Eldridge Pope sale nets Cannon £40m

Serial pub entrepreneur Michael Cannon has netted as much as £40m after selling Eldridge Pope to Marston's for £155.1m.

Cannon, who paid £84m for the same venues just over two years ago, has already made an estimated £250m by buying and selling pub companies such as Morrells of Oxford, Magic Pub Company and Devenish.

He is making 2.8 times his orginal investment - along with a group of original Eldridge Pope investors who retained their stake in the company when Cannon took it private in 2004.

Marston's is planning to retain 95 managed pubs and 40 tenanted sites after selling 18 unwanted venues for around £10m. The company is paying some 8.6 times underlying earnings at the 135 pubs it is keeping.

Marston's chief executive Ralph Findlay said the deal would make an "excellent fit", not least because it provided pubs in a part of the country where it currently had "very little".

As many as four of Eldridge Pope's Que Pasa bar sites were to be converted to Marston's Pitcher & Piano brand.

There are up to a dozen venues within Marston's existing estate that would lend themselves to re-badging as Que Pasas.

In addition, Marston's estimates as many as 30 Eldridge Pope managed houses would suit a conversion to one of the company's food-led concepts such as Taverners Carvery.

Meanwhile, Marston's has also completed the acquisition of 33 tenanted pubs from Sovereign Inns.

The pubs, which turn in an average per pub Ebidta figure of £60,000 per annu m, are located principally in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire.

Findlay indicated that pubs worth around £50m - likely to be 150 sites - would be sold this year.