Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the Marston's Preliminary Results for Financial Year 2025. My name is Justin Platt, CEO, and with me I have Stephen Hopson, our new Chief Financial Officer. We'll take you through our results today, and we'll do that with the following running order. I'll start with the headlines. Stephen will then share the financial results, and I'll then give some insight into the strategic progress we've been making through the year before wrapping up and taking any questions you might have. The headlines: 2025 has been a very strong year for Marston's. It's been a year when we've been very focused on delivery, delivery of the strategy we outlined a year or so ago at the Capital Markets Day. The results bear out that the strategy is working and driving real progress for us as a business.
With profit before tax of GBP 72 million, that's year-on-year growth of 71%, and that's on top of the 65% growth we delivered a year ago. That profit delivery has helped us drive cash flow. Cash flow at GBP 53 million, that's ahead of our GBP 50 million target, and it's also earlier than planned. Alongside that, it's really pleasing we've made great progress with our new pub formats: 31 launches this year. They're performing very strongly for us and driving big revenue uplifts. It's very clear now that these formats can be a significant growth engine for us in the future. We've been doing all of that while giving our guests a great time. Record satisfaction scores with a reputation score at 816. Overall, a really good set of results, and it's a set of results that leave us feeling very positive in our outlook going forward.
That's the summary. I'll now hand over to Stephen, and he'll take you through the financials.
Thanks, Justin, and good morning, everyone. As Justin said, this is my first set of full-year results with Marston's, and I joined the business at what is clearly an exciting time for Marston's. As these numbers show, we're making great progress and delivering against our goals, with lots more to come. On my first slide, I'd like to begin by looking at some of the key group financial metrics. Total revenue was GBP 898 million, which showed growth of 1.6% on a like-for-like basis. EBITDA was up 7% to GBP 205 million, with the margin expanding by 140 basis points to 22.8%. That's been driven by good operational discipline, particularly on labor and controlling input costs, alongside the revenue growth. As a result of the EBITDA growth and lower finance costs, PBT stepped on significantly. Underlying profit before tax was GBP 72 million, nearly three times where we were just two years ago.
Importantly, this has translated into stronger cash generation. Recurring free cash flow was GBP 53 million, which is up 22% year-on-year and ahead of our GBP 50 million recurring free cash flow target. Finally, we have made real progress on the balance sheet. Net debt has reduced from 5.2 times to 4.6 times EBITDA as we continue to delever. Overall, excellent progress on both profit and cash. Turning now to look at our income statement in a bit more detail on the next slide. As I mentioned, FY2025 marked another year of substantial profit growth for Marston's, with PBT up 71%. Reported revenue was flat, although this masks the impact of the FY2024 disposal program, which I will show on the next slide. I have already mentioned that EBITDA was up 6.5%, and that GBP 12.6 million of EBITDA improvement basically flowed through to operating profit, which was up 8.6% to GBP 159.9 million.
Net finance costs were significantly lower year-on-year as a result of ongoing delevering and last year's CNBC disposal, leading to that very significant jump upwards in PBT. Whilst our effective tax rate increased, this simply reflects a return to the U.K.'s headline rate of corporation tax after a period of a lower rate. Together, this income statement shows a stronger and more profitable business with improved earnings quality and stronger margins. Turning to revenue performance, as I've already touched on, revenue for 2025 was GBP 898 million and was broadly flat year-on-year, but I would like to pick out two points on this chart. First, that the revenue includes a negative movement of about GBP 40 million in relation to the disposal of pubs over FY2024 and 2025.
To put the disposals into context, about GBP 50 million of assets were sold as part of the disposal program, so it's important to consider that impact when assessing year-on-year revenue progression. The second point is that our like-for-like performance continues to be ahead of the market, which grew by 0.7% in the year, with positive contributions across all key categories of drink, food, and machines. Turning now to look at margin, a key target for the group outlined at the CMD was to grow our underlying EBITDA margin by 200-300 basis points from FY 2024 levels, giving a target range of 23.4%-24.4%. I'm pleased to say that this year we've delivered 140 basis points of margin expansion, achieving total EBITDA margin of 22.8% in the year.
