Everyone's a winner

The 2006 Business Awards:

The PMA Team dishes out some alternative pub sector gongs

Deal of the Year

Although announced at the end of 2005, Punch did not complete its £2.679bn acquisition of 1,830 Spirit pubs until the start of 2006. At first, analysts took a fairly cautious view on this move into uncharted managed territory. But 11 months on, it looks as if that youngster Giles Thorley might know what he's doing. There's a trim managed division of 750 or so sites nicely positioned in the growth parts of the market. The move to convert 750 Spirit pubs to lease is bang on schedule, with legals exchanged on 300 or so sites already (and they have picked up healthy premiums in the process). Last but not least, Punch has banked just over £700m by adroitly disposing of about 390 Spirit sites.

Comeback kid

JD Wetherspoon wasn't exactly down and out a year ago. But there's nothing like a really middling year to make a good year look spectacular. Occasionally, late at night at industry events, you still hear folk insisting that Wetherspoon's best retailer, its founder Tim Martin, is in semi-retirement. October's news that like-for-likes were positive to the tune of 9.2% provided ample evidence that chief executive John Hutson has a reasonable feel for what his customers want. And in 2007, it looks as if those kindly folk at Wetherspoon are set to lay on the juiciest legal spat of 2007 in their Van De Berg action - the most emotion-laden break-up since Kramer v Kramer.

Everyone's a winner award

Robert Tchenguiz may have had his 550p-a-share bid for Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) rejected with the shortest of shrifts in May. But it's funny how things can turn out for the best. Tchenguiz steamed in and picked up 12% of the company for less than 500p a share at a total cost of around £300m. Six months on, his holding is worth a mighty 40% more than he forked out for it, chalking up an extremely handy £120m paper profit. His fellow M&B shareholders were well-served by the rejection of Tchenguiz's offer because - as it turns out - the cheeky monkey would have been getting himself an absolute bargain, price-wise.

Most useless piece of legislation award

Step forward, the Alcohol Disorder Zone. In February 2005, tabloid hysteria about the Licensing Act was approaching fever-pitch. Anyone who dared to handle a copy of the Daily Mail risked getting wet hands as litres of mouth-foam spluttered from its overwrought columns. A hastily-convened Government press conference unveiled the ADZ, an idea so ill-conceived that it gives the Dangerous Dogs Act a run for its money in the written-on-the-back-of-an-envelope stakes. A consultation revealed that everybody - local authorities, police and pub operators - agreed that the idea was a stinker. Nevertheless, it hit the statute book last month. A regulatory impact assessment claimed that it was likely that an average of six ADZs would be created every year. Many people would be amazed if a single local authority invokes reputational suicide for its town by creating one.

Scarlet Pimpernel award

This award recognises elusiveness - an apparent unwillingness to chat, quite unlike the old days when the winner tended to be fairly garrulous. London & Edinburgh Swallow Group boss Alan Bowes becomes the hands-down winner this year. Since his company went into administration in mid-September, the erstwhile publicity junkie has taken a vow of silence. Rumour has it that his enforced leisure time has provided the chance for a complete image makeover, with his lustrous locks falling prey to the barber's scissors. Which, no doubt, makes life harder for those who would like to have a quiet word.

Train crash waiting to happen award

Provence's Paul Kiely romps home for this one. Provence promised to pay auction-room property investors astronomic rents on run-down pubs for 35 years. Lo and behold, it managed to pay the rents for a few short years. As with Provence's corporate soul-mate London & Edinburgh Swallow Group, there were handsome profits while the auction going was good. But reality came calling and day-to-day losses mounted. Kiely tended to communicate with journalists in a home-spun mixture of cracker-barrel philosophy and threadbare platitudes, such as: "My view is that it's better to try to succeed and fail than to try to do nothing and succeed". Eh? Surely it's better to do nothing and avoid causing massive financial losses for scores of people. Still, Kiely's foray into the pub industry seems to have left him with a few quid. "This evening I will raise a glass of vintage Krug to the life of Provence and say goodbye once and for all to the pub industry," he blithely signed off in his last email to the MA.

Rumour of the year award

By definition, rumours only survive if events fail to kill them dead. By definition, they tend to be short-lived because, unlike conspiracy theories, they're easy to flatten. By definition, rumours loom large and retreat like shadows. By definition, they are fuelled by guesswork and the accretion of unreliable evidence. Rumours are, fortunately, like hangovers, which disappear into the ether and are soon forgotten. This month, rumours of a Wolverhampton & Dudley takeover by Punch or Greene King are thriving. Last month, takeover talk was at a measurably more embryonic stage. One analyst who had begun to chunter openly about the prospect of a Wolves take-over politely asked me not to print his comments for fear of queering his pitch. Now that rumour has reached a far more broad-

castable state. As always, time will tell. But for now, Wolves shareholders must be enjoying the takeover talk, a powerful share-price stimulus at a time of year when it's nice to feel better off. It's hard, of course, to know which individual should be handed this award. So it will be held in the MA offices for the coming year, to be claimed by anyone who presents proof they've been spreading the rumour.

Bigger balls than most award

To the brave go the spoils. Or something like that. Private-equity firm GI Partners, Greene King and Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) share this award. GI Partners splashed out almost £2m per pub to buy 290 former Spirit pubs that had been discounted like mad under previous ownership. Many scratched their heads. Here was a pub estate that needed serious investment about to be run by a company, Orchid, that had no head office. GI Partners set aside £57m for Orchid to invest in under-loved pubs and now the company has a St Albans head office and a bold, exciting strategy. They're calling it the billion-dollar start-up. Those crazy Americans. Greene King shares this award for investing in Scotland by buying Belhaven at a time when uncertainty, and therefore risk, abounded. Although the deal didn't take place in 2006, this was the year that Greene King faced the consequences of a potentially disastrous on-trade smoke-ban outcome. The smoke result has, in fact, turned out to be reasonably benign and the Belhaven deal looks like another sure-footed Greene King acquisition. M&B bought 239 Whitbread pubs for £497m this summer. Rumour suggested there wasn't a great deal of competition for the deal in the end. And that's because M&B is the only player equipped with the brands portfolio and confidence to revamp these roadside supertankers. One M&B executive has likened the conversion process to "shelling peas". As I say, you have to admire their balls.