Applegreen adds 20 sites in first half of year

Applegreen has revealed pre-tax profits up 37.9% and an addition of 20 sites in its half year results for the six months ended 30 June 2016.

The company has sites across Ireland, the UK and in the US, and grew its estate from 200 sites as at 31 December 2015 to 220 as at 30 June 2016. It added that there is a strong pipeline of new sites particularly in UK.

Pre-tax profits for the six months were €8m, compared with €5.8m for the same period the year before.

Bob Etchingham, CEO said: “We are pleased to report another strong set of results reflecting our performance in the first half of 2016. Growth was particularly strong in the Republic of Ireland where our service areas and recent upgrades are well positioned to capture the demand from positive consumer sentiment.

“In the UK, a more competitive environment impacted growth in the early part of the year and while this abated, we also noted a more cautious consumer in advance of the Brexit vote.

“We continued to expand our business in the six months opening two new service area sites and adding three petrol filling stations in the Republic of Ireland. We also expanded our network of dealer sites by nine during the period.

“In the UK, our site numbers increased by seven comprising five petrol filling stations and two service areas including our award winning motorway service area on the M1 South of Belfast. We also launched our new Freshii food offer, offering an attractive healthy alternative, and increased the number of our food outlets by 17 across the estate.

“The decision by the UK public to exit the EU took place in late June so had no significant impact on the figures for the six months. Looking to the future, the lower Sterling:Euro exchange rate will obviously impact on our consolidated figures but otherwise it is too early to assess what impact the decision will have on our business.

“Trading since the end of June has been positive and has shown improvement particularly in the UK. Apart from the impact of the weaker Sterling on the translation of our earnings, we expect our full year performance to be in line with expectations.”