Labour productivity gains were the single biggest contributor, supported by the rollout of improved scheduling tools, which Justin will cover in a bit more detail later on. The labor productivity benefits in the year were enough to fully offset the increases in the national living wage and national insurance contributions, which came in from April 2025. We also saw benefits from improved food and drink margins, energy savings, and other operational efficiencies. These gains were partially offset by inflationary pressures, including those employment cost increases that I mentioned, and some investment in key areas, including more marketing. Overall, we've made real progress embedding cost discipline and delivering margin expansion across the business, and we feel that our EBITDA margins really do benchmark very well across the whole pub sector.
We view ourselves as a high-margin, local pub company, and we see further opportunity to increase the EBITDA margin in FY2026 as we move towards our CMD target. Turning now to look at capital expenditure, total CapEx for the year was GBP 61.2 million, which is equivalent to 6.8% of revenue, and we're now approaching the 7%-8% of revenue range that we talked about in the CMD. This is an increase from GBP 46.2 million last year, with the main driver being our pub format conversions, which I'll come back to shortly. Of this total, GBP 53.2 million was in maintenance and other CapEx deployed across our 1,300-strong pub estate. This includes works such as maintenance, estate management, investment in new IT platforms, and other items.
I also want to pull out a bit more granular information on our pub format conversions, which are very important to our overall growth plans and which Justin will cover in more detail. In the year, we covered 31 conversions to our differentiated formats, which are delivering strong results. Average revenue uplifts were 23% year-on-year, and EBITDA returns are over 30% to date, in line with our CMD targets. At an average cost of GBP 260,000 a site, we believe these conversions represent excellent value for money. Of course, we've only completed a small number so far in comparison to our estate, so there's a lot more to go at in this space. Clearly, the driver of increasing our capital expenditure is to improve the quality of our estate, so let's turn to that now.
On this slide, we show that we ended the year with 1,328 pubs, following the continuation of our estate optimization strategy. This included a small number of disposals in the T&L estate, as well as conversion of some pubs to the partner model. As a result, the managed and partnership estate consisted of 1,182 pubs, and the T&L estate had 146 sites at the year-end. EBITDA per pub increased to GBP 154,000, which, as you can see, is a 28% improvement over the last two years. This uplift reflects both operational improvements and tighter estate management, with gains in both our managed and partnership estate and the remaining T&L pubs. The result is a higher quality, better-performing pub estate that is delivering stronger returns at a site level.
I think this is a really important slide, as it shows how the improvements being made to the business model are feeding through at pub level. Turning now to our cash performance in the year, which was another highlight. The takeout from this slide is that we delivered and, in fact, exceeded our CMD target of GBP 50 million of recurring free cash flow ahead of schedule, with GBP 53.2 million delivered in the period. How was that delivered? Cash from ops increased year-on-year by GBP 5.6 million, which included the improvements in EBITDA I described earlier. Within that number, we also had a GBP 6 million saving from lower contributions to our DB pension scheme, and offsetting that, we had a small working capital gain, but it was not as large as last year's gain. Finally, we started making cash tax payments again of GBP 5.3 million as our profits improved.
As a smaller side, investors and analysts should note that in FY2026, we expect to move into the very large company corporation tax regime, which will accelerate our cash tax payments this year. In the second line on the chart, we had a GBP 15 million saving on interest offset by GBP 15 million more CapEx year-on-year, as I just described, together with lower banking fees. Recurring free cash was strong, and now over GBP 50 million, which we expect to be able to exceed again this year. I also wanted to draw out on this slide that this strong free cash flow is fully absorbed by scheduled debt repayments, GBP 43.8 million of securitized debt repayments, and GBP 8.6 million of lease liabilities. Clearly, this does mean that the group is delivering, as I'll show on the next slide, but also that our cash generation is currently fully utilized.
