Mitchells & Butlers plc (MAB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. After a difficult 3 years, it feels great to be able to stand here today and present a strong first half set of figures. And with our sales trajectory continuing to improve and some of the macro headwinds now starting to subside, our optimism about the future is getting stronger and stronger. Whilst we still have some way to go before we're back to where we were pre-COVID, it does now feel like we have real momentum again and a passion and energy across the business that is going to serve us well over the coming months. Over the first half, we delivered like-for-like sales growth of 8.5%. And now that the distortions of the Omicron variant and the benefit of VAT late last year have washed through, we are encouraged by the continuing sales trajectory with like-for-like sales growth over the last 6 weeks standing at 8.9%. So today, we'll start with Tim take you through the detail of the numbers before I return to remind you about what it is we're trying to achieve and to explain why we're optimistic about the coming months and about the future. So, Tim?

Good morning. So I'll take you through the financial performance of the group. And it's encouraging to be able to report what is starting to feel like a finally a return to normality with some positive indications for the future. Let me start with the income statement. Overall operating profit in the half year was GBP 100 million. So that's slightly lower than last year. You'll be well aware that last year included the benefit of government support totaling about GBP 53 million. And of course, cost inflation was just only beginning to build. So our cost prices are higher now than they were through the first half of last year. What I'll do later on in this presentation is I'll analyze out the various moving parts so you can understand that. But let me start with sales as always. Sales remained strong and resilient through the first half. We benefited, of course, by the fact that Omicron was in the comparator year. But we also suffered in this half from train strikes and from a couple of bouts of wet and snowy weather. So putting that together, overall, we feel an 8.5% like-for-like sales growth represents about 12.5%, excluding VAT, was a strong performance throughout the period, both quarters throughout our portfolio and underpins by both volume and spend per head growth. And I'm really pleased to say that that strength of sales strength of trading has continued since the period end. So in the last 6 weeks, we've grown ourselves at just under 9% to 8.9%. Now the future is going to remain quite dynamic, I think. And to that end, I make no apologies for emphasizing again the wide breadth of the M&B stable of brands. We cover almost all of the mass market, whether occasions of food or drink, whether they're premium or value and whether they're located in urban, suburban or rural areas. And that undoubtedly gives us a measure of resilience as we go forward and what will remain uncertain times. We're in the process of adding a new brand to our stable Ego restaurants. We currently own 40% of the business. We'll be buying the remaining equity over the second half. Phil is going to take you through that in a little bit more depth and outline a bit about the brand and our ambitions for it, but I'll put it on this slide here, so you can see where it fits into our portfolio. I said I'll analyze out some of the moving parts of trading, quite a lot going on, particularly last year in the comparator year. So walking through those. As I said, last year included GBP 53 million of government support. That's principally reduced rates of VAT. That was GBP 43 million of the GBP 53 million. And secondly, through last year, we had a build of cost inflation sort of coming to crescendo, if you like, at the end of the first half with the situation in Ukraine. Overall, that gives a headwind in the first half of just short of GBP 100 million, of which GBP 13 million related to energy. We've continued with our capital plan to invest and refurb our state. Those that we've done this year, is slightly dilutive. In the first half, we have closure periods. But we're getting a good return from sites once we have opened them. And obviously, those that we did last year are starting to have a positive contribution. And against that backdrop, we're delighted to have built profits back to GBP 100 million with on the back of a really strong sales performance. And I'll split that out here for you between spend per head and volume, both of which moving strongly ahead and supported by a number of cost efficiencies, primarily generated through our Ignite program and Phil again, is going to talk a little bit around some of the initiatives we've delivered on that front and some of those we're looking to deliver in the next 12 months. Costs remain a hot topic. It's so much attention in what are uncertain times. But I think there I said we're beginning to get through the worst of it. If I look at this year, we had previously guided a cost headwind of 10% to 12% on our GBP 1.8 billion cost base. We think we're going to be at the bottom end of that range now. So some of the worst-case scenarios sort of drifted away and substantially most of the costs for this year are now brought forward. So we have a degree of certainty around that. If we look forward to next year, the picture changed quite markedly as we believe we're going to start to see a return to more normal levels of cost inflation. You can see how much lower the blue charts are here and particularly energy, which has remained a focus for us. Now you perhaps remember, we start buying energy forward 6 months out. It leaves us, I would say