Whitbread fast-tracks plans to sell 250 Beefeater and Brewers Fayre pubs and restaurants – is yours on the market?
- Whitbread is auctioning 250 of its Beefeater and Brewers Fayre pub restaurants
- It is reportedly looking to sell them to a pub operator to speed up the process
One of Britain’s largest pub chains wants to accelerate plans to sell hundreds of pubs and restaurants, it has been reported.
Whitbread, which operates the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, is auctioning 250 of its locations in a process estimated to cost £600 million.
Mitchells & Butlers, the owners of the Harvester and Toby Carvery brands, is being tipped to be the front runner to acquire the companies, That reports The Times.
But other contenders are Greene King, Heineken and Marton’s and Punch.
Whitbread is said to be seeking to limit the auction of its sites to incumbent pub operators, to avoid a lengthy, lengthy takedown, and has “put the water to the test” with several chains, according to a city source.
Whitbread, which operates the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, is auctioning 250 of its locations in a process estimated to cost £600 million
Mitchells & Butlers, the owners of the Harvester and Toby Carvery brands, is being tipped to be the front runner to acquire the companies
Based in Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire, Whitbread plans to offload 250 of its 440 pub-restaurants, most of which are located next to a Premier Inn.
Most of these disposal locations are classified as marginal or onerous. Annual results published in April include impairment losses on 13 of the worst-performing restaurants.
Whitbread has made deals with Mitchells & Butlers twice in the past, making it an obvious front-runner in the upcoming sale.
In 2008, Whitbread traded 44 pub restaurants for 21 M&B hotels – both worth around £78 million – in a straightforward, no-cash asset swap.
The M&B estate has been praised for its high quality following a refurbishment program overseen by CEO Phil Urban, 60.
The company has a sizable portfolio of 650 locations, including such staples as Miller*Carter and Umber Inns.
Based in Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire, Whitbread plans to offload 250 of its 440 pub-restaurants, most of which are located next to a Premier Inn
Commentators said Urban could easily choose to convert Whitbread’s aging Beefeaters restaurants into high-end Miller & Carter venues, and Brewers Fayre pubs into Harvesters.
Britain’s largest pub group, Stonegate, is itself undergoing a sales process preventing it from acquiring the Whitbread collection.
Ranked under the FTSE 100, Whitbread was founded in 1742 by apprentice brewer Samuel Whitbread and grew over the next two centuries to become the third largest beer company in the country.
In 1999, it abruptly sold all of its beer interests to US-based Interbrew, now known as InBev, and instead expanded its hotel business into the UK, Germany and the Middle East to approximately 850 locations.
The group’s café-restaurant business has struggled in recent years, with a string of CEOs unable to change it.
One issue with the takedown is the use of many Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants in providing breakfast to Premier Inn customers, although analysts say a settlement could be reached with the buyer.