To complete the chart, after other movements in borrowing and disposals, there was a cash outflow of GBP 9.6 million in the year. I am now going to return to that progress about delivering in the group. This slide shows the different elements of the group's financing structures and the overall movement in net debt year-on-year. Starting at the bottom, net debt, excluding lease liabilities, reduced by GBP 46.2 million to GBP 837.5 million. This takes our net debt to EBITDA multiple, excluding leases, down to 4.6 times from 5.2 times last year. That continues the recent downward trend and reflects the group's stronger cash generation and disciplined approach to capital investment. To briefly cover what makes up our financing structures, the largest element shown at the top is the securitization, which provides long-term predictable financing for the group.
It does also impose some restrictions, both in terms of the assets that are tied up in the securitization structure and in our ability to move assets and cash around the group. However, these restrictions are manageable at present. Swaps are in place to fix the interest that we pay on this securitized debt. Other lease-related borrowings are essentially loans that were raised against other properties in the group outside the securitization. They were legally structured as sale and leasebacks, but where we have the option to buy back the properties at the end of the period for a nominal fee. Therefore, we treat these properties as effective freeholds, and as noted in the slide, we're currently paying interest only on those borrowings. I have put a new slide in the appendices showing investors how those structures will work over coming years.
Our GBP 200 million bank facility was renewed in the year and now extends to July 2027, with relatively low drawings at the year-end and cash balances ended the year at GBP 35.9 million. In summary, we're continuing to delever at pace while preserving the secure long-term funding arrangements in the group. If I then broaden this to look at the group's whole balance sheet rather than just the net debt elements, this slide shows the evolution of our balance sheet and our net asset value per share, which increased to GBP 1.25 this year. Actually, the movements year-on-year are pretty straightforward. Our balance sheet is underpinned by GBP 2.2 billion of property assets, of which 81% of the estate by number of pubs are effective freeholds.
The net book value of those assets increased by over GBP 100 million in the year, reflecting our annual estate reval and also our ongoing investment into the business. Net debt, as I've just described, reduced to GBP 837.5 million, excluding lease liabilities, and lease liabilities were GBP 5.5 million lower. Total net debt was GBP 51.7 million lower year-on-year. Other liabilities increased by GBP 28.4 million, almost entirely due to an increase of GBP 28.5 million in deferred tax liabilities relating to the upward property revaluation. Overall, the property reval with its associated tax movements, as well as the net cash generation of the group, drove a GBP 136 million increase in net assets, which was a 21% increase year-on-year to GBP 791 million, which equates to GBP 1.25 per share. Given the progress made on the balance sheet, I want to finish by looking at our capital allocation framework.
If I start by saying that this is not a change to our capital allocation policy, which remains consistent with what we laid out at the CMD, we remain focused on delivering sustainable shareholder value through a disciplined balance of investment in the business, delevering, and ultimately shareholder returns. That said, there are a couple of updates we wanted to share this morning. On the right-hand side of the chart, you'll see our continued progress on leverage, which, as I mentioned, has reduced substantially. We are pleased with that progress, but would like to see leverage continue to decrease. Today, we're committing to reduce leverage to below four times on a pre-IFRS 16 basis. When we get to that level, we anticipate the start of capital returns to shareholders through dividends, share buybacks, or a combination of both.
What that looks like will depend on circumstances at the time, including the share price and investor preferences. To be clear, we also expect to see the group continue to delever below four times even after the recommencement of shareholder returns. We believe this disciplined approach continues to be the right strategy to create and sustain long-term value. To conclude, we've delivered a strong financial performance this year, with clear progress on margin, profit, and cash flow, and we expect further progress this year. Before I hand back to Justin, I'll briefly touch on five forward-looking points. First, we remain confident in the trading outlook for FY2026, with like-for-like sales currently tracking in line with last year and Christmas bookings up 11%.
Second, we expect further progress towards our margin target of 200-300 basis points of growth versus 2024, following the 140 basis point gain this year. Our format growth engine will be accelerated this year with at least a further 50 refurbishments, and our CapEx is expected to be within the target range of 7%-8% of total revenue. After achieving our CMD target ahead of schedule this year, we expect to deliver another year of GBP 50 million in recurring free cash flow in FY26. Lastly, we have significantly reduced our debt profile over the past couple of years and expect to continue to do so, with leverage now at 4.6 times and progressing well towards our sub-four times target. Overall, we are delivering against our targets, and we remain firmly on track to drive further financial and strategic progress in the year ahead.
