Chain sells off weaker pubs

The UK’S biggest pub landlord said yesterday it had largely completed plans to dispose of a large chunk of its estate after raising £264million from the sale of more than 1,000 venues over two years.

Enterprise Inns, which had 6,143 leasehold and tenant pubs at March 31, said it will continue to sell underperforming pubs but at more normal levels.

The Solihull- based group sold 131 properties in the six months to March, raising £89mill i on and making a £10million profit on the disposals, although its net debt still stands at £2.9billion. The selloff has hit earnings at the group, with underlying pre- tax profits down 13% to £64million and like-for-like net income across the whole estate dropping 1.6%.

The group said given current economic uncertainty it was still not appropriate to resume paying a dividend to shareholders. Chief executive Ted Tuppen said the company had been subjected to “extremely challenging conditions” over the past four years, with cost pressures, consumerweaknessandpol i tical i nterference among factors making life difficult for Enterprise and its publicans.

Over 94% of net income comes from pubs let on substantive agreements and like-for-like income in these pubs is showing steady improvement at 1.5% growth year- on- year, while the like-for-like decline in the total estate was an improvement on the 5% decline in the same period last year.

The group added that it had invested £39million in the period at more than 1,100 pubs.