Author: Guest

A pub company is simply a company that owns pubs and there are literally hundreds of them, many with only a handful or even just one pub. We’ll concentrate here, though, on the bigger companies who, between them, own over half the country’s pubs.

Stonegate

Founded in 2010 with the purchase of 333 pubs from Mitchells & Butlers, Stonegate grew quite slowly over the next ten years, making a series of acquisitions including brands like Slug & Lettuce, Walkabout and Be At One, until its pub numbers totalled 765. All the pubs were managed houses. A seismic change came in 2020 when Ei Group was bought for £1.27bn, making Stonegate the largest pub company in the UK with 1,270 managed pubs and, as a result of the Ei purchase, 3,200 leased and tenanted businesses.

Ei itself had been founded, as Enterprise Inns, in 1991, initially with 333 pubs from Bass. The company built up its estate, gaining 2,200 pubs in batches by buying them from other companies or taking them over. In 2002, 1,864 pubs were bought from Whitbread and in 2004, 4,054 from Unique. By this time, it owned nearly 10,000 pubs and was in the FTSE 100 list of top companies. However, it was loaded with debt and the 2008 financial crash required a good deal of retrenchment. Ei also started building up its managed estate, including pubs on retail agreements under the Craft Union brand (we’ll look at this operating model in the next article). By the time of the sale, it was down to fewer than 4,000 pubs.

Punch Taverns

The first article included a brief history of Punch to illustrate the volatility around pubco development. In summary, it grew quickly to around 8,000 pubs, suffered under the crash, sold a lot of pubs including its managed division and was taken over in 2016. 1,900 pubs went to Heineken and 1,300 to Patron Capital, who retain the Punch brand. At takeover time, all pubs were leased or tenanted but it’s also now pushing retail agreements (which it calls Management Partnerships). Some pubs were sold but in June 2021 it announced the purchase of Youngs’ tenanted division, bringing the current total to 1,282.

Admiral Taverns

Admiral was founded in 2003 by two families and grew quickly to 2,300 pubs by 2007. Many of these were ‘bottom end’ houses disposed of by other pub companies. The financial crash had the usual consequences for over-extended businesses and numbers were down to 1,700 by 2011 and continued to fall. By 2017 it was in the hands of Cerberus Capital Management who sold up to a joint venture by Magners cider-makers C&C Group and estate investor Proprium Capital Partners, by which time there were 845 pubs. The acquisition trail was hit in 2019 with 137 pubs coming from Marston’s and 150 from Heineken. The big one arrived in July 2021 when Admiral bought 674 Hawthorn pubs from property firm New River taking the estate to over 1,500.

Admiral’s pubs are all tenanted or leased and tend to be wet-led community operations. It has a relatively good reputation in the trade though there’s certainly no aversion to flogging off pubs as ‘development opportunities’.

Star Pubs & Bars

In 1995, Scottish & Newcastle, one of the original ‘Big Six’ breweries, bought another of them, Courage, making the combined group Britain’s biggest brewer. By 2011, the pub arm, then known as S&N Pub Co, had 1,500 tenanted pubs and 600 in management. Come 2008, Scottish Courage was gobbled up by international brewer Heineken and the pub business rebranded as Star Pubs & Bars. Many pubs were sold but then, in 2017, as previously mentioned, 1,900 were snapped up from Punch. Again there were disposals and the estate currently stands at 2,500.

Star vigorously promote their retail agreement scheme, Just Add Talent. In 2020, it was fined £2m for breaches of the Pubs Code (which we’ll cover in a later article).

Greene King

In 1995, Greene King was a long-established family brewer with 900 pubs, nearly all in East Anglia and the South-East. It then embarked on a ferocious acquisition trail, swallowing up many breweries (the likes of Morlands, Belhaven, Morrells and Hardy & Hanson) and other pub companies. GK itself is now owned by a billionaire Hong Kong property developer. It has some 3,100 pubs, restaurants and hotels, of which 1,200 are tenanted or leased. Its strategy seems to be to move in the managed direction and the ‘Pub Ready’ retail agreements are pushed hard. GK was once renowned for not letting other people’s beers in its pubs but now have a more enlightened attitude.