relatively less hedged than a number of most other businesses that you talk to. And that meant that as prices spiked last year, we felt that pain very quickly. Of course, the flip side of that is if we believe markets stay at their current levels or even abate slightly further, then we feel the benefit of that slightly quicker. So I would hope we see a meaningful decrease in our energy costs for next year if markets stay where they are and where they're expected to go. In terms of cash flow, we continue to generate positive cash flow. We again reduced our net debt in the first half. We had an inflow into working capital, GBP 20 million from the ranked VAT claim, historic claim there that's been paid. Pension contributions will finish at the end of this year in September. And even before then, they're all now going into blocked escrow accounts. So they're not going into the pension funds with the possibility or I'd say probability that we can take those contributions back at some stage once the schemes have been fully derisked. Lastly, we continue to invest in our sites with our capital program as said before, generating good returns as we ramp that up, heading towards our 7-year refurb cycle. So we normally reduce net debt to under GBP 1.2 billion. So I think before I hand over to Phil, just to pull together the main messages, strong sales performance throughout the first half. Costs, of course, remained uncertain. But we believe they are starting to abate. We're getting to a normalization of cost inflation. And we're adding to that with the self-help. And it's just we've got through Ignite. And all of that gives us some momentum to trade ahead of where we thought we expected would be in both the short term this year and the medium term next year. And we'll take that through and build on a capital investment program and Ignite program of self-help, a diversified estate and a fantastic stable of sites and brands across the U.K. and Germany. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Tim. So as Tim has shown you, our sales this year have been very encouraging so far, like-for-like sales growth of 8.5%. The negative impact of last year's lower VAT rate and the comparators was largely offset by the positive impact from reaching the anniversary of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, which depressed the season -- the festive season in 2022. What is pleasing is that the volumes are up on prior year, demonstrating that increasing footfall is underpinning our sales and also that we're consistently tracking ahead of our competition as measured by the Peach Tracker. Now we believe that this is a reflection of having that enviable state of well-known brands that Tim's just shown you, which is very important when guests are seeking value for money and also our very strong focus that we have under Ignite and through what we do. And our focus on guest care, which has been reflected in our strongest ever guest review scores that we've had. The rail strikes have also been a significant disruption to the business over the first half. So these numbers were delivered despite the impact of those strikes, which I think is another reason for optimism going forward. So we enter the second half in good shape with the most recent 6 weeks like-for-like sales, which includes the start of Easter running at 8.9% despite having unfavorable weather conditions year-on-year. So this is also very encouraging. In terms of our brands, it's good to see strong performance in all markets. And now that the unfavorable VAT has now moved back, has ended, if you like, it's equally pleasing to see Miller & Carter and our food-led businesses return to -- start to move forward again in terms of the year-on-year comparison. Now we continue to see very strong city center performance, particularly with our Nicholson's brand leading the way, a brand that benefits from workforce coming back to the office from stronger tourism and seemingly from a royal visit too. A general concern on sales was always around what the increased cost of living might do to consumer confidence and therefore, to footfall. We said at the pre limits that historically our sector has been fairly resilient to any downturn as our guests preferred to cut back on other luxuries before cutting back on their social lives. I'm pleased to say that 6 months on, we are still of that view. And despite these increasing prices ahead of where we would have increased in recent years, we are still seeing volumes increase, which says that actually the consumer is sort of -- is coming with us. Consumer confidence appears to have bottomed out as the worst of the utility crisis is now behind us, it seems. And though food prices remain high, I think the news here is also better. And we expect some likely stabilization in a full in a not-too-distant future. And this, along with warmer and lighter nights is probably driving the improving consumer confidence. So we remain optimistic about our guests continuing to want to come out to our brands. Interestingly, the at-home delivery market has suffered as a result of more people coming out again, which probably adds further weight to the argument that ultimately people are social animals and they want to come out for the experience. All that said, there's no denying that the last 3 years has driven a marked reduction in market supply. Now it's always very difficult to prove that a direct impact on our sales of supply coming out. However, it must be the case. But if the market shrinks in terms of numbers, it has to be a positive to all those that remain. It emphasizes that gaining market share is the key to success, which further convinces us that having a portfolio of strong and relevant brands operating in