Mitchells & Butlers H1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 21, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: First-half operating profit held at GBP 181 million despite significant cost pressures, showing the business was able to offset inflationary headwinds with sales growth and Ignite-driven efficiencies.
  • Positive Sentiment: Like-for-like sales rose 3.3% in the first half, with Q1 up 4.5% and Q2 still positive at 1.8%, though weather and tougher comparisons made the trend harder to read.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Cost headwinds were severe but may be easing: management said this year’s inflation burden is slightly below prior guidance and next year’s is expected to fall to about GBP 95 million, helped by lower National Insurance pressure and energy being partially locked in.
  • Positive Sentiment: Cash generation and the balance sheet improved further, with net debt reduced to just under GBP 750 million, gearing at about 1.6x EBITDA excluding leases, and net assets rising to GBP 4.91 per share.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management is continuing to invest for growth, including a higher CapEx plan of about GBP 230 million, new site acquisitions, the rollout of Guest 360 CRM, and ongoing AI and labor-efficiency initiatives under Ignite.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.

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Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

In quarter two. Despite the impact of incremental employers' National Insurance and the very high cost of steak, we managed to bring profit in just slightly ahead of expectations and slightly ahead of last year. To us, that demonstrates the power of our Ignite program and the work done on cost mitigation. As we believe the macro issues are temporary, we are maintaining our focus on the midterm, where debt service costs are significantly reduced, where the business is going to be very well-placed. I'm delighted to say that we're joined today by Emma Harris, our new CFO. Tim will deliver his final city presentation this morning. Both he and Emma will be available to meet with you after the presentation.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

I'll now hand over to Tim, who'll take you through the financial results, and I will return to add color to the things we're working on.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

Morning. As Phil said, I'd like to take you through the summary of the financial results for the 32nd and final time. We feel we had a really good first half of the year, as you can see here on this slide. Sales remained strong, certainly well ahead of the market, such that despite very stiff cost headwinds that we talked about previously, we were able to maintain our operating profits at GBP 181 million. EPS, which continues to benefit from a reduction of debt, therefore lower interest charges, was up 3.6%. That's a strong performance in this market. It starts with sales. I've set out here the flow of the sales on a monthly basis over the last 12 months. Clearly, individual months could be quite impacted by calendar event movement, so you shouldn't read too much into the individuals.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

Overall, across the first half, we had a like-for-like sales increase of 3.3%, with volumes marginally down and driven mainly by food. Within that, we had a very strong start to the year, very strong festive season, as we've previously reported, with Q1 like-for-likes up 4.5%. Since then, the pace across Q2 is slightly slower, 1.8%. Phil's going to talk a little bit about that. Certainly adverse weather was a key factor within that. Also, it's harder to discern, but possible indications of some sort of response to macroeconomic pressures. We look at how that affected our EBIT. You can see here the various drivers and elements that contribute to our performance. We are increasing CapEx justified by very strong returns in excess of 30%. Current year projects are dilutive, of course, for us for this year as a result of closure and pre-opening costs.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

Naturally they lay the ground for profit growth next year, so we're continuing with that plan and indeed scaling up that plan. We're also driving value from like-for-like trading and from our Ignite efficiencies, they all came together to balance what were very high cost headwinds in the year, in the half year, disproportionately weighted to the first half. Depressingly, we talk a lot about costs at these sessions because it's been a very important challenge for us. I've set out here what we consider to be the pre-mitigation cost headwinds that we face as a business. This year we had talked about GBP 130 million when we did the prelims.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

We think it'll be slightly lower than that, largely as a result of reductions in business rates and also red meat not being quite as extreme as we feared it was at the beginning of the year. We've also now closed out our energy purchasing for this year, taken that risk off the table. Slightly lower cost headwind this year than we've previously flagged. That's going to be weighted 60% towards the first half, we're, if you like, we're through the worst of it. As a result, principally of National Insurance contributions for employers, which we've now annualized on at the increased rate. That's no longer a headwind for us. If I look forward to next year, we would anticipate the challenge becoming slightly more benign or slightly lower with cost inflation of GBP 95 million, representing about 4% of our cost base.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

