When James Smith started operating coach tours from Wigan and Southport in 1914 the first was to John o’Groats.
More than a century later, Shearings Leisure Group, as it is called, runs holidays and hotel breaks to 170 destinations in Europe and beyond. Today the group, controlled by Lone Star Funds, a US private equity house, reports its fourth successive year of growth in sales, profits and passengers.
In the year to December, Shearings, which targets the grey pound, lifted underlying earnings by 13 per cent to £10.3 million on the back of improved gross margins and a tight rein on costs.
Revenues for the year rose 3 per cent to £207.2 million, and passenger numbers grew by 4 per cent to 1.12 million.
The group, which also trades under National Holidays and owns the Coast & Country and Bay hotel brands, spent £4.6 million on upgrading its 44 hotels, taking total investment over the past three years to almost £13 million, and more cash was ploughed into its 240 coaches and IT infrastructure.
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Richard Calvert, the chief executive, said: “The kind of short breaks and holidays that today’s over 50s want has changed beyond recognition. We’re healthier and more adventurous than ever, and as interested in walking holidays in Austria and river cruises on the Rhine as hotel breaks on the Cornish coast.”
Shearings is the product of a series of mergers and acquisitions throughout its history. In 1982 James Smith & Co – by then known as Smiths Happiways — became part of a rival business launched by Henry Shearing in Oldham in 1919.