Next week on the stock market

Hollywood Bowl's record revenue and growth in the UK and Canada show consumers aren't willing to compromise on fun despite economic challenges.

Having expanded its Canadian presence in recent years, Hollywood Bowl now ranks as the largest ten-pin bowling brand in the UK and Canada. There are opportunities to improve its footprint too. In addition to its refurbishment program, new centres are in the pipeline across both regions. Although resilient growth indicates early progress, it hasn’t come cheap. But with a strong cash position and free cash flow expected to grow, we aren’t concerned about funding the increase in spending.

We’ll be closely monitoring refurbishment updates and seeking guidance on whether capital expenditure remains on track to land within the £35 – 40mn range.

British American Tobacco’s full year guidance of low single-digit growth in both revenue and operating profit may seem unambitious. But with the tobacco market in continuing decline, it’s down to robust pricing and increasing demand for next generation products like vapes to keep financial performance moving in the right direction.

The company’s already mentioned that this year is likely to be second-half weighted, so we’ll be finding out next week just how much heavy lifting will be required for the rest of the year. Progress on paying down net debt will also be in focus, which is seen as key to enabling further share buybacks. As ever there can be no guarantees on this front.

WH Smith last reported that strong trading momentum had continued into the second half. That was just a month ago and with the peak summer period still to come we’re not expecting too many changes. First half profit growth was slower than revenue, so we’ll be looking to see if moderating inflation is giving margins a boost.

The market’s not expecting a huge acceleration in growth in the second half, despite the growing travel hub footprint so there is some potential scope for upside as the year progresses. There’s a substantial opportunity to take market share overseas, particularly in North America, so we’ll be looking at site openings which were last thought to be around 110 in the current financial year. The estate totals around 1,300 travel stores of which just under half are in the UK. Travel is now the dominant arm, with more than double the amount of stores seen on the high street.