Probably one area of risk in that is energy. We've bought forward 15% of next year's energy as I stand here today, so there's scope for a little bit of volatility in that, and that's why you've got a slightly blurry bar for energy there. Cash flow was very strong. We have a typical seasonality whereby working capital is an inflow in the first half due to our payments profile. A lot of that will reverse in the second half as it did last year. Beyond that, items of note, CapEx increased to GBP 117 million as we're now back on our seven-year remodel cycle that we've talked to you about, justified by strong returns and indeed also including the purchase of a number of new sites. We bought five new sites within the first half and indeed a couple since the balance sheet date as well.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

We'd expect full year CapEx to be slightly higher than we guided before, up to about GBP 230 million with, I suspect, more new sites, single site acquisitions taking place. We've also paid the final consideration of our Pesto business of GBP 11 million. Lastly, tax paid. For the past couple of years, our tax paid has been depressed or alleviated, if you like, by the fact that we built up a number of losses during COVID. We've sort of used all those losses up, if you like, through the course of this year. We'll start to see our cash tax paid slightly higher. Overall, a really strong cash performance and indeed GBP 30 million in excess of what we need to pay down amortization in the first half.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

You can see the value of that cash flow on our balance sheet, reducing our gearing net debt now just under GBP 750 million, about 1.6 times EBITDA excluding leases, alongside a transformation of our pension position to now what is a de-risked asset of about GBP 100 million. We haven't revalued our property estate at the half year this year. We will do that again at the end of the year. We do have a further increase in net assets to now GBP 4.91 per share. A very strong balance sheet. As we've said before consistently, over time the board will continue to keep the balance sheet and the capital allocation strategy under review, particularly with respect to break costs and new issue costs.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

Pulling that together and summarizing it, we think it's a strong trading performance in the first half, doing very well to maintain operating profit despite stiff cost headwinds. Progress has also been made across all of our scorecard, cash, debt, returns, staff scores, and guest scores. We see a positive outlook looking forward. We expect to continue to outperform sector. We do see cost headwinds beginning to moderate. Now, as I said before, this is the last time you'll hear from me. We thought we'd sort of use the opportunity to reflect on where we are today and how we got to where we are today. There have been a number of challenges in this sector over the last 15 years. None of you here need reminding of those. I won't go through them.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

I feel we have met all of those challenges head on, and we now face the future in great shape as a business. We have a really strong financial position. We've navigated net debt down from over six times EBITDA to under two times. We transformed the pension position from a half a billion deficit to a GBP 100 million asset. Looking forward, we will see value from that de-gearing, so a number of capital allocation options and flexibility will open up for the group. We have a fantastic portfolio with well-invested sites. We have a large and stable of brands and formats that we can use to maximize the trading from each of those sites. I think we have a business and management team that's now established a clear track record of continuous improvement and delivery.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

We don't know what the future's going to hold, but we do believe that M&B faces it with confidence and is set up very well for success. With that, I'd like to hand you back to Phil.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

Thanks, Tim. I'd like to start by looking at sales in a little more detail. We came out of quarter one with 4.5% like-for-like sales growth, but poor weather at the start of January dampened our January performance. You can see that both our and the market sales dipped as we came out of the festive season. Of course, year-on-year weather and a shift of key dates, not least Mother's Day and Easter, further distorted year-on-year comparisons, making it quite difficult to get a read, with the sustained very hot spring weather of last year not being repeated this time around. The odd black bar merely shows the impact of moving calendar dates and/or weather anomalies.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

Pleasingly, our guest metrics remain at an all-time high, which suggests to me that the brands are in very good health, and it's the frequency of visit that has dipped as the consumer is being a little more careful with their spend. There's been a definite split between our wet-led and dry-led brands, with the pubs having a strong performance and restaurants bearing the brunt of reduced frequency. For example, in my 11 years, Miller & Carter has been a big driver of company performance, but with a sharp rise of steak as an input cost, partially reflected in our selling prices, steak has clearly become more of a luxury item at the moment, which has given Miller & Carter a tough first half. The guest review scores are as strong as ever, and the key calendar dates have traded incredibly well.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