different market sectors, all with clear propositions continues to be the right way forward for us. We track our guest sentiment scores also as this is another indication of whether the things we're doing are resonating sufficiently with our guests. Similarly to the Peach Tracker, we are consistently outscoring our peers. And given the fact that we know that there is a clear correlation between superior guest scores and like-for-like sales, this has to be very encouraging. So we're pleased with the momentum we're building on our sales. However, given the inflationary environment, it is essential that we do continue to grow sales, if we are to recover our profits to pre-COVID levels and beyond and continue on our path to delever the business. So rebuilding our profits is essential for the company, because then it puts it in a position where we'll be generating a lot of cash and have a range of strategic options for the future. With the macro cost headwinds starting to subside, we are optimistic that we can do this. And we remain focused on our 3 strategic priorities. To remind you, building and maintaining a balanced business or portfolio, which is all about keeping the brands relevant, aiming to invest on an average 7-year cycle to keep the amenities fresh and accelerating the expansion of the most or the strongest returning brands. Secondly, driving a commercial edge to the way we do business, which is about being -- putting the guests at the heart of everything that we do and being clear how each pound of sales converts down to bottom line profit. And finally, driving an innovation agenda, where we continue to build and sweat the technology that we've deployed in the business. We keep digital marketing as the engine for the business. And we remain open to trialing new concept and new product ideas. Now these priorities remain as relevant today as they've been -- as they've always been. And they described a business that has strong relevant well-invested brands operated with commercial vigor, dynamically and with constant evolution and innovation. Now as I said earlier, we're pleased with the momentum we have on sales. But they do need to keep moving forward if we're going to mitigate for the unprecedented cost inflation that this sector has seen. Now as a business, Tim signaled that we face between GBP 180 million and GBP 220 million of unmitigated cost headwinds as we began this financial year, with utility costs and food cost of goods being exceptionally high and labor costs continuing on their trajectory. Now there are 3 main levers that we pull each year to try and further drive sales and mitigate for cost increases, namely the annual commercial decisions that we take around price and offer development and operational control. Secondly, the capital program where we decide how much capital to invest and where to deploy it, and finally, Ignite, our change program, where we seek to ensure that we have multiple initiatives in place at any one time. So starting with the commercial decisions on pricing and offer development. The sector of understand become more aggressive on pricing over the last year given the inflationary environment. And though it's fair to say that whilst we have taken more prices in recent years, we took circa 5% at the start of the year and more modest increases as we've introduced our light night menus. We believe that they remain good value for money and certainly below headline inflation figures. As always, we try and protect entry points where we can and we look to add premium products that perhaps will drive a higher spend. Now we aim to operate in the premium markets within each of our brands. And as such, we'd expect to be in the upper quartile on price. Evolving our offers in this way, grounded in customer insight has enabled us to maintain and grow volumes and improve guest satisfaction scores despite taking those price increases. Offer Development is a dynamic program of continual improvement across each of our brands, ensuring they stay relevant. Moving on to labor, which is, of course, our biggest cost, but of course, we are a service-led business and therefore, our teams are our most valuable asset. That is why we've invested in a sophisticated labor deployment tool, which aims to ensure that we optimize our labor deployment, adding in-house where demand makes us commercially viable to do so and reducing hours to a minimum when demand is at its lowest. After all, the best way to mitigate for cost increases is to take more sales. And the auto roster project aims to be able to enable us to do that. Now the auto roster has been part of the Ignite program over the last couple of years. And we've now rolled it out to the business. And we expect the full benefit of that to be yielded in the next financial year. Energy has been the standout cost burden to the business over the last 2 years as global utility costs, commodity costs have spiked. In line with the systematic approach that we tend to take towards these things, we initially set up a network of energy ambassadors at site level to start driving improvement in site housekeeping and therefore, to reduce consumption. At the same time, we invested in heating additives that improved the efficiency of our heating systems. And this year, we've rolled out voltage optimizers that reduce electricity consumption. Put together, we are confident in seeing material like-for-like consumption reductions. And now as the commodity costs have now started to fall, we're encouraged by the impact that this will have on current year forecast, but also, more importantly, on the next year projection. We now have also installed our first solar panels, which, of course, will further reduce costs or consumption and