With a 7.8% interim improvement in like-for-like sales, two new sites opened in the first half year to January and one since then, taking the total to ten, restaurant chain Fishworks is confident of posting a profit for the full year.

New restaurant openings helped increase first half revenues by 60% to £2.6m and, as Primrose Hill and Richmond sites were only opened in February and March, investors can look forward to more to come. An eleventh site, in Clapham, opens in May and chief executive Mitch Tonks says the company is being offered ‘a huge amount of sites’ in its desired ‘city-village’ locations. ‘We’ve identified the next eight or nine locations and are working with agencies now to find sites.’

Investors have yet to see much from £0.5m profitable January acquisition Channel Fisheries, a fish wholesaler based in Brixham, Devon, supplying seafood to more than 300 hotels and restaurants all over Britain. This will be a great boon to margins, as Tonks explains: ‘When we were buying from a wholesaler they would’ve taken 20-30% out of the deal, now we retain that.’

Although losses of £250,000 were made in the first half, analysts expect this to turn around to profits of £250,000 for the year to July, feeding through to earnings of 0.8p a share. As profits are expected to leap to £2.4m and earnings to 5.2p in the subsequent 12 months, the weighty p/e of 51.9 for 2006 will fall to a more-than-healthy 7.98 for 2007. Hold.