Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for taking the time to attend our financial year 2024 half year results presentation. Just in terms of agenda, I plan to take you through the highlights of the half year, sorry, our operational highlights, and the progress that we've made out in Canada. Laurence will take you through the numbers, and an update on how we've been investing capital and the returns generated. We'll then move on to questions, first from those in the room and then from those virtually. Okay, the first half was another successful period for the group, with revenue growth of 8.1%, EBITDA growth pre IFRS 16 of 10% versus the prior period.
Despite the very tough comps in 2023, we grew revenues by 1.3% on a like-for-like basis, supported by a 3% increase in like-for-like spend per game. We posted EBITDA on a pre-IFRS basis of GBP 38.6 million for the half. The group's strong earnings growth, coupled with its highly cash-generative business model, resulted in net cash at the period end of GBP 41.4 million. This strong financial position is after the payment of the final dividend and the special dividend for FY 2023, as well as our continued investment in new centers, acquisitions, and refurbishments during FY 2024. In line with our progressive dividend policy, which as a reminder, is 55% of the adjusted profit after tax on a one-third, two-third split, an interim dividend of 3.98 pence per share will be paid in July.
So in Slide 4, in the half, we invested GBP 23.5 million, enhancing customer experience and the overall quality of sites. We opened new centers, completed acquisitions in both the U.K. and Canada, and continued to drive innovation and make investments in improving our technological capability. During the half, we completed refurbishment or space optimization projects in three centers, which included adding two crazy golf courses to Hollywood Bowl centers to complement their offer. The average return on investment from our refurbishment remains well ahead of the target of 33%. We acquired a further two centers in Canada, opened one new center in the U.K., and added five more centers to our group pipeline of new openings.
Pins on Strings were installed in a further six centers during the first half, and by the end of the financial year, all but two of our centers in the U.K. will benefit from this cost-saving and customer experience-enhancing technology. In Canada, we now have 25% of the estate with the technology and plan to roll out to all Canadian centers over the coming years. Our people team has made further progress with our industry-leading training and development programs. Internal candidates represented more than 60% of management appointments in the half. We've retained our one-star ranking and status as one of the best big companies to work for. On Slide 5, we give a reminder of our growth strategy, and we've made some good progress in the half with our simple but effective and proven strategy for growth.
As a reminder, our growth strategy is focused on two main areas: organic growth through yield-enhancing customer initiatives, and secondly, through investment-led growth, driving returns through investment in the quality and size of our estate and strategic acquisitions in the two main geographies that we operate. We're meeting our ambitious targets for opening new centers in both the U.K. and Canada, and delivering solid returns at or above the target levels from our ongoing refurbishment program. Now I'll hand over to Laurence.
Thanks, Steve. On Slide 7, just representing our results for the first half and historically. On the back of an exceptionally strong FY 2022 and FY 2023, it was pleasing to see continued like-for-like growth in the U.K., with 1.3% growth and 8% like-for-like growth in Canada in the first half, which with new sites, took the total group revenue to over GBP 119 million in the first half, which was growth of 8.1% compared to the same period last year. This very strong trading performance, coupled with our discipline on costs, led to a record group adjusted EBITDA on a pre IFRS 16 basis, GBP 38.6 million, which was up 10% on the first half of FY 2023.
Along with a strong operating profit margin, which was up 50 basis points on the prior year, Adjusted EPS was 13.6 pence per share, which was up 6.2%, despite the increased corporation tax rate during the first half versus last year. On Slide 8, we set out the growth of total revenues compared to last year, which obviously noted H1 in FY 2023 revenue, including the small GBP 0.2 million benefit on the reduced rate of VAT. So like last year, we rebased the group revenue to split this out, giving us GBP 109.9 million GBP, 110 million of true revenue last year. On the back of significant growth over the past two years, it was, as I mentioned previously, pleasing to see continued like-for-like growth.
