Cains pub company confident despite losses

North-west brewer and pub operator Cains Beer Company is confident it can achieve profitable growth despite incurring a £2.8m loss after its reverse takeover of Honeycombe Leisure.

However chairman Roy Morris warned that it would "take time to turn the pub business around", particularly as Honeycombe had a recent history of loss-making and conditions for pubs are currently poor.

In the 14 months ending 28 October 2007 the company saw its turnover rise by 120% to £29.7m but made a pre-tax loss of £2.8m.

Cains has 92 pubs, of which 67 are leasehold and 25 are freehold. Like-for-like total pub sales fell 11% with drink sales down 11.5% and food sales down 7.6%.

Sudarghara Dusanj, chief executive of Cains, said: "We have started our programme across the estate to steadily transform unbranded pubs into a cohesive pub estate predominately marked with the Cains brand.

"We are confident that we now have the right brand, products, pubs and people to exploit opportunities for our future profitable growth."

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By Christopher Walton

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