The caring company

New Wood Inns has taken an unloved package of pubs and shown that a little TLC can make all the difference. Michelle Perrett reports.We all feel a...

New Wood Inns has taken an unloved package of pubs and shown that a little TLC can make all the difference. Michelle Perrett reports.

We all feel a little neglected sometimes and pubs are no exception. However, Carl Stacey is making a stand for the "new-man" approach to the trade by taking on pubs that have been through some bad relationships, turning up with chocolates and flowers, and remembering to call the next day.

Carl worked as an operations manager for TGI Friday's for five years before leaving to join another themed restaurant company. However, before long he moved on to a very different project - running a tenanted pub company in Birmingham.

New Wood Inns, part of New Wood Securities and a sister company to Edgbaston-based Stoford Developments, made a £2m purchase of eight former Morrells pubs from Greene King last year.

"I wanted to get out of day-to-day management," says Carl, now managing director of New Wood Inns. "I thought the tenanted side of the pub industry was a good opportunity with good returns on investment. The pubs were at the bottom and without fail they have all increased their turnover. They just looked like pubs that nobody loved or cared about."

The company currently has a turnover of £1.5m and has been trading for just over a year. It has a strong pedigree - Stoford Developments is a commercial property development company, which has projects valued in excess of £135m. It has also been responsible for much of the transformation of Birmingham city centre.

The pub company arm has four other investors, which means New Wood has the financial backing to expand quite rapidly. Carl expects the company to move into profit in the next couple of years. Expansion is on the agenda and Carl is looking for pub packages of between £2m to £10m at one-and-a-half to two times turnover that have some potential for development.

"I'd like to see us at 30 to 50 pubs in the next couple of years and we have got some serious investors behind us," he says.

The company is not scared to put its clout behind some bigger deals. It made its way through to the second round in the bid for the 60 sites up for grabs from British Waterways.

The public corporation is looking for a private sector partner to help it develop £400m-worth of properties in prime sites along canals and rivers across England, Wales and Scotland. Although New Wood has not made the shortlist, which includes Punch, Brains and Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises, it is no mean feat for a company that is just over a year old.

"We'll have a go at anything because we have the financial understanding and a background in property development," says Carl.

Relations between tenants and pubcos have been under the spotlight recently but New Wood Inns says it only ties its eight sites so it can get a better deal.

"At least as a group we can negotiate a better deal," Carl continues. "We want to enable all the tenants to have the number one offer at the bar. We are flexible in terms of supply. If a tenant wants an ale on the bar we will do our best to find it. We work quite hard on our relations with our tenants. We ensure each site is in a good state of repair before the tenant comes in. It's important to give those guys a good start. And the fact that there is only a few people at head office means that decisions are instant."

New Wood Inns is looking for freehold pubs in smaller rural areas and smaller towns within an hour and half of Birmingham. Areas include Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Bucks, Worcestershire and the West Midlands.

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