Greene King reports £273m loss for 2020 financial year

Revenue was £1,919m – a drop of 13.4% compared to the previous year with declines recorded in all revenue generating areas.

The firm’s pub company arm was hit the hardest with revenue down 13.5% to £1,556.3m due to a combination of competitive marketing conditions, tough comparators and poor weather.

Total revenue in Greene King Pub Partners was £157.9m – a drop of almost 17% driven by a decline in average pub numbers of 19.5% as well as a like-for-like drink income drop of 13%.

Capital investment

Greene King's brewing and brands business was the only area to continue trading throughout Covid-19 lockdown due to off-trade sales but for this area, revenue fell 10% to £204.8m with total beer volumes down by 13.6%.

The pubco reported disposal net proceeds were £35.1m, generated from the sale of 66 non-core pubs and other non-pub properties.

It spent £2.9m on three new builds, of which one has opened while the other two remain under construction and should be open in the new financial year. One site was planned to open this year but has now been delayed due to coronavirus. 

Greene King invested £2.4m into completing the refurbishment of three sites that were acquired in the previous financial year, a further £14.8m was spent on buying the freeholds on five sites and £700,000 was paid on exchange for one further site that will complete in the next financial year.

Staff impact

In the report, Greene King also stated it furloughed 99% of staff, the chief executive took a voluntary pay cut of 50% while pubs were closed and other members of the leadership team taking voluntary reductions of up to 30%.

The pub company was acquired by Hong Kong-based CK Noble (a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of CK Asset Holdings) by means of a scheme of arrangement, which became effective on 30 October 2019.