Spirit Pub Co to sell 80 tenanted pubs

Spirit Pub Co is due to put 80 tenanted public houses on the market amid falling revenues.

The 80 loss making pubs are all managed by landlords, but owned by the company, which had recently reported a 6.4 per cent fall in like-for-like sales during the 12 weeks to 3 March. Spirit also intends to convert another 93 tenanted pubs to managed status.

Mike Tye Spirit’s chief executive explained the move to the Financial Times, “We’re stabilising the business for the next six to 12 months – we want to get [the underperforming pubs] out fast and start growing the income of the successful pubs.”

The strategy is to “prune once, prune hard” Mr Tye said. The 80 pubs chosen for disposal all rely on beer drinkers and have not been able to increase its food sales or other income streams.

The group had taken on about 550 tenanted pubs from last summer’s demerger of Punch Taverns.

Spirit’s portfolio of 800 managed pubs recorded a 4.6 per cent increase in overall like-for-like sales from the same period last year, with a 6.2 per cent like-for-like rise in food sales. Its pubs include the Flaming Grill and Chef & Brewer chains.

Pubs have seen a rise in food-led sales in the economic downturn from customers still looking eat out, but to spend less in establishments.

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