With U.K. center like-for-like growth of 1.3%, the spend per game growth up 3.2%, taking like-for-like average spend to only GBP 11.20 - so GBP 11.21, and a marginal decline of 1.6% in like-for-like U.K. game volumes. The like-for-like growth, alongside the performance of the new centers, resulted in record UK revenues exceeding GBP 100 million in the first half for the first time, at GBP 103.3 million, and a growth of 4.4% compared to the very strong like-for-like revenues we saw in the prior year. It's worth noting that the U.K. business has seen like-for-like compound annual growth rates of 5.9% every year since 2019. Canadian like-for-like growth, we're reviewing Canadian dollars to obviously allow for the disaggregating of foreign currency effect, was 8%.
Alongside this strong like-for-like revenue growth of GBP 0.7 million. New centers performed well, also adding GBP 4.2 million, CAD 7.8 million, resulting in total revenues on a UK pound basis of GBP 15.9 million, and on the dollar basis of CAD 27 million in Canada, which was growth year-over-year with 46.9% on a constant currency basis. Splitsville bowling centers revenue was up CAD 9 million to a total of CAD 24.5 million, as Steve will talk more on Canada later on in the presentation. Total group revenues for the half, as mentioned, were GBP 119.2 million, and the average family of four could still bowl headline price for under GBP 25.
We believe that maintaining this value for money pricing strategy is a contributing factor to our continued like-for-like revenue growth alongside our investment strategy across the estate. On to Slide 9, where we set out the income statement. I'm going to throw a lot of numbers, but please note that everything I speak about is in the RNS, and therefore you'll be able to tally over, and I'll take any questions as well. Gross profit on cost of goods sold, which excludes, just for anyone to know, any payroll costs, was GBP 99.4 million, which was 8.9% growth on the same period last year, and gross margin on cost of goods was 83.4%, which was up 60 basis points year-on-year.
Gross profit on Cost of Goods Sold for the U.K. business had a margin of 83.9%, which was up 10 basis points on the previous year, while Canada was at 80%, which was up 6.4% on the prior year. Now, this margin increase is in due part to the significant revenue growth we've seen in the Splitsville centers, as we mentioned, and the bowling centers now make up a larger proportion of total revenue in Canada versus our Striker equipment business, which obviously operates at a much lower margin. The Splitsville bowling centers on their own had a gross margin on Cost of Goods Sold of 84.8%.
Striker, year-on-year, saw revenues declined by CAD 0.4 million, mainly because installation contracts weren't signed off in the first half and only declared the revenues as they're signed off. But also due to the huge increase in respect to the supply and installation of equipment into the Splitsville centers, which obviously is counted into group revenue and eliminated on consolidation. Onto admin costs. Center-level admin costs, excluding depreciation and amortization, were up 9.3% to GBP 48.5 million. Employee costs make up the largest proportion of that at GBP 22.3 million, which is an increase of GBP 2.3 million when compared to the same period last year. This is due to a combination of salary increases, the impact of higher like-for-like revenues, new centers, as well as the significant growth in our Canadian business.
Total center employee costs in Canada of the GBP 22.3 million was GBP 3.8 million, which is CAD 6.4 million, and that's an increase year-over-year of GBP 1 million or CAD 1.9 million. While the U.K. center employee costs were GBP 18.5 million, which is an increase of GBP 1.4 million when compared to the same period last year. The increase in like-for-like employee costs in the U.K. were mainly due to the National Living Wage increase that we saw last year, and we expect to see this increase to about between 8% and 9% in the second half when compared to the same period last year, due to the higher than inflationary increase in National Minimum and Living Wage from April 2024.
Total property-related costs accounted for under pre-IFRS 16 were GBP 20.6 million, with GBP 18.7 million for the U.K. business, which is an increase year-on-year of GBP 1.1 million. Of those U.K. costs, half of those are rent, and that increased by GBP 0.4 million year-on-year, up less than 2% on a like-for-like business-- on a like-for-like basis. We received some further business rebates in the first half in relation to the 2015 revaluation, but most of those were received in the second half of last financial year. Canadian property costs were in line with expectations at GBP 1.9 million, CAD 3.2 million, which was an increase year-on-year, but all to do with the increased size of the estate, with no cost increases on a like-for-like basis.