therefore, costs. Reductions that we are seeing in consumption are permanent. And fundamentally, we are now a far more energy-efficient business than we were. Moving on to capital. The capital program is an important part of what we do each year. As I said earlier, we aim to get back on to an average 7-year cycle of reinvestment to each site, which will ensure we have good quality amenity right across the portfolio and to accelerate those brands that are generating the strongest returns. Due to inflationary pressure and resource to material shortages that still persist in the construction industry, we are still building back the scale of the program. Now we've been very encouraged by the strong returns on investments we are seeing. And we're currently conducting another round of value engineering across all of our brand templates to try and compensate for some of the inflationary pressures that we're seeing in development costs. Pleasingly, our first 2 Browns developments in Beaconsfield and [indiscernible] that I talked about at our prelims, continue to trade well. And we will now look to further the Browns expansion over the coming months. We've also recently refurbished our flagship site in Covent Garden, which demonstrates the confidence we have in the Browns brands brand and the opportunity we think it represents. Similarly, the 2 Arrowsmiths implants at O'Neill's Solihull and O'Neill's Watford. But I also mentioned back in November, also continued to trade well. And we intend to extend the rollout of this concept too over the coming months. Arrowsmiths is a great solution to be implanted into underperforming or unused trading space that drives new footfall and enhances the host business. Having proven brands to roll out is a great strength for Mitchells & Butlers. And we are delighted to have been able to announce our intention to acquire the remaining 60% of Ego restaurants, a brand that we've had a 40% stake in since 2018. For those of you who don't know Ego, it operates in Mediterranean seemed menu and is trading very well. I'm delighted that the management team will remain with the business. And they will continue to operate Ego, which should ensure that we don't lose any of the Ego culture that's made that brand very successful and should mean that we manage integration at the right pace, taking the learnings for the whole business as a whole. Ego currently has 26 sites, 16 of which are M&B leases. And we see scope to extend the brand to over 80 sites over the coming years. The final pivotal lever that we pull each year is the execution of numerous projects that sit under our Ignite transformation umbrella. To remind you, these include projects that will drive sales, drive productivity, reduce costs, improve guest experience and so forth. Each project has an exec sponsor and a project team led by an operations director or senior manager. Now as I've said many times before, Ignite is simply a recognition. There's no silver bullet to moving our business to our scale forward. But instead, it's progressed simultaneously on numerous fronts that together in aggregate, adds up to a meaningful number. Now we have circa 40 projects live at any one time in various states of completion. And we systematically refill the hopper every 2 years as there are always new ideas to grab hold of or things that we can and should improve. Unbelievably, we're now 7 years into Ignite. And so we have a tried and tested weekly and monthly cadence that drives the program and provides the governance required. What is exciting is on the numerous projects that we have rolled out over that time, which we now know with certainty work, there are always sites where, for some reason, they haven't seen the benefit. So we see a lot of value now in going back into the bottom quartile site on each initiative that we've done, just to get them performing like the rest. And that in itself we think, will add a lot of value. Finally, we were delighted to be awarded the best sustainable Pub Company Award at the recent Publicans industry event, which is recognition of the huge amount of ground that we've covered. We have a detailed program of activity ahead of us from deploying solar panels and going fully electric on our cook lines to working with third parties to avoid food waste and helping the most needy in society. Aiming to operate sustainably is now just part of what we do and it touches everyone within the organization. So in summary, we believe that we've had a very strong first half and that we are nicely set up for half 2. Our sales growth has remained ahead of the market. And the fact that our guest scores are at record highs gives us the confidence that this should continue. As we came out of COVID, we were clear that we didn't feel that we could solve all the macro events or macro event-driven cost issues that we are facing. But what we could do was to ensure that we control those things that were in our [indiscernible] to control. And I feel we've done that. And that now makes the sales fundamentally a more efficient business. Now that the macro issues are starting to subside, we believe we're well-positioned to see the benefit, particularly as your utility costs start for and hopefully when food costs soon follow on. This coupled with the addition of Ego restaurants into our stable of brands means that the outlook for FY '24 is getting stronger and stronger. Navigating over the last 3 years has been hugely challenging for everyone in the business. But we feel we are now firmly back on our chosen path and that we have a bright future as a business to look forward to. And we'll now be happy to take your questions. I think there's a microphone coming around, just for the benefit of people dialing in. Jamie...

