Goals Soccer Centres (AIM:GOAL) will the growing love of soccer in the US come to the rescue?
The leading player in the UK 5-a-side soccer market announced disappointing interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2015. With the UK market not looking terribly encouraging, despite management’s considerable marketing efforts, the Group’s future success appears to be dependent on growth in the United States, a traditionally tough market for UK businesses.
Overall Group sales from their 46 UK centres and one in the United States were exactly the same as the comparable period at £17.1m, although like-for-like sales declined 1%. The one bright spot was the performance of the US business, although that is only a single site in Los Angeles, with sales up 22% and EBITDA up 33%. Operating profit of £4.8m resulted in an operating cash inflow of £4.7m and free cash of £100k. The Group incurred software development expenses of £612k which seem a lot to us and is on top of the £1.754m spent in 2014. Net…