Another group gets the pub bug. Apparently.
Alternative Asset Investment Management - a bit of a mouthful, that one - is apparently in exclusive talks to buy the near-300 boozers Marston's deems as surplus to requirements for £80m.
The move, according to the Sunday Times, is the first step in creating a 1,500-strong pub empire.
I've asked the question before and I mull over the issue again: why would a newcomer choose to buy into the sector at this particular moment?
Presumably the assets, in the run-up to the English smoke ban, are going to be sold at a bit of a discount. Even so, there's either a lot of confidence that these sites can be traded profitably in the wake of the new clean air regime. Or there's an expectation that business will fall off a cliff and the pubs can be churned for alternative use.
Marston's was unavailable for comment on this one, but the emergence of yet another new player in the market looks a decent bet.
Purple haze
Nothing whatsoever to do with the on-trade, but I dragged my colleagues Caroline Nodder and John Porter along to Wembley Arena on Saturday night to see Deep Purple and bloomin' marvellous they were too. The band, that is.
Guitar legend and former Purple axe-meister Ritchie Blackmore strums a lute these days, his place in the band filled by the technically astute but rather dull-to-watch Steve Morse.
Still, this is nit-picking. They played all the songs one wanted them to - Smoke On The Water, Black Night, Hush, etc - and I left the venue very happy and considerably more hard of hearing than is usually the case.
