... and Wetherspoons boss is buying up pubs
PUBS have been decimated by the pandemic, with new figures showing that 2,698 called time for good last year as lockdowns and trading restrictions took their toll.
But Wetherspoons founder Tim Martin, who expanded his nofrills chain after the 2008 financial crisis, told The Mail on Sunday that lower rents due to the pandemic had given him an ‘incentive to invest’.
He is l ooking at buying a number of sites in Central London, as well as the freeholds on further sites where Wetherspoons is the tenant. The moves will be funded by a share of an equity raising of up to £93.7 million that was announced last week.
Martin said: ‘One of the major costs relates to rent. It tends to spiral uncontrollably when the good times are rolling, eventually causing collapse. When rents become sensible then entrepreneurs have more of an incentive to invest.’
He added that before the crisis, sky-high rents had caused ‘havoc’. In 2018, one landlord doubled rent for a Wetherspoons pub in a northern shopping centre from around £200,000 to £400,000. Martin said: ‘ Those sorts of rent reviews, based on “comparables” where one new tenant in a shopping centre has paid a silly price, have caused havoc.’
He will decide how many sites his group will buy once the Government has set out a timetable for reopening pubs.