ALMR set to up its game

Industry body will clarify its role as members seek more focused organisation to represent their views.

The Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR) is to sharpen up its act in the coming year by focussing on its core membership, improving communications and bolstering the services it provides.

Speaking at the trade body's annual general meeting las week, chief executive Nick Bish said that the group had commissioned consultants Elliott Gardener to canvass the views and concerns of its members - which include hundreds of small, medium-sized and large multiple operators.

The findings had been tabulated, he explained, and the association was now eager to respond.

"The research found that members want a clarification of our role," said Mr Bish. "They want a more assertive ALMR, they want us to be more visible and they want to ensure that we deliver value.

"We have taken these comments on board and we will be acting on them in the coming months. The ALMR will become a stronger member-oriented organisation in 2006," he added.

A re-launched ALMR website and a new newsletter would complement the help desk service already offered, he said, while other facilities, such as the organisation's research trips and breakfast meetings, would continue to offer members a first class service.

With the industry's lobbying efforts coming in for criticism in recent weeks, James Purnell, the minister who oversees the licensed trade at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, was asked what he thought of the industry's communication efforts.

Mr Purnell, who was speaking at the conference that followed the AGM, said he dealt with 20 sectors as part of his remit and that the pub and brewing industry was among the top three in terms of communicating their arguments and concerns to government.

The health of the UK pub trade was given an upbeat assessment by Enterprise Inns chief executive Ted Tuppen, who applauded the work done by many of the country's multiple operators and reiterated his argument that "pubs are fine, whether they be managed or tenanted. Good pubs do well, bad pubs close".

Pubs today, said Mr Tuppen were "immeasurably better than they were 10 or 15 years ago and much of this situation is down to the fact that we've got bloody good operators running them".

However, he sounded a note of caution, warning those prepared to pay a high premium for a pub not to come looking for a rent reduction when the cash got tight.

"The leased market is mature and more of our pubs change hands via assignment than they do by us letting them. But there is a danger in people over-paying for lease premiums; these are not in our rent calculations.

"We calculate rents based on what pubs can earn and the last thing we want is for rents to be wrong. But it's your problem if you overpay [for a premium]."

Mr Tuppen also defended his company's decision to install the Brulines beer monitoring system across the Enterprise estate. Those licensees who did not buy out of the tie "demanded fairness", he said.

Pub financing guru Peter Hansen spoke of the pressures that publicly-listed pub companies faced, compared with the new breed of privately-funded operators, particularly the property players.

"Public equity markets are unsuited to pub companies," he said. "Markets will reward steady growth and punish shortfalls," he continued.

"The entrepreneurial culture that is so important to the pub trade is just not appropriate to the stock market, which is expectation-led and where there is often a mismatch between what the management wants to do and what the shareholders expect to see at the end of the day." Mr Hansen said he expected "to see most [pub companies] go private at some point in the future", and also forecast that by 2010 there would be a clearer split between those owning pubs and those operating them on a day-to-day basis.

He added: "I like cask ale but the integrated model is not a good one and eventually for many family brewers there will be a temptation to sell."

Continued consolidation was inevitable, he said and predicted there would be "three, perhaps four very large property companies owning the bulk of the country's pubs.

"But when it comes to those operating them, there will be huge opportunities for small, multiple operators".