As noted in the FY 2023 preliminary results, we were pleased to have agreed a new electricity commodity price, which is now hedged up to the end of FY 2027, with FY 2025 for costs forecasted to increase by GBP 1 million compared to our FY 2024 costs. While we will still be able to take advantage of any lower costs, should market conditions prevail during this period. Utility costs increased year-on-year versus FY 2023 by GBP 1.1 million, with U.K. centers accounting for GBP 1 million of that, and all of it due to the sell-off that we had in the first half of last year, due to the fact that we hedged more than we needed due to our successful solar installation program.
Total corporate costs increased by GBP 0.6 million to GBP 12.3 million when compared to the same period last year. U.K. costs actually reduced by GBP 0.4 million to GBP 10.6 million, but as we continue to build out our support team in Canada, corporate costs increased there by GBP 1 million. Group Adjusted EBITDA pre-IFRS 16 increased by 10% to GBP 38.6 million and includes a contribution of GBP 4.4 million, or $7.6 million from our Canadian business. This increase overall of 10% is due to a combination of like-for-like revenue performance in both the U.K. and Canada, as well as the new center growth like that. On Slide 8, we set out the inflationary pressures.
All seeing inflationary pressures will still continue, but we are better protected than most, with 72% of our food revenue not impacted by the cost of goods inflation. And with labor costs less than 19% of revenue at center level, we won't see as large an increase in a pound basis as others do. The Autumn Statement obviously led to a 9.6% increase in terms of National Living Wage, which is, as noted before, 3.5 percentage points higher than we'd originally forecasted, which is worth about GBP 500,000 in the second half. Now, what we are seeing in Canada is more modest increases, mostly in line with inflation, and those are spread throughout the year, most of them coming towards the end of our financial year, and to the beginning of FY 2025.
In relation to energy costs, as I mentioned, we're extremely well protected, and we've signed our new hedge. What we are also seeing is continued installations of our solar panels. So in the first half, we installed an extra 1,824 panels. So what does that mean? Well, in total, we've got over 14,500 solar panels now. Have an annual yield of 4.7 million kWh, and we use just over 20 million kWh in the U.K. So we're getting around about 20% of all of our energy, either through there or we're able to sell off back to the grid. Property costs have been well controlled, with underlying rates increases of 4.9% and some small rebates seen in the first half.
Like-for-like rent increases have been less than 2%, and we've actually seen nil increases on four of our seven rent reviews in the first half, as we continue to incentivize our third-party experts in attaining these. Capital cost inflation is still impacting as it was at the end of FY 2023, but it has started to level out, and we're hoping to see some of this start to come down in the near future. All of this, plus our wide demographic appeal and strong locations, mean we're able to take lower the CPI price increases when needed. We drove strong free cash flow in the period, which is set out on Slide 11, with group-adjusted operating cash flow of GBP 31.3 million.
The group spent GBP 5.7 million on maintenance CapEx in the U.K., including continued spend on the roll-out of Pins on Strings, as Steve mentioned earlier, to the tune of GBP 1 million, and solar panels installs, as I just mentioned, which cost GBP 600,000. A total of GBP 5.7 million was also invested in our refurbishment program, with three centers in the U.K.. .for a total cost of GBP 3 million, as well as investments into the Canadian estate at GBP 2.7 million. Now, a significant proportion of the refurbishment spend in the UK, nearly GBP 2 million of it, was in relation to the extension and refurbishment of our center in Stockton, which we've got a case study on, on Slide 13, and I'll talk more about later.
