Enterprise Inns positive despite earnings drop

ENTERPRISE Inns, Britain's second biggest pubs company, posted a fall in half-year earnings yesterday but said the rate of pub failures was falling.

This echoed recent comments by its rival Punch Taverns, Scotland's biggest independent pubs group.

Enterprise, which has 7,138 leased and tenanted pubs, said net income per pub fell 3 per cent in the six months to end-March, an improvement on last year's drop of 8 per cent.

Underlying earnings slid from 226 million a year earlier to 204m, but the group said it hoped that the forthcoming World Cup would mean extra business.

Enterprise said the rate of business failures was lower in the first half of the year compared with a year earlier, a trend which it expects to continue.

And the number of pubs under temporary management – where outlets are moved through a programme of refurbishment and relaunch – has reduced over the last year, declining from a peak of 218 last summer to 84 in March.