‘Judicious investment’ helps keep G1 Group the King of clubs

REFITTING key venues including the Corinthian Club in Glasgow has helped nightclub tycoon Stefan King’s G1 Group post a 9 per cent rise in profits.

Figures released last night ahead of G1’s accounts being filed at Companies House showed pre-tax profits grew to £4.7 million for the year to 31 March, from £4.3m in the previous 12 months.

Turnover climbed by 8 per cent to £49.3m as the company made “steady progress” in what chairman Brian McGhee called a “still uncertain economy”.

McGhee said other managed and tenanted properties had received “judicious investment”, while the group also opened the Ghillie Dhu bar in Edinburgh and Mitchell’s delicatessen at St Andrews, in Fife.

Following the year-end, the group bought four hotels in Edinburgh from Kenny Waugh’s Festival Group for an estimated £30m, with Waugh joining the board of King’s new EH1 unit to help run the properties.

G1 Group also bought the former BBC Scotland headquarters on Glasgow’s Queen Margaret Drive from Royal Bank of Scotland to act as the firm’s base.

The group declared an interim dividend of £32,000 – down from £50,153 in the previous year – but again did not recommend an end-of-year payout.

News of G1’s full-year results came as G101 Off Sales – the convenience store chain owned by King’s parents, George and Cynthia – admitted that 2011 had been a “more-challenging year than anticipated” as profits slumped by two-thirds.

The company reported that pre-tax profits fell to £216,000 in the year to 31 May from £631,000 in the previous 12 months.

Accounts filed at Companies House showed turnover dipped to £45.2m from £46.2m, but the gross profit margin edged up to just under 14 per cent from 13.3 per cent. Staff numbers rose to 410 from 373.

G1 Group bought £3.2m of wholesale stock from G101 in the past year.