It tells me that the brand is in good shape, and I'm convinced if we hold our nerve when the macro environment improves, M&C will bounce back quickly. Quarter two finished with 1.8% like-for-like sales growth, but it's been very difficult to get a clean read on underlying growth because there are so many moving parts and due to the poor year-on-year weather. There is no escaping that weather is a key factor to our business. So far this year, it's pretty much worked against us. If I look at our daily sales, rain is a factor of course, but so is temperature and sunshine hours. Although we have a well-diversified estate, when there is a big drop in year-on-year temperature, as there's been this year, we see the business that goes into decline.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

When temperature is close to last year, we go back into growth, and when it's in this year's favor, we see big growth. In quarter two, 69% of the days were colder than last year, and 91% of the days had fewer sunshine hours. In the last three weeks, 81% of the days were colder than last year, and 90% had fewer sunshine hours. On Tuesday this week, Propel, one of the industry trade journals headlined the impact on rain and colder weather it had on April sales. Like I say, on the odd sunny day that we have had this year, we've seen the business jump back into solid growth. We know the underlying trade is still very, very good.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

As I say to my team, there's little merit in wasting too much time in trying to disaggregate results. Instead, we use this as a catalyst to work harder and faster on things to drive the business forward. This is where Ignite and our way of working comes to the fore. As always, we don't believe there is a single silver bullet, if you make progress on numerous fronts simultaneously, you can make a big difference to performance. For me, our half one profit was one of the best results that we have delivered in my time as CEO, as we knew the cost headwinds we faced at the start of the year were at an unprecedented high. However, we faced into them with the same sort of rigor that the team has approached every challenge.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

To have flat profits, despite the fact that we had to absorb the incremental GBP 12 million of employers' National Insurance, and despite the super high cost of steak, that has been really satisfying. Our work on reducing energy consumption is a good example of activity undertaken in recent years now driving value. Solar panels, voltage optimizers, improved local housekeeping, and now the Internet of Things project, which enables remote switching on and off of kit when the businesses are closed, helps to mitigate for other cost increases elsewhere. As you would expect, we have work streams in place looking at reducing consumable costs across the business. We have procurement and product specialists ensuring that we optimize our scale and that we limit exposure to the highest inflated categories, and we continue to employ our labor deployment.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

In many ways, half one demonstrated the real value of Ignite to the business as the many initiatives have helped to absorb extraordinary cost headwinds. Ignite has a good blend of sales volume and spend initiatives balanced by some solid efficiency improvement projects, which I'll cover in a few moments. We have used the tougher sales environment as a catalyst for embracing and implementing a suite of initiatives brand by brand to ensure that we optimize trading where we can in the short term. To give you some examples, there is a lot of discounting going on, or promotion going on across the sector right now, but we believe it's far better to be targeted when you promote, and we're trialing a series of price-led promotions in specific brands aimed at specific day parts.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

It's interesting to see that when we do run a week of discounted offers, which we do every year, the take-up is immediate, which would further cement the view that the consumer is currently being cautious but can still be attracted by the right offer and messaging. If you don't want to take more price, and you've done all that you can to attract new business, the other area to go at is spend ahead from the existing business that you do have. We have a number of initiatives in train to sell up to our guests, but in a way that adds enjoyment to their visit. An obvious example of this would be selling a second drink.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

We believe that this simple action, spotting when guests are nearing the end of their drink and offering to bring a second drink to their table, could be worth several million GBP given the huge number of drink transactions that we do in any year. Moving to costs. Now, we have made great inroads in recent years in terms of understanding our labor rostering, and we have driven efficiency year after year in this space. However, we don't see labor control as being about cost cutting, but more about optimizing deployment, ensuring you have the right number of team hours by day part. As well as we've done, we know that we still have far too many fat hours, those being hours where our labor rostering system is telling us that we have too many hours deployed at off-peak times.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

Although never easy to deliver, those hours could, in theory, be taken out without impacting trade at all. Conversely, the system also tells us we have too many thin hours, those being the peak trading hours where we have insufficient labor to deliver our offers in an optimal fashion, and where, had we deployed more hours, we could reasonably expect to take more sales. The challenge is obvious. Move fat hours to thin, and we're determined to land this opportunity that will start to benefit half two and set us up for next year. The point of all of this is that we remain excited and positive about our ability to continue to outperform the market, and we believe that even if the Iran war continues, the warmer days and nights, the World Cup, and more favorable comparatives in half two will see the growth rates climb again.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

