Companies: PWR   

New centres and an effective marketing push helped Powerleague score strong sales and profits growth for the half to 30 December.

Powerleague, which operates 34 five-a-side football centres and was profiled by Growth Company Investor as a buy at 70p last year, notched up a powerful 21% rise in pre-tax profits to £1.7m in the traditionally quieter first half, on turnover lifted 15% to £10.9m – earnings per share shot up 25% to 1.19p.

Chairman Claude Littner attributed the profits rise to a combination of new centres, sales growth and improved pitch utilisation rates, particularly at five centres where pitches were upgraded to next generation surfaces over the summer.

Especially encouraging was improved like-for-like sales growth of 5% (3.5%) from centres alone, excluding sponsorship and events sales, which surged 62% higher, boosted by long-term sponsorship deals with Xbox, Nike and Budweiser, as well as management fees from corporate tournaments run for Barclays and Securicor.

Powerleague doesn’t intend to rest on its laurels, planning to open five new centres over the coming year and to fully upgrade eight centres with ‘fifth generation’ surfaces. With the popularity of the five-a-side game continuing to grow – AIM rival Goals Soccer Centres is the other quoted beneficiary of the boom – and second-half trading strong, we believe there’s bags more growth left in the story.

Highly cash generative and almost recession proof, Powerleague is forecast to make improved profits of £4.4m (£3.4m) and 3.8p (2.9p) of earnings for the year, and the shares still have bags of appeal. Add.