XP Factory HY revenues rise 13% to £28m despite ‘subdued’ market

XP Factory has reported that group revenues rose 13.1% to £28.2m for the 26-week period ended 28 September, citing resilient trading across its Escape Hunt and Boom Battle Bar brands despite a weaker leisure market. 

During the period, Escape Hunt owner-operated revenues increased to £7.3m, while Boom owner-operated revenues reached £20.4m. Pre IFRS 16 adjusted EBITDA grew 15% to £1.7m, with site-level EBITDA up 8% to £6.1m.

While Escape Hunt achieved like-for-like sales growth of 1.8% during the half, Boom posted a 6.8% decline in like-for-like sales as the competitive socialising market remained subdued. Escape Hunt delivered site-level EBITDA margins of 40.4%, with Boom’s margin improving to 12.8%. 

The experiential leisure business generated £2.3m of cash from operating activities and invested £2.2m in growth capital spending alongside £0.5m of maintenance spending. Free cash flow totalled £1.4m, while cash at the period end stood at £4.5m, compared with £1.1m at 31 March, while net debt increased to £5.3m.

New sites opened in Reading and Canterbury during the period, with an expansion at Birmingham Resorts World also completed.

Since the period ended, Escape Hunt recorded like-for-like sales growth of 8.3% in the nine weeks to 30 November. Boom reported a 9.8% decline on the same basis, though total sales were 1% higher year-on-year when including new sites. 

In addition, the company reported record corporate Christmas bookings and said tighter cost controls were helping offset weaker consumer demand.

XP Factory agreed a new three-year £20m revolving credit facility with HSBC to replace its Barclays facility. Escape Hunt opened in Sheffield in October, with three further site openings targeted by the year end.

The group said initial analysis of the government’s budget pointed to a neutral to modestly positive effect, with lower business rates expected to offset higher national living wage costs. It also confirmed that Graham Bird, group chief financial officer, will retire from the board on 29 March 2026.

Richard Harpham, chief executive of XP Factory, said: “XP Factory group has had another period of double-digit growth generating strong underlying free cashflow in particularly challenging trading conditions. Escape Hunt has bounced back strongly since the first quarter and continues to produce industry leading metrics on all measures.

“Boom has performed ahead of the experiential leisure industry as a whole over the period, with softer consumer demand being mitigated by improved cost control and record corporate pre-bookings for the crucial Christmas period on which, as ever, the outturn for the financial year is heavily dependent.”

He added: “Evidencing the attractions of our business model, we have successfully secured new, extended, larger and lower cost banking facilities providing access to liquidity and the flexibility for continued growth and future shareholder value creation.”