J D Wethersoon Plc (LON:JDW) has announted its interim results for the 26 weeks ended 26 January 2025.
| FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS | Var % |
| Before separately disclosed items | |
| Like-for-like sales (vs FY2024) | +4.8% |
| Revenue £1,029.5m (2024: £991.0m) | +3.9% |
| Profit before tax £32.9m (2024: £36.0m) | -8.6% |
| Operating profit £64.8m (2024: £67.7m) | -4.3% |
| Basic earnings per share 21.5p (2024: 20.3p) | +5.9% |
| Free cash outflow per share (0.4p) (2024: outflow (4.8p)) | +91.7% |
| Half year dividend 4.0p (2024: 0.0p) | +100.0% |
| After separately disclosed items1 | |
| Profit before tax £41.3m (2024: £26.1m) | +58.2% |
| Operating profit £63.0m (2024: £72.0m) | -12.5% |
| Basic earnings per share 27.8p (2024: 15.2p) | +82.9% |
1Separately disclosed items as disclosed in account note 2.
Commenting on the results, Tim Martin, the Chairman of J D Wetherspoon plc, said:
“In the last seven weeks, to 16 March 2025, like-for-like sales increased by 5.0%.
“Increases in national insurance and labour rates will result in company cost increases of approximately £60 million per annum, which amount to approximately £1,500 per pub, per week.
“Since labour costs are around 35% of the pub industry’s sales, compared to around 11% for supermarkets, increases of this nature inevitably have a disproportionate impact on pubs, exacerbating the already-wide price differential for customers between the on and off-trade.
“The combination of much higher VAT rates for pubs than supermarkets, combined with increased labour costs will weigh heavily on the pub industry.
“The company currently anticipates a reasonable outcome for the financial year, subject to our future sales performance.”
Notes to editors
1. J D Wetherspoon owns and operates pubs throughout the UK. The Company aims to provide customers with good-quality food and drink, served by well-trained and friendly staff, at reasonable prices. The pubs are individually designed and the Company aims to maintain them in excellent condition.
2. Visit our website jdwetherspoon.com
3. The financial information set out in the announcement does not constitute the company’s statutory accounts for the periods ended 27 July 2025 or 28 July 2024. The financial information for the period ended 28 July 2024 is derived from the statutory accounts for that year which have been delivered to the Registrar of Companies. The auditors have reported on those accounts: their report was unqualified and did not contain a statement under section 498(2) or (3) of the Companies Act 2006. Statutory accounts for 2025 will be delivered to the registrar of companies in due course. This announcement has been prepared solely to provide additional information to the shareholders of J D Wetherspoon, in order to meet the requirements of the UK Listing Authority’s Disclosure and Transparency Rules. It should not be relied on by any other party, for other purposes. Forward-looking statements have been made by the directors in good faith using information available up until the date that they approved this statement. Forward-looking statements should be regarded with caution because of inherent uncertainties in economic trends and business risks.
4. The annual report and financial statements 2024 has been published on the Company’s website on 4 October 2024.
5. The current financial year comprises 52 trading weeks to 27 July 2025.
6. The next trading update will be issued on 7 May 2025.
CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT
Trading Summary
Total sales in the half year FY25 were £1,030 million, an increase of 3.9% compared to FY24. The company opened two pubs in the period (the Grand Assembly in Marlow and The Lion and The Unicorn in Waterloo Station, London) and sold six, with 796 pubs open at the period end.
LFL sales increased by 4.8% – bar sales increased by 4.3%, food by 5.4% and slot/fruit machines by 12.4%.
Operating profit, before separately disclosed items, was £64.8 million (2024: £67.7 million). The operating margin, before separately disclosed items, was 6.30% (2024: 6.83%), mainly due to labour and utility costs which, in total, were £30.6 million higher.
Profit, before tax and separately disclosed items, was £32.9 million (2024: £36.0 million).
The pub disposals, referred to above, gave rise to a cash inflow of £3.9 million. There was an exceptional loss on disposal of £2.2 million, recognised in the income statement, relating to these pubs.
Franchises
Wetherspoon opened its first franchised pub in Hull University’s student union in January 2022. The second opened at Newcastle University in September 2023, and the third at Haven Primrose Valley Holiday Park, Filey, North Yorkshire in March 2024. The company expects to open a further five franchise pubs in the second half of the current financial year – four of these will be at Haven Holiday Parks.
