RECORD YEAR FOR JW LEES

JW Lees has announced a record year at its conference at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester (1st July) with sales up 0.2% to £64.1m and pre-tax profits up 1.8% to £5.7m. The business is making progress on all fronts, with each of its three trading divisions, Managed Pubs, Tenanted Pubs and Brewery, in growth.

JW Lees strengthened its management team during the year by hiring Tony Spencer as Director of Retail and Nicola Waring as the company’s first Director of People. 2016 has been a year of consolidation for JW Lees and, although no new sites were acquired, a record spend of £5.2m was made on exiting pubs with the aim of building the best pub estate in the North West by raising quality, standards and service. The company was delighted to announce that this year JW Lees will share £317,000 of profits with team members since the company has achieved its budgeted profits for the fourth year in a row.

William Lees-Jones, Managing Director said, ‘We are pleased to be reporting a record year and the business is growing well. We are also prepared for the current era of change: JW Lees has always done well in hard times and we anticipate that this will bring opportunities for us to buy and develop more new managed and tenanted pubs.’