CUBANA (WATERLOO)

A. Hi Gaby - you are not wrong. We got an improved planning from the council early in the year and hoped to finish the work in Q2 - however, drink licensing (also needed) delayed us; and because we needed to have the place closed for some of the work, we took the decision that we did not want to close during the busy summer period and decided to leave that part until the week between christmas and new year when we close anyway - overall, the size of the project has gone up and the cost to £250k

A. Hi Stephane - our 2019 stat accounts won't be filed until the due date in Sept; the management accounts show sales up 8% to £2.272m net, gross margins at 71% and operating profit at £443k - bear in mind, as mentioned previously, stat accounts will take account of depreciation, head office costs etc and I would expect them to be closer to £150k unless there are exceptionals. Our end 2019 balance sheet showed net assets of £621k - that does not take account of goodwill and the real lease value

A. Hi Darryl - it's possible you are mixing statutory and management accounts - the latter are a real picture of the operating profit of the business. Stat accounts include head office costs, depreciation, finance costs and often write offs which can be tax related. Our management accounts are produced monthly, externally by our accountants - the figures i quoted in the previous answer are the operating profits

A. Hi Darryl - there was a write off of an inter-company loan advised by the auditors for tax purposes. Sales and real operating profits at Cubana Waterloo have gone up yearly - operating profits have risen from 324k in 2017 to 351k in 2018 - and 441k in 2019 (operating profits excl. head office costs which go into the stat accounts). These real improvements came from higher sales and margins resulting from quality, service, digital marketing and financial management improvements

A. Hi - there wasn't a 300k increase - if this comes from the stat accounts it may have something to do with the way auditors express lines. We did have a planned increase in our head office costs for 2019 due to improvements in financial management and digital marketing - helping to increase sales by 8% and gross margins by 5%, resulting in an significant net increase in operating profits. If this doesn't answer your question, let me know and i'll check in more detail and get back - thanks