Young’s pubs by the Olympic park get gold
THE COW and Calf pubs at the centre of Stratford’s Westfield shopping centre were the highlight of an impressive six months for Young and Co. with the venues seeing record numbers of visitors during the Olympic Games.
The two pubs “shattered all our previous sales records in the second week of the Games,” Young’s said, as it reported a 10.7 per cent rise in sales in the half-year to October.
The company made £100m, sending profits up to £14m.
It called the period “six months of contrastic fortunes,” with the first quarter – the wettest on record – being made up for by the Olympics and Paralympics in the remaining three months. Young’s said it had been able to increase prices on rooms in its inns thanks to strong demand in the summer.
The results beat expectations, sending shares up five per cent. “[Trading] remains well ahead of Young’s national pub operator peers,” JP Morgan’s Matthew Webb said.
“These excellent results reflect some benefit from the extraordinary events we have seen in London this summer,” chief executive Stephen Goodyear said, adding that “they have also been achieved despite some periods of truly awful weather”.