Admiral Taverns to dispose of up to 130 pubs

Gary Landesberg, who together with his father Alan and Elliot and David Rosenberg oversees Admiral Taverns, has revealed the group is likely to sell "between 10 and 15 per cent" - up to 130 - of the Punch pubs it acquired last week.

Around five per cent of the bought sites are currently shut and a proportion of these will be the subject of "capex, capex, capex" to get them back into the business of selling beer and food.

An unspecified number of remaining sites will be sold off for alternate use, he added.

Landesberg described the portfolio, bought by Admiral for £326m, as "a mixed bag". "There's everything in there from 20-year leases to tenancies-at-will in there," he said.

He stressed that "ninety per cent of this estate has substantial outside space", but argued that it was a "myth that it's a smoking ban deal".

Instead the pubs offer the sort of return that means they "fit our model to a T".

Analysts seem to agree, and point to the group's private status as a key factor in how it can generate upside.

"For Admiral this transaction works because without pressure to drive up earnings per share it can accommodate smaller pubs at the neglected end of the market," says Panmure Gordon's Douglas Jack.

"It is acquiring [these sites] for a nine per cent yield prior to big improvements in purchasing terms and investing in pubs, a process which has generated average returns of 20 per cent to date."