Thanks very much, and I'll now hand back to Justin.
Thank you, Stephen. I'll now take you through the progress we've been making as we've implemented our strategy through the year. You will remember from the Capital Markets Day, we're very focused on being a high-margin, highly cash-generative local pub company, and we'll do that with a portfolio of brands that appeal across a range of consumer segments. Five key value drivers that get us there: executing a market-leading operating model, using CapEx to deliver differentiated formats, unlocking value with digital transformation, expanding our excellent managed and partnership management models, and in time, supporting that with targeted acquisitions. I'll now deep dive on each of those value drivers to give you a flavor of some of the work that we've been doing. The first one I will spend some time on is the operating model.
Really, this is the bread and butter of running a great pub business. It's the balance of revenue growth, cost efficiency, and guest satisfaction. First of all, I'll talk to revenue. Really good momentum this year. We've continued to do well, especially in our peak trading periods. Across our peak trading periods, we're up almost 6% on the year. That's enabled us to grow our like-for-likes ahead of the market at 1.6%. A lot of what's behind that is our event plan. Our event plan has been a key thing for us this year. In 2025, Marston's pubs have been home to a darts tournament led by Luke Humphries, the world number one. Paddington and his new movie joined us from Peru. We had a national Trivial Pursuit quiz event.
Through the summer, when Oasis Mania was sweeping the U.K., we had a series of '90s throwback events with tribute bands and the like in our pub life. All of these are designed to give people reasons to visit our pubs, a range of guest demographics. I think that's essential at any time of year, especially in the summer, when, of course, this year we had no big football tournament. Events are a big success for us and an important driver in supporting our revenue growth. Secondly, on costs. As Stephen has shown you, we've made excellent progress during 2025 on our journey to being a high-margin business in adding 140 basis points to our margin, despite significant and well-known headwinds. We've done this with a relentless drive for efficiency across all areas of our cost base.
The biggest area of our cost base is labor, where we've saved almost GBP 10 million, a little bit more than one percentage point on our margin. This has been about continually getting smarter with the way we use our technology to enhance and optimize our labor teams and our labor schedules, all about getting the right people in the right place at the right time. I think probably the best way to bring to life for you the work we've done on labor is to pick a case study of one of our pubs. The lady pictured on the right is Coatie. She's one of our fantastic General Managers. She runs the King Charles Pub in Chesham. A lot of work with her labor planning this year. They've actually reduced their labor costs through the year by 8%.
Despite doing that, they've grown their revenue by 19% and also grown their guest satisfaction well ahead of our company average. A good example in the way labor's playing out for us in one of our pubs, but it also represents our approach across the company. Secondly, in terms of food and drink, our formats allow us to simplify the ranges we offer because we're a lot clearer about the demographic by format. That allows you to be clear which food offer and which drink offer you need by pub. That's allowed us to simplify our range. That's helped us with efficiencies. Alongside that, we've also renegotiated our key food and drink contracts to drive efficiencies where we can. That's labor and food and drink. Finally, energy and estates. Every pound counts on energy.
We've been that way for a number of years now, whether it be the usage that we manage, but also the contracts. There's a relentless focus on attempting to drive efficiencies there. As Stephen said, we take a very judicious approach to estates more broadly with our CapEx, looking at our maintenance cycles, spending strictly in maintenance cycles, and that helps us on efficiencies with our repairs budget. Overall, really good progress on the cost side of things. Finally, on the operating model, guest satisfaction. I mean, this is all about ensuring that when our guests come and see us, they have a great time. It's very pleasing in the context of the efficiency gains I've just talked to that we're still delivering better and better experiences through our guests.
From a score of 766 in 2023 to 800 last year, 816 this year is a very pleasing performance. This really is a combination of many of the initiatives coming together, whether it be our events program and the visual there is of our Octoberfest event that we run during September, whether it be through digital ordering or some of the menu enhancements we've made. All of these things together add up to make a difference to the guest experience. It's worth saying, though, that the number one factor that dominates, that really drives a great guest experience, is really strong guest service. That requires almost an obsession, a relentless obsession with getting that right day in, day out. The work on that is never done. Our teams are very focused on delivering that experience all the way through the year.