If they do, and we deliver on our cost aspirations, then we will finish this year strongly. For the World Cup, we would normally be saying that net net, a World Cup tournament would be marginally negative for the business, with the gains in our wet led businesses being offset by the impact on food sales. The timing of the matches this time around should mean that there's probably a slight opportunity, because there will be less impact on the restaurants, and we will be extending licensing hours in some of our wet led businesses for some of the later matches. Always, how far England and Scotland go will decide whether it's a positive impact for the business, but we're optimistic. We'll see how that unfolds. Despite a relatively difficult trading environment, we have maintained the pace of our capital program.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

To remind you, one of our strategic priorities is to maintain a balanced portfolio, which is all about keeping the brands relevant by grounding them in quality customer insight, ensuring that we're structured and systematic in the way we raise the average quality of our amenity. We recognize that the consumer has a lot of choice, and we believe that having a quality environment is a prerequisite of doing business. As you know, we target ourselves to operate on an average seven-year cycle of investment, so that every site is refreshed on that sort of timescale. With payback being within five years, it gives us assurance that we have at least two years of genuine value creation. The return on investment for our remodel program remains very strong at circa 33% for this year's cohort and the prior two years' cohorts that we continue to measure.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

This proves to me that the investments that we make have real impact, longevity of return, and are cementing our brands at the top of their respective markets. We believe capital investment is a critical lever to pull each year, and on top of the remodel and conversion program, we've also acquired five sites in half one and remain opportunistic towards the increasing number of sales leads coming across our desks. As always, we're ideally interested in quality freehold assets, but we won't overpay. We believe the opportunity is going to increase over the coming months as a tougher trading environment will inevitably lead to some casualties in the sector. We will grow our market share as and when that happens.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

We are also investing in the new HR and payroll system, which is due to go live in July, which will generate modest running cost savings but will improve our management information in this key area, which will help drive further engagement. Our team engagement scores are already at an all-time high, and we are relentless in trying to understand any dissatisfaction and to resolve any issues. The correlation between strong engagement and strong like-for-like sales is irrefutable. At the same time, we're about to launch a new CRM platform, Guest 360, which will step change our ability to genuinely personalize our communication to our 15 million-strong guest database. This is potentially very, very powerful and should become a growth engine for next year and beyond.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

On top of these projects, we're all soon to complete the full upgrade of our network and hosting at site level, which will mean improved Wi-Fi coverage, critical for capturing internal and especially external order at table sales. Capital investment remains a critical part of the business, and we believe this will further strengthen our position versus the rest of the sector. Moving on to Ignite, our ongoing change program. It's now 10 years old, and Ignite has just become a way of working, has forged an ethos of constant and relentless improvement, and it's fostered a culture where silos don't exist. Now we have a back catalog of successful improvement initiatives, and the value that can be derived from ensuring each of them has landed in the business would be significant in itself.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

However, Ignite never stops, and this summer we will continue our pattern of holding a formal event to brainstorm and refill the hopper, as I call it, as we have done every two years. I have no doubt that we will see a mixture of refinements and improvements to some of the things we already do. Some large and small blue sky ideas, which will be great and exciting to test, and some bigger ticket technology-intensive ideas that could be truly transformational. This is the beauty of Ignite. It has no boundaries and it drives pace and innovation across the business. Now, one of the areas that's growing in importance under Ignite is, of course, how we view the future, and it's all things AI. Artificial intelligence is here to stay. Sorry, I should put the next slide on.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

Is here to stay. We're already deploying it in some of our processes, such as recruitment, guest care, and reporting. Now, we have built chatbot functionality into our brand website, giving our guests a quicker response when accessing information in a conversational style. We think there is unlimited potential for AI to transform so much of what we do, initially saving time on more routine aspects of doing business, such as business administration, stock management, and management reporting, and freeing up our people to focus on guests. However, the AI work stream is still embryonic, and it will grow in importance as we run through to 2030. We have plans to grow our expertise and knowledge.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

As with all things in Ignite, the richness of the output will be improved by the quality of multifunctional input and expertise that will go into reimagining the hospitality business for the future. What we're doing now is ensuring the myriad of data points that we have in the business, of which there are many, are available to be part of this very exciting initiative. Turning to sustainability. We continue to make strong measurable progress against our long-term commitments. We have reduced our total carbon footprint by 16% versus the 2019 baseline, including a 22% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions, driven by lower energy use and reduced reliance on gas, and a 15% reduction in scope 3 through closer supplier engagement.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

