Pizza Express - "Capital Structure" on the agenda

All,

Crucially, the penultimate point in the presentation is: “Capital Structure”, before the ultimate point: “Next Update in November 2019”. So we are curious as to what the comment on Capital Structure will be.

Net Debt to Adj. EBITDA is now at 7.9x and related interest cover at 1.7x - quite stable and as expected, although by the companies measures this looks like a significant deterioration.

Results:

Pizza Express results this morning are slightly weaker than we had modelled.

Overall sales are on target, but EBITDA in both segments is slightly weaker by an aggregate £-2m. The UK business achieved £2m more sales than we had modelled, but at the expense of margin. The International business made up less of the 2018 slump than we had forecast, but at slightly higher margins.

CapEx is £1m higher than model too.

Thus cash is £3m lower than model at £37m.

We are looking forward to the call.

Wolfgang