As I say, it's pleasing that this year we've been able to continually improve on that. That's the operating model. When you take revenue, cost, satisfaction together, it's good that we've made strong progress across the piece. This has been complemented with the work we've done on the digital transformation value driver. I think a key example of this would be the new Order and Pay App that we launched in March. Really well received. It's paying dividends with our guests in terms of both revenue and reputation. It's complementing the personal service for those guests who want it. We've got a 10% revenue uplift when using the app. Those pubs with a higher mix of Order and Pay usage do significantly better on reputation. What's also good about the app is it can work hand in hand with our events.
The trivial pursuit winner wedge event drove a big uptake in the use of the app. Good progress overall on this area of digital, but a lot more opportunity here in the future as digital transformation can help us both on revenue and on cost. The third value driver I want to focus on is our new pub formats. Against five core consumer target segments across the market, we've designed five pub formats that are specifically designed to meet the needs of those target audiences. Through a series of test and learn launches in 2025, we've been assessing the potential of these pubs to drive appeal and, importantly, drive powerful CapEx returns. In May, I did a deep dive on the two-door format. I thought this time around, we'd share some more information on the grandstand brand.
grandstand is a local sports pub, so it targets adults who want an entertainment experience when they go to their local pub. I mean, this is an absolute sports lover's dream. It's similar to a city centre sports bar environment, but in the local community pub. Number of constituent parts to it. It's hard, state-of-the-art technology ensures that we've got three-metre stadium screens, amazing sound systems. Alongside that, there's great matchday food suited to watching the big game. These pubs will always be run by sports enthusiast general managers who know what their guests want and can work with them to give them a great experience. It's an absolute must-visit for the big game, the atmosphere that we create. More than that, because it's a local pub and it's a great environment, it's a place that you would want to go to on any night of the week.
We support that with a program of sports events through the week to give people reasons to come every night. grandstand's done really well this year. The guest reaction and the returns that we've had have been very, very impressive. It's been a key part of our test and learn year. Test and learn overall this year has exceeded our expectations. We've done 31 launches through the year. We did 21 two-doors, five grandstands, and five Woodies. Woodies is our new family pub. All have done well. Guests love them. They've driven strong uplifts in revenue of 23%. All of that off relatively modest levels of CapEx. We've been driving ROICs of more than 30% off only GBP 260,000 per pub. The test and learn phase really has proven the potential of this stream for us.
Real growth opportunity as we roll out across the estate. All of our pubs have been mapped to the format opportunity they can play to over time. Over time, this really does give us an opportunity as a significant driver of growth. Great progress across our value drivers in 2025. This leaves us feeling very positive as we look towards 2026. Through this year, we will have a big program of exciting events, all designed to encourage guests to come and visit us, not least with a big football tournament on the horizon that everybody will be very much focused on in the summer. We will complement that with our revenue management and Order and Pay App disciplines to drive spend per guest. Alongside the demand drive, as I have just said, our new formats will play an increasingly important role in driving growth through the year.
Given our success in 2025, we're now accelerating the rollout plan. We'll have 50 or so launches focused on two-door and grandstand. All of these will make a meaningful difference to both revenue and EBITDA performance through the year. To summarize, another year of strong delivery in 2025, significant growth in both profit and cash flow. We're very excited by the growth potential of our new formats. We see a very promising outlook for the year ahead as we continue to deliver as a reliable growth company. With that, we can now take some time for questions.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and then two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one now. We'll pause a moment while we poll for questions. The first question we have comes from Douglas Jack of Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. I have two questions, if that's okay. In terms of the new formats in 2026, is the choice of grandstand and two-door largely because they're the ones that have the greatest uplift, potentially, adding to the number of reasons to visit? I think, obviously, they've got quite a lot of opportunity there. The second one was about margins. In 2026, what are the best margin opportunities do you see over this year? Thank you.