Operationally, we now divert 100% of waste from landfill, with recycling rates increased to over 60%, and we have reduced food waste by 23%, supported by both on-site actions and partnerships with third parties such as FareShare and Too Good To Go. From a social perspective, we are very proud of our partnership with Social Bite, focused on targeting homelessness issues in the U.K. We've now raised GBP 2.5 million over the last 18 months, and we have employed 40 people impacted by homelessness through the employment program that we have established together. We remain committed to our sustainability ambitions, delivering measurable environmental and social impacts. In summary, we remain on course to deliver this year despite a tougher quarter two, and we're already focused on pushing on again next year when cost headwinds should drop back to circa GBP 95 million versus GBP 120 million this year.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

We're staying focused on brand management, capital deployment, and Ignite as these three levers continue to serve us well as we de-gear. The difficult macro environment is outside of our control, but we're not phased by it, and we've already closed out our energy requirements for the current financial year. We will continue to de-gear, and the current volatility caused by geopolitical issues is a good reminder that being prudent until the debt service costs fall away is still the right path to follow. M&B has the best brands in the sector, some great locations, a strong track record of delivery, and a strengthening balance sheet, and we remain excited and positive about the future. Now I'm happy to take your questions.

Douglas Jack
Douglas Jack
Analyst at Peel Hunt

Thanks, yeah. It's Douglas Jack at Peel Hunt. Don't think this is working.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

No, I can hear you now.

Douglas Jack
Douglas Jack
Analyst at Peel Hunt

Okay. Okay, maybe, yeah. That's the best one. Right. I've got two questions. It's Douglas Jack at Peel Hunt. First one is obviously talking about competitive behavior and discounting. I was just wondering if you could talk about differences in performance between the premium end of your estate, excluding, obviously, the red meat impact and the sort of value end, and any geographical differences you're seeing in trade. The other one was a capital allocation one, because obviously your NAV is GBP 4.91 a share, which is more than double the share price. I was just wondering if you're tempted to be maybe selling some assets from the non-core end of the estate, if there is much, and perhaps buying back shares given the massive difference that's in place at present.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

I'll take the first one, Tim. In terms of performance, premium versus value, I think our split, as I said in the script, is more wet led versus food led because I suppose you'd argue something like Nicholson's is a premium brand and that's had a very strong London's traded very well. Our London sites are very strong growth and they tend to be the more wet led businesses. That's more the split. I think the discounting we're seeing in the market is probably not everywhere, but in the people who are running it are probably running it longer and at times you wouldn't normally expect, over weekends and things. It says to me that some people are sort of a little bit desperate, let's say. I think this is something that we constantly monitor, and we can respond to.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

Geographically, generally, no, not very many distinctions, but London has remained strong.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

I think on capital allocation, Douglas, I'd reiterate what we've been saying for a while now, that the board do keep it under review. We will decide when is the most efficient and most effective time to reset the capital structure with respect to, amongst other things, investment opportunities, break costs, refinance costs. We've said we wouldn't return money, a.k.a. dividends or share buybacks if we had to draw down debt to do that. Neither would we sell assets just to do that. I think if we've got sites that are trading well and profitably, we're not going to sell those and start undermining the very strength that we have as a group to buy back shares. There will and always has been some element of churn of the estate. You will see a small number of site disposals, but that will be for operational reasons.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

We don't think we can make as much value out of those sites as we can crystallize their value and maybe reinvest in the decent sites at the top. We're not looking to cannibalize on our estate just looking to share buyback.

Jamie Rollo
Jamie Rollo
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Thanks. Jamie Rollo from Morgan Stanley. Three questions please. First, on the recent trading slowdown, obviously it's clearly weather, as you laid out is the main driver, but you also mentioned a weaker consumer. What data points are you seeing that makes you think it is the weaker consumer? Because your food sales were quite good in Q2. Are you not worried that gets worse, that sort of macro headwind in the second half of the year and into next year? Secondly, if we look at the M&A out there, you've been linked with some of the biggest little sellers out there, but obviously you're doing mostly individual transactions at the moment. How do you think about larger scale or even blocks of pubs, rather than individual units?

