FIVE-A-SIDE soccer specialist Goals scored a successful year of trading, it revealed today.
The group reported sales for the year to December 31 were up 9% at £30.4m, while pre-tax profits showed a 21% boost to £9.2m.
A new four-year banking agreement worth £56m was also clinched with Lloyds Banking Group.
Managing director Keith Rogers said today: “The Goals concept continues to be as popular with customers as ever and 2011 saw even more people taking part across the country.”
The group operates 42 centres in the UK and one the USA in Los Angeles.
It opened four new sites during the year, including one in Speke, complementing its first Liverpool operation in Netherton.
Goals aims to open four new centres a year but has put expansion on hold to consolidate its position.
The last centre to open this year will be next month in Chester which is a pilot for a new, innovative, modular build concept that can cut capital expenditure from £2.3m per centre to £1.5m and slash the build time from 22 weeks to 14.
Goals said it will evaluate this centre during the remainder of the year “with a view to resuming the rollout of more centres from 2013, economic conditions allowing”.
It added it has a pipeline of around 40 sites, sufficient to satisfy seven to 10 years of openings in the UK.
Current trading has continued on a positive note, with total sales up 6% and like-for-like sales maintained during the first eight weeks of the year.
Liverpool stockbroker Panmure Gordon recommends Goals’ stock as a ‘buy’ and analysts Simon French and Lindsey Kerrigan said today’s results were in line with their, and consensus, forecasts.