Upper Crust owner SSP Group results show it’s ‘still in the recovery phase’
SSP Group, a leading operator of food and beverage outlets in travel locations worldwide, announced a revenue fall of down 41.8 per cent from last year to £834.2m in its full year results this morning.
This included an operating loss of £309.2m, and also a 70.1 per cent fall in revenue compared to 2019.
SSP operates more than 2,800 branded catering and retail units at over 180 airports and 300 railway stations across 35 countries as a concessionaire. This was, and continues to be, significantly impacted by the pandemic.
Commenting on the results, Jonathan Davies, deputy chief exec and chief of finance of SSP Group, said: “Though still in the recovery phase, SSP has made strong progress, particularly during the second half of the year, when we delivered positive underlying EBITDA and strong free cash flow generation.”
“The Group has continued to re-open units in line with passenger demand, with 72 per cent of units currently open, and has delivered revenues of 66% of 2019 levels in the first nine weeks of the new financial year. “
On 25 November, SSP announced the appointment of Patrick Coveney as the new group chief exec, effective 31 March 2022, following the announcement that Simon Smith is to leave the business in December 2021.
Patrick will join SSP from Greencore Group, a leading producer of convenience foods in the UK and Ireland, and a member of the FTSE 250. Jonathan Davies, in his role as deputy, will lead the Group Executive Committee and oversee day-to-day business prior to Patrick joining.
Looking ahead, SSP said its medium-term outlook remains unchanged, which is for a return to broadly pre-Covid levels of like-for-like revenue and EBITDA margins by 2024.
It has started to mobilise the pipeline of around 200 new outlets that have already been secured and anticipates delivering approximately 15% of additional net contract gains over the medium term.