Jamie Rollo
Jamie Rollo
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Finally on efficiencies, if things do get worse, that GBP 12 million H1 efficiency number, if we annualize that, is there sort of a plan B that could perhaps step up if like-for-likes did suddenly deteriorate? I get your point about filling the hole on Ignite, but just on the hard cost savings alone, is there something there to offset any top-line weakness? Thank you.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

Yeah. Firstly, look, I think the reference to consumer confidence is probably more borne out of it would be bit naive to say that with all the government issues and all the things going on in the Middle East, to say that that's not a factor. We've sort of felt it was a little bit naive not to say that, I think the point of the script to say we're pretty convinced it's weather. As I say, on the very odd day where we've had year-on-year better weather, sales have been very strong. We're not overly concerned. I suppose where the data point's reflected, I think the fact that we have had a stronger food, but it tends to be the food in the wet led businesses and that is logical.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

I would say that the wet led businesses have certainly had a tougher environment for drink sales because of the sunshine last year, but they have traded very well and the food sales have been strong there, which would say that could be a data point that people may be trading back down into pubs. Like I say, it has been an incredibly difficult period to read, and we are still confident on the odd day everything lines up, the business is as strong as ever. So that would be my takeout to leave you with. In terms of acquisition and larger scale, you'll probably be disappointed in the answer because it's the same answer we always give, that we remain opportunistic to acquisitions. Whenever larger groups of pubs come to market, of course, we look at them.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

As ever, we don't need to acquire, and we won't want to overpay. I would say, look, yes, we'll look at them. We're very well aware that we get linked to everything. That doesn't mean to say that we are remotely interested, we just tend to get linked with everything. I would put it like that. In terms of efficiency, I suppose the point we're trying to get across today is that Ignite is already generating efficiency savings as it has been for over the last 10 years. That point I made around labor rostering and fat and thin hours, that is a good example. If we were to land that would certainly more than offset any concern on sales. Do we expect to get every penny of that? Of course, we don't.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

There's one example, just one initiative that we've got our sights on that we know will make a step change if we land it, and there are plenty of those. The Ignite refresh that we're doing in July is probably more for next year. There tends to be probably a six-month lag between the ideation and start to see it. The things we are seeing now are things that we've been working on for the last year, and the ideation in the summer will pop up next year.

Jamie Rollo
Jamie Rollo
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Thanks. Tim, thank you, too, for many years, and best of luck for the future.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

Thank you.

Tim Barrett
Analyst at Deutsche Numis

Morning. Tim Barrett from Deutsche Numis. Could I get a bit more color on a couple of the guidance points, please? Firstly, around CapEx, that GBP 230 million feels like there's some single sites implicit within that. Are you paying a couple of million per freehold, something like that? If you could split it, that would be good. Secondly, around the 2027 cost guidance, it feels like it's a long way away, and within that there's things like the living wage beyond April 2027, and there's utilities. Could you just sort of say what you've assumed on wages and utilities, whether that's mark to market? Thanks.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

On CapEx, that assumes we buy a few single sites along the way, you said, in the second half. Last year, I think we spent GBP 9 million on new sites. This year, I suspect within that number, it'll be GBP 25 million-GBP 30 million, probably. That's a year-over-year increase.

Tim Barrett
Analyst at Deutsche Numis

Yeah. Okay. I guess asking it a bit differently, what's the maintenance CapEx?

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

For the full year?

Tim Barrett
Analyst at Deutsche Numis

Yeah, within the two thirds.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

That'll be up a little bit as well.

Tim Barrett
Analyst at Deutsche Numis

Okay.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

We've done a lot of investing in our network and hosting here around the whole of the estate. That was GBP 65 million last year, yeah, GBP 85, something like that this year. Also accelerating our solar panels. Your other question was?

Tim Barrett
Analyst at Deutsche Numis

Was costs, yeah, with the GBP 95.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

I think clearly wage is numerically the most important call we have to make in that guidance. We're assuming that there's a fairly measured approach taken to the living wage this year for next April, so sort of 4%, 4.5%, maybe 5%, something like that. I think Angela Rayner talked about GBP 15, didn't she? We certainly haven't baked that into our number.

