Belhaven buoyant despite smoking ban

Belhaven, Scotland's largest regional brewer, says the country's 2006 smoking ban will have little effect on its own business but will hit others hard.

Following the announcement of strong interim results, chief executive Stuart Ross said: "The forthcoming smoking ban is obviously causing uncertainty in the industry but Belhaven is well placed to cope with the ban," he claimed.

"We have surveyed our estate and 80 per cent of units can provide some form of external shelter and heating. We will be helping our free-trade customers and tenanted licensees to make the changes needed." This would require a £0.5m investment which would "not be too demanding" for the brewer.

However, Mr Ross predicted that up to 300 pubs would go out of business in Scotland. "Smoking is culturally very prevalent in deprived areas. We do not have pubs in these areas but for those who do many will not be able to survive and will go to the wall," hew predicted.

Belhaven's results for the six months to September 26 showed turnover up 20.4 per cent from £47m to £57m and pre-tax profits up 27 per cent from £7.6m to £9.7m. This followed an acquisitional year which saw Belhaven add 50 pubs to its estate taking the total of its managed and tenanted estates past 300. The period also saw Belhaven bitter grow to a 100m pint brand.

Mr Ross confirmed that Belhaven has eight further purchases in the pipeline and, backed by strong financial results, intends to continue down the expansion trail. "There are still some good quality pubs which we can acquire and are looking to add to both our tenanted and managed estates," said Mr Ross.