Marston’s

The company was known as Wolverhampton & Dudley until 2007 when it rebranded as Marston’s, one of the many breweries it had taken over in recent years. At that time, 2,500 pubs were owned but the total is now down to 1,400. The tenanted estate, in particular, has been reduced through sales such as 200 to New River in 2013 and 137 to Admiral in 2019. In late 2020, the company took on the running of 156 Brains pubs in Wales. Also that year, Marston’s merged its brewing operations with Carlsberg but this does not directly affect the pub business.

Mitchells & Butlers

Formed originally out of the old Bass estate, M&B have 1,650 pubs and restaurants. The multitudinous brands include Ember Inns, Toby Carveries, Nicholson’s and All Bar One – as can be seen, the emphasis is on food. Pubs are mostly managed though around 50 are on a lease arrangement.

JD Wetherspoon

Since opening its first pub in 1979, ‘Spoons has expanded to 925 pubs and 50 hotels, all managed. Plans for 18 new pubs are in the pipeline,

Wellington

Owned by the billionaire Reuben Brothers, the company leases all its 850 pubs on a free of tie basis.

A key member of Sheffield CAMRA and of the Sheffield beer festival for around 30 years. Having worked on the set up and take down of many festivals, Martin finally cajoled his brother into joining the cause and promoting real ale in Sheffield. They both then bent my ear until I joined up. This then began my journey and transition from tasteless frothy rubbish into real ale.

Martin was always the first to arrive and last to leave during festival set ups. Working tirelessly to give the attendees the perfect experience and therefore the best possible impression of what we are all about.

He was an absolute brute in the cellar set up and perfect gentleman at the bar, while sipping a dark ale or Old Rosie he presented an imposing figure in long sweeping coats, various hats, a glint in the eye and infectious smile. Picture a cross between Oscar Wild and Jeff Capes via a gothic Doctor Who. A treasure of a man with a rapier like wit, hollow legs and always ready with a story to cheer up the group.

Bring up Martins name to any member of Sheffield CAMRA, his local the Kelham Island Tavern or anyone he knew, I guarantee you will see an instant smile flash across their face, a raise of an eyebrow then a deep breath as they retell a tale of monsters, wizards, warrior maidens and heroes. Or more realistically great nights, brewery trips and days out around Yorkshire hunting out ale hot spots.

The real ale scene, nay the world is a worse place for having lost Martin. Whenever I come across a new cider or rabbit punned beer I will always wonder what you would have made of it and drink to you. The places you loved will stand for years and I will always look for you in the spots where we used to drink.

I loved the time we spent and the fun we had, sadly there will be no more. You leave a massive hole mate. Rest in peace and see you in the KIT, I’ll get the first round.

Noel Nield

I’d like to add to Noel’s words on behalf of myself and the beer festival team.

I first met Martin nearly 20 years ago when I started volunteering for the Sheffield beer festival. He was one of the “gang of three”, big lads, with his brother Mark and mate Noel. In those days we had no lifting equipment and Martin and Noel lifted the full barrels up to head height to fit on the top of the stillage. They’d work away cheerfully all day at was physically beyond the rest of us, with an incredible stream of banter between them. I was in awe of their teamwork. Martin cut an unlikely figure with goth looks and black nail varnish, and he also doubled as our bouncer when the festival was in session, a job he did with ease. Martin was one of the people who made me really welcome when I started doing festivals and we used to spend hours joshing about with his craic and ready humour.

Sundays saw him dressed in his best , looking resplendent in suit and overcoat with his family at the Kelham, looking like a character out of Dickens, again with a lively stream of banter. Once at a Halloween party I was confronted by a bright green man – yes it was Martin in one of his outrageous costumes. His last festival was 2019, and he was recovering from the initial onset of his brain tumour. Physically he could no longer help a lot, but he was determined to turn up for the festival, his ready wit and humour still to the fore. For him the festival was important, a social occasion to get together with the rest of us festival makers once a year and have a good time. We will miss him.

When I see someone out of the corner of my eye buying a pint of Black Mass, and hear a group of mates having a good laugh and joke at a packed festival, I’ll know he’s still with us in spirit. 

Rest in peace big man, I feel proud to have known you.

Chris Pearce, Cellar Manager