Earnings
Earnings per share, before separately disclosed items, assisted by share repurchases (please see “Dividends and return of capital”, below), were 21.5p (2024: 20.3p).
Capital Investment
Total capital investment was £64.6 million (2024: £57.2 million). £10.4 million was invested in new pubs and pub extensions (2024: £10.5 million), £40.6 million in existing pubs and IT (2024: £34.6 million) and £13.6 million in freehold reversions of properties where Wetherspoon was the tenant (2024: £12.1 million).
Separately disclosed items
Overall, there was a pre-tax ‘separately disclosed profit’ of £8.5 million (2024: loss of £9.9 million), mainly as a result of a positive movement in the value of interest rate swaps of £11.1 million, partially offset by a loss on disposal of £2.2 million. Details are listed in note 2 of the accounts.
The tax effect on separately disclosed items is a debit of £1.1 million (2024: credit of £3.7 million).
The net book value of the company’s assets in the balance sheet at the half year end were £1.40 billion, which is approximately seven times the company’s EBITDA (pre IFRS-16), in the last 12 months to January 2025, of £191 million.
Free cash flow
It is anticipated that free cash flow (“FCF”), which has often been higher than profit before tax will, in future, approximately correspond to profit after tax.
The main reasons for the reduction in the ratio of FCF to profit before tax are:
– corporation tax has increased from 19 to 25 per cent between 2019 and today, which will reduce FCF.
– capital reinvestment in existing pubs, which is deducted in calculating FCF, averaged 3.1% of sales in the five years up to 2019. It is estimated that reinvestment will increase to 3.7% of sales, as a result of an increase in expenditure in areas such as IT, staff rooms, updated kitchen equipment and heating and cooling systems.
– depreciation (which is deducted from profit before tax, but added back to FCF) has decreased as a percentage of sales since some older leasehold pubs, which are still in use, and some older assets, have been fully depreciated. In addition, there are likely to be fewer new pubs, which have higher levels of depreciation and higher levels of capital allowances. Depreciation in the five years to 2019 averaged 4.4% of sales and it is estimated that it will average 3.5% in the future.
In the period under review, there was a free cash outflow of £0.5 million mainly as a result of negative working capital of £7.6 million, higher reinvestment of £41 million, higher-than-usual share purchases for employees (“SIPs”) and a corporation tax payment in the period of £10.9 million, which was higher than the tax charge in the income statement
Balance sheet
Debt, excluding IFRS-16 lease debt, was £703.5 million at the period end (28 July 2024: £664.8 million).
On an IFRS-16 basis, which includes notional debt from leases, debt increased from £1.07 billion to £1.10 billion at the FY25 Interim review.
Dividends and return of capital
The board declared an interim dividend of 4.0p per share for the current interim financial period ending 26 January 2025 (2024: nil). The interim dividend will be paid on 30th May 2025 to those shareholders on the register at 1st May 2025.
During the period, 1,840,000 shares (1.5% of the share capital) were purchased by the company for cancellation, at a cost of £11.5 million, including stamp duty and fees, representing an average cost per share of 621p.
Financing
The company has total available finance facilities of £938 million.
On 6 June 2024, the company signed a new four-year £840 million banking agreement on attractive terms.
In the last six months, the company has agreed two additional interest rate swaps, at rates of between 4.00% and 4.14%, excluding the banks’ margin. The details are shown below:
| Swap Value | Start Date | End Date | Weighted Average % |
| £200m | 23-Aug-23 | 06-Feb-25 | 5.67% |
| £400m | 06-Feb-25 | 06-Feb-28 | 4.23% |
| £200m | 06-Feb-25 | 06-Feb-28 | 4.14% |
| £500m | 07-Feb-28 | 06-Feb-30 | 4.00% |
The total cost of the company’s debt, in the period under review, including the banks’ margin was 6.59%.
Taxation
The total tax charge for the period was £8.0 million (although as indicated in the section entitled “Free Cash Flow”, above, the tax payment in the period was £10.9 million) in respect of profits before separately disclosed items (2024: £6.6 million).
The total tax charge comprises two parts. The first part is the actual current tax (the ‘cash’ tax) which this year is £5.4 million (2024: £0.1 million). The second part is deferred tax (the ‘accounting’ tax), which is tax payable in future periods, that must be recognised in the current period for accounting purposes. The accounting tax charge for the period is £2.6 million (2024: £11.1 million).