Tim Barrett
Analyst at Deutsche Numis

Sure.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

We're assuming it's roughly equivalent to the rate of inflation. On utilities, we've baked in a small increase in the cost of utilities, about GBP 10 million. Some of that will come from the fixed charges, though, which escalates, and that leaves provision for a little bit to come from increased commodity rates as well.

Tim Barrett
Analyst at Deutsche Numis

Understood.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

To reiterate, 15% is secure. The bulk of it is not yet secured by us.

Tim Barrett
Analyst at Deutsche Numis

Understood. Thanks for everything.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

Any more for anyone?

Karan Puri
Karan Puri
Analyst at JPMorgan

Hi, Karan Puri from JPMorgan. I have one question on full year 2027. I know it's a bit far out, but in terms of margins, just wondering, given your cost inflation guidance of sort of 4%, you have some offsets from operational efficiencies. What is the sort of like-for-like that you think you'll have to sort of maintain for any sort of margin expansion or keeping margins flat on a year-over-year basis? Just if you have any color on that would be helpful.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

Yeah. I think the outlook for margins this year is tougher because of the cost headwinds. I think as they moderate next year, I think our margin should be flat or better, to be honest, particularly with benefit from National Insurance coming out. The sweet spot of sales at the moment seems to be around 3.9%. If that runs through, then we'll be comfortable with that.

Karan Puri
Karan Puri
Analyst at JPMorgan

Thank you so much. All the best for your future at Mitchells & Butlers.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

Thank you. Fintan.

Fintan Ryan
Analyst at Goodbody

Good morning, Phil. Tim, Fintan Ryan here from Goodbody. Just one question from me, please. Given the step up in the site acquisitions that you've sort of guided to for this year, under what banners are typically the new sites that you're looking for being acquired? Are they being bought as single sites, or are they bought for potential conversion to Miller & Carter or Nicholson's? Just in terms of the brand strategy with the new sites.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

No, to be honest, I suppose in recent years, you'll probably be aware, we've tended to buy from Miller & Carter and travel hubs All Bar One. That's probably been where the predominant theme. I think, going forward, what we'll tend to do is look at the site. We have a property mapping tool that will look at demographics, competition, populations, all those sorts of things. Increasingly we will acquire for other brands. I think on the sites we've acquired so far, there'll be some Miller & Carters in there. We might even have one or two Toby Carverys in there too. It's a sort of evolving part of what we do. If a brand has got real momentum, why wouldn't we look to convert?

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

We'd love to do more Nicholson's, for example. Finding good quality pubs in London is quite hard to do. That's certainly something else we would acquire for. I think we've just got a number of brands at any point in time. If the right site comes, rather than going out and saying, "I'm going to buy a site for Nicholson's," we'll see what the site coming forward is, and we'll map it and say, "This fits that brand." Will we acquire sites and just trade them under their existing badge? Possibly. More likely we'll convert, have a site and think, "Right, we can put it into this brand format.

Fintan Ryan
Analyst at Goodbody

Just in terms of some of your recent acquisitions of the Ego and the Pesto brands, how is the conversion of those sites going, and what's the plan?

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

Yeah, we haven't accelerated. I think in recent years we've sort of talked about a number of sort of R&D brands, which we're getting. We haven't accelerated on those really because the donor brands, as I call them, are trading very well. For example, when we acquired Ego, we envisaged it being a solution to Vintage Inns. Vintage Inns was our top performing brand last year. We're not going to convert unless there's a need to do so. The focus on Ego and on Pesto has been around integration and been around establishing those brands as part of M&B. I think, looking in the future, I still think those brands probably will expand, but we just don't need to do it right now unless we have a real emerging issue in another brand. We haven't had that.

Fintan Ryan
Analyst at Goodbody

Thank you. Best luck, Tim, for the future.

Tim Jones
Tim Jones
CFO at Mitchells & Butlers

I think that completes the questions. Thank you very much. Happy to have a chat offline off this.

Phil Urban
Phil Urban
CEO at Mitchells & Butlers

Thank you.

Executives
    • Phil Urban
      Phil Urban
      CEO
    • Tim Jones
      Tim Jones
      CFO
Analysts
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