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Orchid Group, the managed operator set up last year by private equity company GI Partners, has sold 16 sites, including a number of Bar Room Bar venues, to a company called Bar Room Bar, for about £20m.

Bar Room Bar is a newly formed company owned by Tony and Ross Sanders - Tony Sanders sold Mercury Leisure to Pubmaster in 1998 for £38m.

It has a £4m war chest for further acquisitions and plans to add six new sites this year, with a target of a 40-strong estate by 2012.

Former Spirit executive and current chief operating officer Ross Sanders said: "It is very rare that an opportunity to purchase so many prime locations becomes available.

"I was fortunate to have built a strong relationship with the Orchid Group in my previous role. It understood I was the right person to nurture the product and develop the once-successful Bar Room Bar brand."

Orchid, which was formed last year, is understood to have placed the sites on the market about six months ago as part of a larger package of 22 venues, which included 13 Bar Room Bars.

The 16 sites are a mixture of units, geographically spread across the UK, and include: the Hole in The Wall in Stratford, Warwickshire, Scaramouche in Perth and Bar Room Bar in Leeds.

The venues are part of the package of 290 former Spirit pubs that Orchid, led by Rufus Hall, acquired from Punch for £571m last June. The agent for the sale was Fleurets. Allied Irish Bank is the main funder.

Corporate banking manager Jane Ogden said: "It has been a long and delicate deal and it is very satisfying that it has reached such a positive

conclusion."