Despite these inflationary pressures that we saw and noted on the previous slide, returns on the U.K. refurbishments continued to exceed the group's hurdle rate of 33%. More on that later. New center CapEx was a net GBP 4.8 million, and this relates to the main two centers that have actually opened early in the second half. One's opened in the second half, and one was due to open. Hollywood Bowl, Dundee, opened, and that was GBP 2.2 million of that, GBP 4.8 million spent. And then our center in Waterloo in Canada is for GBP 1.9 million, and that will open at the end of June. Post-tax and interest capital, these payments will generate GBP 16.5 million of free cash flow.
It's also worth noting, as Steve mentioned earlier, we paid out GBP 19.4 million on the final ordinary and special dividend, as well as GBP 7.6 million for the centers we acquired in the first half, 1 in the U.K. and 2 in Canada. All of this left us with a cash balance at the end of H1 GBP 41.4 million, and an undrawn Revolving Credit Facility of GBP 25 million. On Slide 12, we review our U.K. refurbishments. We've continued to see those paybacks in two leading rates. With 7% gain, performance up to 11.2% and 9% gain up to 2.9% versus the invested estate. Our average payback on capital invested was over 50% from the last 14 refurbishments.
On top of that, it's even more pleasing to see an increase of over 3 percentage points in our Net Promoter Score from our customers in our refurbished centers. And this is a testament to our continually evolving designs, new elements into each investment, catering to the local market, and essentially not having that cookie-cutter approach. We've also noted on the graph, through stars, those centers that are on their second and third-generation refurbishment, which is still generating strong returns. We have plans for a further four investments in the second half, with two already started. On Slide 13, we give an example of a piece of asset optimization that we've undertaken at our center in Stockton. This is a unit that has a strong track record of performance and was last refurbished way back in 2016.
We've worked hard with the landlord to try to unearth some extra space, either upwards to the side, and finally did a deal on the unit to the left of our bowl. In conjunction with the new lease for a period of 15 years and investment into the existing space, the group also extended into the adjacent unit, adding an extra five lanes, Puttstars mini-golf course, and a larger amusements area. The refurbishment was completed in time for Easter, and early signs are extremely encouraging, with multiple record revenue days and very strong customer service metrics. On Slide 14, we discussed the area, the other area of investment growth, which is our new center pipeline in the U.K.
Steve will talk more about the new center pipeline in Canada later on. We continue to see strong performance from our new centers in the U.K., and again, set out in case study on Slide 15. We have an excellent track record of opening new centers as we continue to focus on our long-term goal of sustainable EBITDA, with strong demographics being key. Having acquired Lincoln in October 2023, and refurbished and rebranded this center now to a Hollywood Bowl, and that was opened or reopened as a Hollywood Bowl in time for Easter. And when I say reopened, we didn't close, but it was fully opened in time for Easter. Local feedback's been excellent, and we've definitely seen record days and record weeks there.
Our second site to open in the year was Dundee, which opened in early half two, and there's two further planned for the second half, and a strong pipeline for FY 2025 and beyond. Our strong covenant, good relationships with landlords, and importantly, our investment cycle, make us first choice when opportunities arise, looking for a long-term, sustainable tenant. Now, on Slide 15, we do a case study on our Merry Hill site, and this opened in September of 2022-2023. It's an area we've been looking at for a long time, and we're determined to only be in the Merry Hill Shopping Center, not necessarily just in the surrounding areas. There's a significantly strong local population, with over 1 million households within that key demographic drive time of 16 minutes.
The Acorn demographic categories we know drive the success for the Hollywood Bowl centers, and those indexed are over 110, with 100 being the ideal, and 110 obviously being more than ideal. And the shopping center itself includes an exceptionally high-performing cinema, as well as lots of retail space, so we were keen to work with the landlord to ensure that we had the new creation of a leisure space within there, with restaurants nearby. If this had been a true retail space with just retail around it, we wouldn't have been taking the space, so we know that that doesn't really work for us long term. We are the anchor in this new scheme, alongside restaurants, as well as extra space being made available in the near future for other leisure opportunities as well.
You can see the layout on the slide that was finally agreed, as well as some pictures of the interior.
Thanks, Laurence.
