Provence pub sold again

A pub that discredited pub company Provence was trying to sell to private investors for £635,000 has been sold at a Colliers CRE auction for £269,000.

It's the second time the pub has been sold at auction in a few months.

The Nag's Head at Eastrea, Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, which is now empty, was sold at a Colliers CRE auction a few months ago for £245,000 - but the sale fell through.

The pub was sold on behalf of administrator Kroll, which is still trying to sell a handful of the freeholds that Provence owned when the company went into administration last November.

Provence was unable to sell the Nag's Head to a private investor and eventually placed it in an auction in July 2005 with a price tag of £565,000. The highest bid was £545,000.

Former Provence tenant Martin Cooke was paying a rent of £1,075 a week on the pub - £57,000 per annum. The Colliers auction also saw the sale of another Provence pub, the Hulstone in Whittlehorn Way, Newcastle, Staffordshire for £181,000. A third Provence pub, the Fellmonmger in North Parkway, Leeds was sold prior to the auction for an undisclosed amount.

There were still 22 freehold pubs on the Provence balance sheet when Kroll was called in last November.

Colliers CRE sold most of them in various small packages. The largest successful bid is for a package of five pubs, tabled by a new limited company.

At the time Colliers CRE's Sam Frankland said the pubs had mostly sold for their guide prices "or thereabouts".