Morning, Doug. Thanks for your questions. I'll take the first one on formats. Stephen, if you want to come to margins. In terms of choices, as you know, we were very clear to have the plank of a test and learn phase first to guide our implementation. The primary choice is certainty of return in the sense that two-door and grandstand both launched earlier in the year last year than Woodies, which allowed us to get more data on those through the year. Most of the Woodies launches came sort of the summer onwards. Whilst all are performing well, we've just got longer data on the other two. The other attraction, of course, with grandstand is you absolutely want a bigger footprint of those pubs in the market in a year with a World Cup, which we've certainly got an eye on. Really, it's about certainty of returns, Doug.
Doug, on your question on margins, I mean, yeah, look, we've made really good progress in 2025. I think we do expect EBITDA margins to increase in 2026, but not to the same extent as 140 basis points we did in 2025. I mean, I think the best opportunities for me, so there's a bit of flow-through stuff. We made really good progress on labor. Some of those things didn't come through until the second half last year. I think some of them will help H1 2026. Also, that is a continuing journey for us. Matching right people, right place, matching demand with supply of labor is something that we're going to be relentlessly focused on going forward. That may come through in terms of reduced cost. It may come through in terms of better customer service and therefore improved sales.
I think there will be some upside from that. I think on gross margins, I mean, we've got pretty good visibility of both food and drink cost prices moving into next year. We're looking at quite a few contracts on that quite early. I think, therefore, that gives us certainty on those lines. We'll continue the journey on things like revenue management and upselling and so on. It should be an opportunity to move that further forward as well.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question we have comes from Karan Puri of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, both. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got two quick ones. One on the 1.6% like-for-like momentum in 2025. Just wondering if you could provide a split between pricing and volumes. Number one and number two, just coming back on the cash tax payment in 2026. I know it's going to be higher than 2025, but in terms of magnitude, if you could share a bit more on that front would be helpful. Thank you.
I'll start with the like-for-likes. As we said in the release, food, drink, and machines were all in growth. That's a mix across them. As you'd expect in that, revenue management has played an important part for us. We'll continue to do so, particularly, actually, the premiumisation as consumers are upgrading to more premium beers and also adding and upgrading on the menu. Then the second one, Stephen.
Yeah, the cash tax. Yes, you're right. We flagged that it would increase. Last year, the cash tax payments were GBP 5.3 million. That will approximately double next year to about GBP 10 million, current. That is about the extent of it. We are still using some losses from previous trading periods. The cash tax is still relatively low, but it will be about GBP 10 million in FY2026.
Perfect. Just for a quick follow-up on that one. Can we expect it to be sort of normalised cash tax starting 2027, or will you still benefit from some loss in the previous period there as well?
Yes, 2027 will still be a little bit low. From 2028, it will go back to normalised levels. It will be a step up in 2027, but it will not be up to normalised levels yet. From 2028, you should expect normalised levels of cash tax.
Very clear. Thank you so much.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one now. The next question we have comes from Anna Barnfather of Panmure Liberum. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Thanks very much. Just a couple of questions. Firstly, on the reformats, you've mentioned sort of an acceleration to 50. Could you update us on your thinking of what proportion of the estate at this stage you think could benefit from a reallocation into one of the five formats? So how many of your sort of 1,300 pubs? And have you only done managed, or have you done partnership ones as well? The second question, I was just thinking about the sort of peak trading. Obviously, you're doing really well in those big events with peak trading periods up 5.8%.
Are you tempted to reduce opening hours on the sort of non-event days, or is there any sort of thinking on that as a way to cut down on overheads? Just third question, on the revenue mix, I think obviously higher margins and gross margins. Can you just give us a bit more color on perhaps some of the shifts in your sales mix? Thank you.
Thanks, Anna. I'll take the first two. Stephen, if you could take the third one. Let me start on peak trading, Anna, and then I'll come back to formats. We do look at our hours on a regular basis, but there's not a massive need to start big closure periods by any means.
