<p>Sent in March 2019, by James McCulloch, this Investor Update letter purports to summarise the 2018/9 financials for the Harcourt pub.</p>

<ul>
	<li>It claims &quot;strong sales&quot; and improvements to drive further performance and talks about the appointment of Henry Harris and Steve Ham.</li>
	<li>It references future potential headwinds of Brexit, but cites a projection of &quot;operating profit&quot; of <strong>&pound;250k for the year</strong></li>
	<li>To me, the deception here is that operating profit excludes the largest drivers of costs - mainly the management fee and the investment fee, and to exclude these in the summary of the financial performance for investors woefully misrepresents the effective performance of the company.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Also there is no mention of loan taken against the assets or any contractual disputes, so this investor summary is materially deceptive and misleading to investors.</li>
	<li>The attached financials that accompanied the letter omitted the largest real PnL drivers, and no balance sheet, - wilful deception of Mr McCulloch.</li>
</ul>

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<p>Harcourt Pub Limited<br />
Dear Shareholder,<br />
Please find enclosed the part management accounts for the financial year 2018/19.</p>

<p><br />
The Harcourt saw strong sales in its events and private dining business but the Harcourt Inns management team has identified a number of improvements to help drive performance in regular dining and drinking. This has included bringing in a new GM with experience of both pubs and restaurants to help driving the vertical drinking crowd and also Henry Harris starting to take control of the kitchen to ensure the pub delivers affordable and quality food. There will be a few minor changes to the layout of the pub to maximise dining and drinking covers when there aren&rsquo;t events or private dining bookings and a small amount of investment in the kitchen / kitchen equipment which needs upgrading.<br />
The Harcourt Inns team has grown with the addition of Steve Ham as Head of Operations. Steve was previously an operations manager at Soho House and brings a wealth of experience required to drive efficiencies across the group, maintain standards and improve margins through group purchasing.</p>

<p><br />
There are a number of headwinds that may have a negative effect on performance including Brexit, which is driving up costs and making it harder to find suitable staff, plus a general decline in consumer confidence. Despite these headwinds and after a strong start to trading we expect this to continue and to deliver an operating profit in the financial year 2019/20 in the region of &pound;250k.<br />
Yours sincerely,<br />
James McCulloch<br />
Managing Director</p>

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