Camerons Brewery FY EBITDA rises 18% amid debt reduction

Camerons Brewery has seen a “significant” rise of 17.95% in EBITDA to £4.6m in the year ended 5 January 2025, saying that both its main divisions of brewing and managed house pubs have traded well. 

It comes as the company has paid down its debt – cutting it by £10.8m to £15.5m as of 23 December 2024 – and now carries much less relative to what it earns, following completion of a debt refinancing with new funder Sandton Investments on 23 October 2024. 

According to the group, this reduction of its debt has resulted in much lower debt service costs, meaning it is able to focus more on growing both the brewery and pub operations. 

However, turnover in the 12 months to December 2024 hit £60.2m compared with £61.5m compared with the previous year. This slight reduction was attributed to the prior year having six months trading from having 26 pubs under the Project Lion brand, which was sold on 30 June 2023. 

During 2024, the operator of pub brand Head of Steam and Urban Country Pubs saw its pubs “generally perform well”, and trade in line with the prior year. 

The total number of pubs within the group stood at 45 as of year-end, a rise from the 47 counted at the end of the prior financial year. 

Camerons Brewery wrote in its filing at Companies House: “We enter 2025 cautiously optimistic despite the headwinds the industry faces due to the labour budget initiatives and in particular the changes to employers’ national insurance that takes effect in April 2025.

“We have re-established our strategic expansion actions and are keen to grow our national flagship Head of Steam pub brand alongside our Urban Country Pubs estate.”

Meanwhile, its brewing volumes continued to increase on the year before and at slightly better margins, as a result of product mix changes with a higher proportion of small pack products being manufactured.