So on Slide 17, we look at some of the operational highlights from last year and the improvements that we've made to our offer. Starting with bowling, we continued the rollout of Pins on Strings tech, installing into a further 6 centers during the half. 90% of the estate now benefits from the technology and will be installing into at least five more centers during the second half of FY 2024, meaning all but 2 of the U.K. estate will operate with the new technology. We continue to learn from the refurbishments and new center openings, rolling those learnings into new projects. Our mantra has always been, "Good enough isn't," and we constantly improve the designs, music, and lighting, so the offer is relevant to the day part that we're serving.
Through our space optimization projects, we've introduced the Puttstars mini-golf courses into Leeds, with nine holes added, and as you heard earlier from Laurence, into Stockton, with 12 holes added. All of these efforts have helped us drive record customer satisfaction scores, with our Net Promoter Score up 6.7 percentage points on last year at 67%. Our amusement areas have seen yet more investment. 80% of the new machines added so far this year have been above the GBP 1 per play price point, as we continue to evolve the mix of machines to good, better, best, and then price them accordingly. We've seen a 4.5% increase in amusement spend per game during the half. Spend per game has also grown in both our bar and diner offers.
Our mantra of delivering quality products served quickly, consistently at value-for-money price point continues to resonate with our customers. We've kept the simplified menus, albeit tweaking them slightly to include extra snacks and sharers that are popular at the lanes, without impacting the pace of play during the busy periods. We saw a 4% increase in food and beverage spend per game during the half. Turning to Slide 18. Our product really is truly unique within the leisure marketplace, and key to our success is our inclusivity, appealing to an incredibly wide demographic. It's therefore very important that we keep our prices accessible and the experience that we offer fabulous value for money.
Due to the very limited exposure our business model has to a lot of the recent inflationary cost pressures, coupled with our dynamic pricing framework, we've only needed to make very modest price increases over the last five years, resulting in the relative price of a game of bowling actually decreasing since 2021 when compared against the retail price increase, Retail Price Index, and the increases in National Minimum and National Living Wage. Despite the well-invested estate and an industry-leading experience, Hollywood Bowl Group remains the lowest priced branded bowling operator, with a family of four still able to bowl for less than GBP 25. Turning to Slide 19. At the full-year results presentation back in December, we talked about how we were developing our own reservation system.
The lack of functionality of the existing bowling products and the closed nature of the technology, coupled with the growing size of our business, led us to invest in creating our own more configurable and scalable system. As a brief reminder, the new system is much simpler and quicker for our teams, gives a better user experience for our customers, removes the reliance on external companies and their development roadmap, and will be a core enabler for our technology enhancement ambitions. After a successful pilot across a number of centers, we've installed the system into all U.K. bowling centers and our 55-desk customer contact center at the support office in Hemel. Phase II will be the rollout to our Canadian centers towards the back end of this financial year.
There are a number of operational differences and changes to configuration, like provincial tax, selling time rather than games, that we'll be working through. But once installed, we'll link the Canadian centers more comprehensively with the U.K. and allow us to accelerate the digital marketing integration... Phase III is the future roadmap, with our in-house developers building out further enhancements, including self-serve features, booking shortcuts, and crucially, integrating with other software systems. Turning to Canada. Our Canadian business has come from strength to strength, and we've had a fabulous first half to this financial year.
Like-for-like, revenues were up 8%, solid growth from a very tough comparator last year, with growth in both spend and volume, as well as improvements in margin, which are up 1 percentage point versus the same period last year to 84%, with the Canadian centers delivering CAD 10 million of EBITDA in the half. The recently acquired centers contributed CAD 7.8 million of revenue in the half. As you can see on the graph, the like-for-like decline of GBP 200,000 from our Kingston center is actually due to closures, discovering an abandoned cellar with asbestos contamination underneath the arcades during the refurbishment, issues getting energy upgrades and contractor delays, all valuable learnings as we plan out the next refurbishments.