I mean, one of the things that's most notable in pub trading today, certainly versus five years ago, is the growth of the early evening at the expense of the late evening. If you look at booking patterns now, peak time for a table, the busiest time to get a table is 6:30 to 7:00 P.M. You go back five years, that was more like 8:00 P.M. There's definitely an earlier day part point to your business. We do look at hours, but I don't think there's anything significant there in cost, particularly in the local community environment where people are around the corner from their houses quite a lot. On the formats, first of all, yeah, we've actively launched formats across our managed and our partner estate. They're performing equally well in each. Neither is a differentiator, actually, in terms of performance.
They do work across both managed and partner. In terms of the numbers, as we showed earlier, five formats. The two that we did not deep dive on were locals' pubs and adult dining signature pubs. Both of those, we have some of them in market already. I would say in terms of the opportunity, it is probably the locals' pubs that is the only bit that we would not see as a sort of significant ROIC north of 30% opportunity, which probably takes you to 75% or so of our estate with the opportunity for those new formats.
Anna, on the revenue mix, I mean, we are about 35% food in our business overall, but there is a big variation in that, as you would expect, between format and some of those locals' pubs versus, for example, our adult dining business, which is very, very different. That has been growing. I mean, clearly, food across the market really has been growing quicker than drink over a period of time. It is not huge. I mean, that number's probably changed by half a percent year on year. It is not a huge mix. Hopefully, it gives you some idea about the sort of the food and drink part.
Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question today, please press star and then one now. If you decide to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one now. The next question we have comes from Fintan Ryan of Goodbody. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Justin and Stephen. Two questions from me, please. Firstly, can you give us a sense of what your sort of base case expectations are for the budget tomorrow in terms of, I guess, labor costs, anything that you might be expecting or hoping for, business rates? Just sort of get a sense of what the base case is for the outlook currently and maybe what can change within the next 24-odd hours. Secondly, could you give some color on like-for-like trading in Q4 and over the last eight weeks? Obviously, you've reported flat like-for-likes. What's been sort of the volume versus pricing split in that? Can you give some color on the visibility for the Christmas trading? Obviously, you've got bookings up 11% year on year, but typically, how much of bookings are of your Christmas trading are bookings? What you'd be at this point assuming for incremental pricing for the calendar 26th, right? Thank you.
Thanks, fintan. If I start on, I guess, the hot topic of the day and tomorrow, which is the budget and expectations for that, I mean, our base expectations and sort of what's embedded into the guidance that we've given to the market is that we expect national living wage to increase, obviously. Our expectations are about a 4% increase in the headline rate of national living wage. We are expecting the differential for under 21-year-olds to close slightly compared to where it is at the moment. We are not expecting any further changes to things like national insurance. I know there have been lots of stories in the press, but at the moment, we are not making any expectations on changes for things like machine, gaming, duty, or business rates either.
I mean, the Chancellor has flagged that there'll be a review of the way business rates is levied. That'll be interesting to see. We're not making any assumption on that because simply, we just don't have the information available to us at this point.
Before I answer the like-for-likes, Vincent, if you've got any assumptions on the budget tomorrow, please share them with the group. In terms of the like-for-likes, because quarter one's all about Christmas, October and November are relatively small months in the grand scheme of things. December performance is really what matters. Within that, it's the key two weeks from kind of 19th of December until 2nd of January, quite tight time. Bookings pace, as we've said, is very good at 11%. That's off the back of last year.
I think we grew Christmas at about 11% last year in like-for-like terms. It is pleasing the stage we are at. To your point, walk-ins are also important at Christmas. We have still got a lot of work to do in order to land that. That is both in encouraging people to spend their Christmas with us, but also in managing spend per guest so we drive the revenue return as well.
Great. Just in terms of the pricing and current expectations?
As you know, we kind of manage price through the year in a broader revenue basis. In terms of our revenue management initiatives around booking density, around premiumisation, and yeah, lead price is part of that mix. We do not have a hard and fast target. It is overall spend pad that we look at.
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, at this stage, there are no further questions. I would now like to hand back to the management team for closing comments.
Yeah, just to say thanks, everybody, for joining us. Really good engagement. Obviously, we'll all see what comes tomorrow. I wish you an early best wishes for the festive season. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that then concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.