Yahoo Finance Leon wraps up a jump in sales but swings to loss on expansion drive
Halloumi wraps and “porridge of the gods” helped boost Leon’s sales by 58pc last year ahead of the healthy fast-food chain ramping up its ambitious expansion plans.
The restaurant chain’s sales jumped to £58.4m in the year to Dec 25 2016, despite like-for-like sales edging down slightly from 7.8pc to 7.6pc during the period. Over the year, Leon opened eight restaurants and is now taking more steps outside the capital, adding sites in Manchester, Oxford, Birmingham and Brighton.
The company opened its first international restaurant last year at Schiphol Airport, with two more Amsterdam sites in the works. The food chain is also planning to roll out 20 restaurants in Norway and Sweden over the next five years after signing an agreement with Norwegian millionaire Jens Ulltveit-Moe last month.
Earlier this year Leon raised £25m from private equity firm GP Investments to propel its long-awaited push into the US. The company now has 52 restaurants, including franchisees.
The spate of new openings and investment led Leon to swing to a pre-tax loss of £321,584 last year, from a profit of £358,798 the year before.
John Vincent, chief executive, has said that he is looking outside the UK for growth as “unhelpful taxes” such as business rates and the apprenticeship levy have made doing business here more challenging. Mr Vincent said that like-for-like sales had not been as strong as last year with last month’s trading being particularly difficult.
The Leon co-founder also shot a warning to Brexit negotiators that staffing retention continued to be a struggle because of the continued uncertainty about EU workers’ rights in the UK. The hospitality sector faces a shortfall of 60,000 workers a year if immigration from the EU is too tightly controlled, the British hospitality sector has warned.