As Laurie mentioned earlier, the like-for-like decline from the Striker business is actually all down to the timings of installations and invoicing and the amount of intercompany work that the team is completing, supporting our refurbishments and new site fit outs. It's actually saved the group over GBP 1 million at least. As we show on Slide 22, in addition to the strong financial performance and operational success, focusing on estate investment. In the half, we acquired two new centers. The first was the acquisition of an owner-operated family entertainment center in Guelph, Ontario, for CAD 4.7 million. That's a 36,000 sq ft center with 24 lanes of ten-pin, eight lanes of five-pin bowling, got a l arge arcade with bar and diner.
The second was the acquisition of the assets and lease of a family entertainment center in Vancouver, for a total consideration of CAD 425,000. The site that's in need of reconfiguration and refurbishment is located on a popular leisure scheme with cinema and ice rink, and offers 34 ten-pin and 6 five-pin lanes, small arcade, a large bar, and diner. Both businesses have had temporary signage installed, rebranding them to Splitsville, and some essential maintenance capital invested prior to their full refurbishments and rebrands. On new builds, works are progressing well in our site in Waterloo, Ontario, with the 24-lane center due to open by the end of this month. Two of the new centers have been agreed in the half at locations in Creekside, Calgary, and in Kanata, Ottawa.
We'll be on site in both locations during the second half of this financial year. We've got a pretty busy second half planned out in Canada. In addition to the new sites and acquisitions, the full refurbishment on our center in Kingston is now complete, and we'll be on site in Highfield, Calgary, and Glenmore in Calgary, completing full refurbishments and rebrands. For FY 2024, take financial outlook. We still expect modest like-for-like growth in the second half, despite the Euros and a very tough comparative period. Growth on an absolute basis will be supported by the full year effect of the refurbishment centers, new centers opened during FY 2023, and at least three new center openings in the U.K. and Canada during the second half of FY 2024.
We remain well protected from the inflationary-led costs, with 72% of our revenues not subject to cost of goods inflation. We do, however, see payroll inflation of 9.6% and business rate inflation of 6% versus H2 of FY 2023. We'll be investing between GBP 35 million and GBP 40 million on our available capital in the year on new centers, positions, and refurbishments, and are confident that they'll continue to deliver superior target returns to our shareholders. So in summary, it's been another successful and busy period for the group. We remain the market leader in both the U.K. and Canada. Our growth is funded by cash from our balance sheet, and we remain very confident about the future success. Happy to take any questions that you may have.
You got one?
Yeah. You go.
Just in terms of the second half and the costs, can you just remind us what the rate rebates level was in the second half of 2023? And in terms of landlords, what kind of concessions are you getting on new centers at the moment in the U.K.? And the third one would be, your outlook for white space in the U.K. with longer expansion.
Yes, in terms of rate rebates, last year, the second half was worth GBP 3.2 million to us. We do it on a cash basis for accuracy, but we don't get that again. In terms of, concession, so incentives from landlords, it's not changed massively, landlords, where it's been previously, but we are... Yeah, we are flexible when I'm there. We've also said what happens to be the capital as part of the investment, but we also have to take a rent freeze for over a period up to the end of year six. Tend not to take any new ones because we have a rent-free anyway at the start of that. It doesn't really affect P&L either way. There's obviously a depreciation benefit, if you take it as capital, because you get a depreciation for it.
There's a small P&L benefit if you take rent-free, but that's spread over the term that is anyway, so it doesn't really add to it. In terms of white space, yeah, we've always said that if you read the papers, there's a huge amount of white space, but then we look at the wrong center.
in mainland Scotland or in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, which is in northern Wales, for example. But we still believe that there's opportunity to hit our long-term growth ambition that we set out last year in the year-end results, to get to 91 bowling centers by the end of 2035. We've got four signed up for this year, two of which are already open. We've got four signed up for next year, and we've also got some signed up for 2026 as well. We'll continue to update on that as we go forward. We're not gonna be pushing into a quantity play. Quality is still likely important.