Jamie Rollo from Morgan Stanley, 3 questions, please. First of all, a few of your competitors pointed to some signs of softness sort of midweek and some value brands. Do you see any signs of demand softness anywhere? Secondly, on the cost bridge you gave, it looks like this year energy costs will be up sort of 20% to 30% year-on-year. And then next year, down 30% to 40% year-on-year, with things still leaves the material above 2019. So what's in place in terms of hedges for next year? And what assumptions you're using? And then finally, I can see in the securitization documents you're in sort of cash trap at the moment. But there could be some good news on the pension main plan, obviously 2 quite different topics, but net-net, what might that mean for dividend resumption at some point?

I'll take the first one. And no, Jamie, I wouldn't say we are seeing softness, particularly. I think what's been pleasing is the recovery. As I said earlier, it's across all brands. And as Tim said, across all locations, right? Obviously, there are others that are outstripping or leaders in those, but no, they're all recovering. And I think -- no, I mean, I can't -- I wouldn't really want to point to any particular brand or trading session that we'd be that concerned about. I think maybe the older customer was slower to come back. They're now beginning to come back. Some of the post 8:00, post 9:00 sessions that were traditionally very strong, had been slow to recover, but they are recovering. So no, I wouldn't necessarily concur.

Taking energy, Jamie, I mean, I think your conclusion is correct. So this year, we expect our total energy bill to be about GBP 170 million. And next year, we would expect that to fall by about GBP 30 million, maybe to about GBP 140 million. And that's just based on roughly where markets are at the moment. If they come off further, it will be better. If they spike up, then we'll fill that in our P&L. We're only about 13% hedged for next year. So we still have quite a large exposure. We'll close a lot of that now we'll go through the second half, but that's where we are at the moment. In terms of cash and payouts, correct, we're not passing the restrictive covenant tests on the securitization. So we're in a cash trap on that. Pensions, as I said earlier, everything is going to escrow now and will finish in September. So that leaves us with the prospects and I would say the probability that at some stage that value comes back to us. That may be 2, 3 years away. But it's a potential cash inflow for us later. What does all that mean for the divi, I wouldn't put a divi on the radar at the moment, I mean we've been very clear that our capital allocation is paying fixed charges and then investing in our estate and keeping M&B at the front of the market and competitive. And that is absolutely still our hierarchy. So I wouldn't even want to put it on your radar at the moment. It's just not top of mind.

Erik Salz, JPMorgan. I have a question on the Ego investment and sort of the time line towards potentially these 80 outlets and the investments needed. Can you give us some color about that?

Yes. I mean, so Ego will be with us fully in the summer and probably July, I think when we finally get there. They're a small team. And I think history is listed with big companies buying small companies, thinking they know better and then destroying what you built. We don't intend to do that. It's operated by a team I hold in very high regard and we're going to allow them to continue to do so. So it's a bit like when we rolled out Miller & Carter. What we don't want to do is to think the team, by saying, right, do 10 conversions this year, because actually, the team will just focus on that and everything else falls away. So they will go slowly. But it will be like a hockey stick. They will probably do 4 or 5 conversions next year. And then they'll all start as they work and they'll get -- they'll do more the following year. So I would think the 80 -- or 80 plus I'm talking about, I think disappointed within 5 years' time, not today. But we'll have to prove that they can continue the success they've seen so far on conversions. But I think as the team expands, they're then able to do more schemes in any one year. And that's where you run these things.

And in terms of investments, is it part -- is it already part of current investment plans which is -- yes.

Yes, because the way we view our capital expenditure is across our estate and because they are coming out of our estate, yes, it's within the guidance Tim gave us some capital here.

Tim Barrett from Numis. One question around Slide 7, that EBIT waterfall that you showed. If you look at a very healthy drop-through on the additional sales. Can you talk a bit about what drops you'd expect now and sort of earnings sensitivity? And then just a second question on the 2024 cost outlook. How much visibility have you got on that? Because I suppose the living wage post April 2024 isn't known food and beverage, just some broader thoughts?

Yes. Could you just repeat your question on the waterfall?

Just the drop-through that you're assuming or seeing on the additional sales?

