4 million, an increase of 14.5%.

Wear Inns operates pubs in Barnsley, Shipley, York, Grimsby, Sheffield, Wetherby and Bradford, as well as working with 6 microbreweries in Yorkshire.

The company is planning to grow its existing estate of 26 pubs while potentially acquiring more pubs early next year.

Wear Inns has reported total losses of £204k for 2014 due to the final consolidation costs of the 11 pubs it bought in 2012; an increase in depreciation charges of £198k; the completion of work to refurbish all its pubs and investment in new kitchen equipment as the business looks to move further into the expanding food market.

Gross trading profit was £4.9 million – up 12.5% on the previous year driven by an impressive rise in food sales of 26.2%.

Wear Inns has also been notified that it has made it on to the inaugural Investec Mid Market 100 list, ranking the fastest growing companies in the UK with a turnover of over £10 million.

It follows the London Stock Exchange highlighting the company in its report, 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain, celebrating the country’s most dynamic and fastest-growing small and medium sized businesses.

Managing director John Weir said: “Overall, we are very satisfied with the performance of the company over the year and look forward to further improvements in the year to March 31 2015.

“We have just completed the refurbishment of all the pubs, the last being The Porter Cottage in Sheffield, and we may be looking to buy around three pubs in the first quarter of 2015 and two further later in the year.”

Weir said the 11 pubs acquired in 2012 had seen like-for-like sales grow by 8%, with further like for like growth in the other pubs.

He said: “Growing our cask ale offering has been a great success – we are supplied by 12 microbreweries in the North East, and a further 6 in Yorkshire – while the growth in our food trade has been particularly pleasing.”

“We are looking at adding more premium products plus a selection of American craft ales in some of the pubs and improving further our food offering - the range of dishes and the way it is presented - but still in keeping with our mantra of providing great value all day, every day.

“Our pubs are very much part of the local community so we will continue to support and promote local produce from local suppliers. I would like to thank all our staff for their efforts, our suppliers and our customers for their support.

“The company is on a sound financial footing but we never under-estimate the challenges we face. For example, while we welcome government action to limit the low price of alcohol in supermarkets to Duty plus VAT, the major supermarkets do not appear to have changed their habits.

“During the football World Cup we saw particularly low cost offers. It is the sort of behaviour which has seen too many traditional pubs forced out of business.”

Full details of the Mid Market 100, an initiative created by Investec bank and data specialists Duedil, will be revealed later in the year but Weir said the company’s inclusion was testament to the company’s strategy.

Weir said: “We are delighted to have been highlighted as one of the 1000 companies to inspire Britain and to find out we will be included in the Mid Market 100. We had no knowledge of either listing but feel honoured that Wear Inns has been recognised in this way.”

Wear Inns, which has its headquarters in the old offices of the Castle Eden Brewery in County Durham, is the biggest independent freehold managed operator in the region in terms of volume of beer sold.

Since Weir and the company’s chairman John Sands formed Wear Inns in 2006, the workforce has grown from 105 to 265.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .