First franchisee' for Mentor

Pub company Mentor Inns has appointed its first "franchisee" with responsibility for finding pubs and licensees.

Paul Mahon, a Fellow of the BII (British Institute of Innkeeping), will run Mentor South East and be in charge of finding licensees and pubs in the area.

The company was formed a year ago to resurrect village and rural community pubs and has now launched a new managed house division to concentrate on town and city-centre sites.

Managing director Shaun Wooton is recruiting top entrepreneurs on a "franchise" basis to run the day-to-day operations around the country. Their reward will be a share of the equity.

Mahon is the first entrepreneur and has just been presented with his personal licence by Horsham District Council. It is appropriately numbered 001 as it is the first personal licence to be issued by the council.

The new kind of "franchise" will see entrepreneurs allocated a postcode area and offered up to £1.5m to search out potential sites and recruit the right licensees.

The target is to acquire 30 new freehold pubs this year, which will be operated through subsidiary companies such as Mentor Sussex Inns or Mentor Devon Inns.

Mahon is a highly-experienced licensee of 27 years and has spent the past five years successfully reopening five pubs for major companies. He will now concentrate on identifying new sites throughout the south-east for Mentor Inns.

The company has already identified potential sites in Sussex, Norfolk, Manchesterand Birmingham, which will include many high-street locations.