Well, I mean, volumes coming through at gross margin. So you're looking at 65%, 70% spend per head. The majority of spend per head is priced, so that will come to 100%. Some of it is premiumization, both across brands, so mix and within brands as we're trying to get people to sort of trade up the menu. So it's a mixture of that. But I would say the majority of that is price and therefore, is 100% drop through. In terms of next year's costs, so as I said 13% energy, living wage we'll find out in the autumn, went up 9.5% this year. We would not expect it to go up that much next year for 2 reasons. Firstly, because I think inflation will be coming off. Secondly, the government will then be or should be pretty well at their 60% or maybe an earnings target, which they first articulated when they set living wage. So I would hope next year's, I mean I know 5%, 6%, something like that. I don't know yet. But that would be my working assumption within what we're doing. And within other costs, food and drink costs, over half of our drink for next year will be contracted already, well under half of our food, from foods much shorter-term contracts, so a very little coverage for food for next year, but fairly substantial coverage for drink.

Mark Fortescue from Stifel, just one please on margins. It sounds like you're feeling a little bit more confident in margin recovery over the medium term. Just nearer term, do you think it's too much to expect the first half EBIT margin of about 8% to grow in the second half to end the year a little bit higher than that? Or is it more for FY '24?

I think it could a little bit. I guess I should start by answering that question by saying percentage margins are an output for us. They're not an input, okay? So we are managing the group to maximize and optimize our cash margin, right? And that will result in a consequential. So this is not a variable we're directly looking to influence. Having said that, yes, I think this year's -- next year's margin will certainly be higher than this year's margin percentage terms. And you may see a small strengthening in the second half this year over the first half of this year.

It's Joe Thomas from HSBC. A couple of things please. The pricing increases that you put through, I didn't catch exactly what you said. I think you said 5% at the start of the year and then there was something else which...

No, what I said what I said. But I think, yes, we -- probably about 7%, 7.5%, I think, for a full year basis from that sort of order, so well below headline inflation.

And are there any sort of anniversaries that we need to think about as we go through the year as a whole? I mean, was there any...

On price?

Yes.

I mean we price at the same time each year. So we tend to price at the start of the financial year and around the March-April time. So they're the anniversaries. So when we get to September-October this year, it would depend on what price we put through, how they compare.

Okay. And just on Ignite, how much more do you think there is to go on that program?

I mean Ignite is not -- it's never-ending. It's simply a title that's now captured the imagination that whenever you sit down and think about any business, anything you do and you bring something, you give quality time to doing that. There was also always something that you think I could have done that better, could have done that quicker, could have done that cheaper or someone is doing that's something over there, why aren't we doing it? It's always. So we will -- we'd have these sort of staged events every 2 years. And I think I said last time for the first time we did one with our managers, the GMs as well last time around, huge amount. We've got ideas coming out of our ears in terms of things we could do, but we haven't even touched yet. So we've got enough stuff, I think, anyway. But next year, we'll -- probably the end of next year, we'll do another one of these events. So there's always things we can go on. So that will never -- I don't think we'll ever stop. I mean, technology is changing all the time, opens up new opportunities. The thing I was talking about there is though they're actually when you then stop to look back and think quite how much ground we've covered and you take the 2 years of COVID out, so it's really 5 years, so how much ground we covered in 5 years? There's probably, I don't know, 150 to 200 initiatives that we have done. And the difference is we know they work because we now can see what we've done. We see what they've given to us. And yet within brand, there are a number of sites at some reason haven't seen that benefit. So the value in saying to those bottom quartile, look, there's the evidence, everyone else is doing it. It works. We now need you to get on board. That in itself, I think, is just icing on the cake, whilst we still have Ignite running over here.

And just going back to the sales performance. The like-for-like volume recovery, is that now largely complete, you think, from the current period?

I think -- well, I mean, you obviously -- we are largely complete in the sense of the Omicron and COVID impact probably. But we think at the moment, we're probably seeing some benefit from that market shrinkage. Like I said, it's difficult to sort of say there's the evidence. But by definition, if there's a lot less places to go, then those that remain are picking some of that up. So it might not continue at the same trajectory and it might slow down, but it's fully there for a little while longer. Any more for any more? Okay. If not, thank you for your time.

Thank you.