What we are seeing is there are more competitors out there, as Steve mentioned in the full year results last year, that we're seeing more competitors coming into markets where we intended to have the only real true offer. But actually, our offer is still the one that is family-led. We have one that has that wide appeal. Does that answer?
Yeah, it's great.
Can I ask a question? It's Roberta from Investec. How have you seen the competitive environment changing in the past few months? And may I say, especially since Ten Entertainment was sold. Has there been any changes? Have you noticed anything?
So in terms of the last few months, no, not really. I mean, in the last. It depends on how many months. If we say, in the last, say, 24 months, there's been quite a significant change to the competitive landscape. You know, we've seen some really aggressive expansion from lots of other operators of experiential leisure, and they kind of dropped that in towards the back end of the full year results presentation. You know, we've seen Roxy Lanes, Lane7 , Tenpin accelerating their growth. There's also been some new entrants to markets for the experiential leisure, which we're all competing against.
It tends to be a bit more focused on the adult market, though, rather than the family focus, and we've actually seen growth in volume of our family business through the course of last year, and that's off the backdrop of a, you know, 1.8% decline in overall volumes versus last year. So, you know, what we've seen is a bit more of a drop from the young adult market, and I think that that's been a consequence of increased competition, but also real squeeze on the student market. You know, they've seen rents go up, they've seen the relative loans that you can get stay the same, so they're being squeezed from both ends, and therefore, less spend on the disposable income.
Doesn't have as much of an impact on us, given that it's only a really very small part of our overall customer mix.
And no changes, like really the last one since the sale of Ten Entertainment-
No.
Have you seen them changing anything?
No. No, nothing.
Nothing?
Nothing.
Nothing.
No, no M&A activity and no real changes. I mean, they've made some tweaks to pricing, but just in the normal cost of business, really.
Just wanted to understand the dividend growth, dividend outpaces group EPS materially. Is that 'cause you changed the payout in the middle of last year?
Yes, it's a mix of... So we amended our capitalization policy in our year-end last time from 50% to 55%, but that was a wise thing to do, but also on top of that, we've seen growth obviously in, as well. So it's a mixture of both.
And then just to understand what you said about the labor outlook, obviously, you were a bit caught out 18 months ago. Is it wise to put it in like 9%-10%, you think, in 2025? Is that what you're-
No, sorry, no. That's probably misinterpreted there. So what we're saying is that it's 9% for FY half year of 2024, and the first half of 2025, we're assuming it's gonna go back to the more historic levels that we've seen. Steve, you can add up on the graph as well, but between sort of 5% and 6%.
Well, let's see what happens about that, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, but, but it's an easy gift, giving away someone else's money.
Just one last, if I can. You mentioned Stockton was a seven-year rebuild cycle. Is that typical for the group now?
No. So the reason we didn't, we waited so long for that one is that that one was on a, a lease from the landlord. The lease actually ran out in 2020, and the landlord was looking to redevelop it into warehouse space. So we had a 10-year lease that the landlord broke at 12 months notice. However, well, and that's what we wouldn't obviously invest in it while that was going on. However, once we were through, I'd say, the first 12 months of the COVID experience, call it that, the landlord had reviewed the opportunities, didn't actually see warehousing as the big opportunity showcasing it to be in the long term. They only pretty got to their unit anyway.
And therefore, the landlord looked at opportunities, and we're their first opportunity, and we've heavily engaged with them throughout the COVID lockdowns. Therefore, when it came to it, and we had the opportunity, we said we would be interested in another lease, as they knew, on the same terms as we had before, but we'd also be interested in extra space if they had any. The restaurant next door to the left of us was in trouble anyway. So it's an opportunity for them to secure a long-term tenant rather than getting in that space to me.
Brilliant.
So it's still five to seven, yes.
Thank you.
Can I ask something briefly on Canada? You seem to be already very well on track to reach the 14 new centers that you targeted for, the 14 total centers that you targeted for full year 2025. I mean, you are already-
Yeah.
Basically. Are you working on something else, or can we hope that there's a, you know, acceleration of the pipeline there?
We're definitely working on it for sure. We'd like as many good quality assets as we can. I think the thing that we need to be really careful of is growing too quickly. You know, we're bringing a new team in place, creating scale and bandwidth in Canada. We've now got really most of the geographies or footprints in most of the geographies that we want to then expand from. But it's vast. I mean, when I was there a couple of weeks ago, just visiting the locations, a seven-hour internal flight from one of our sites to the other is as quick to come home. You know, it really is a vast country.
So making sure that we've got the right regional hubs and support centers, and we've just opened our contact center out in Canada now, obviously leveraging a lot of the learnings from the U.K. We take calls in the U.K. up to the Canadian sort of 7:00 P.M. time, and then the Canadian contact center kicks in. So, you know, there's various different operational efficiencies that we're working through. We've just sort of realigned the senior leadership team, recruited a marketing director, and improved operational structure and team, again, providing that platform for growth. So those people need to find their feet, and the worst thing we can do is kind of stress them too hard, too fast.
Notwithstanding that, though, however, a lot of work that's being done in the background on property pipeline, the Canadian capital gains tax laws change, slightly. So there's incentives for people to to sell their businesses, and we're trying to make the most of those. Any other questions from in the room? Have to go to the telephone lines if...?
If you would like to ask a question on the call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally, as you'll be advised when to ask your question. So once again, for those of you on the phone lines, please press star one if you would like to ask a question. And our first question comes from the line of Sahill Shan from Singer Capital Markets. Please, go ahead.
Morning, gents. Can you hear me?
Yeah, fine. Thank you.
Yeah, morning. Welcome. An excellent set of numbers. Laurence, could you just remind me what EBITDA ROIC you're targeting in Canada and in the U.K. going forward relative to what it was pre-COVID?
So what do you mean by EBITDA ROIC?
A Return on Investment. What's your target on the-?
Yes, I know what the ROIC is, but I'm just trying to understand it. So do you mean new center EBITDA performance?
Yes.
I mean, in terms of the EBITDA return, for a new center, we look for a 19% return in the U.K. and the same in Canada.
Just remind me, what was this pre-COVID?
It was the same.
The target was the same. We're targeting the same levels, 19% for new sites, 33% for the old sites. Now, clearly, we've been delivering ahead of that level, but equally, we were at a pre-COVID environment, delivering ahead of that level. But in terms of guidance, 19% return, and 33% refocused.
Super. Thank you for that. I'll catch up with you later, Laurence. Thank you.
Great.
We currently have no questions in the queue, so as one more reminder, please press star one if you would like to ask a question. We have no further questions in the queue, so I will now hand back to Stephen for some closing remarks.
Okay, great. Well, if there are no further questions, we're done. Thank you very much, Tom. Sorry, go on, Roberta.
Can I just one quick one. On Slide 18, which is really, you know, very useful. So if you look at the pricing things you've done in the past years, and what you're saying for this year and onwards, so basically, you're gonna grow with CPI below CPI, right? That's your view. So the volume growth, given that I think that the market expectations are for a little bit higher growth in like-for-like than just, you know, CPI. Is it coming from, again, families market, et cetera, or do you have a specific demographic target?
Yeah, and I suppose I'd just... There are three elements to like-for-like growth for us, and there are for everybody, but just to disaggregate them. So we've got the volume growth, where we would expect to see that increase, and yes, from the family areas, which will be perfectly investment. The second area is price, specifically price, and then the third area is spend.
Yeah.
Spend, obviously, is not price. It will be people deciding to spend more when they're with us, and that can be either through the upgrading of their outlet, VIP, or they decide to spend on a higher priced product while they're there, for example, on drinks, or they decide just to spend more with us. So they're there, and they decide to pay an extra penny in the amusements, or they're buying an extra drink or something like that. But that would be usually because the environment has been invested in, and they're looking to increase their well time, therefore, increase their spend. Okay. Anything at the last minute? Roberta, you sure?
Yeah.
I think we're finished. Thank you very much.