Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises creates new pubco

Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises (S&NPE) has created the Discovery Pub Company (DPC) to encompass the estate of 250 ex-Marston's sites bought earlier this year by Active Asset Investment Management (AAIM).

Headed by S&NPE sales director Andy Braithwaite, DPC has been created in order to "expand into a new area of the pub market - smaller local community pubs with significant potential for growth", the group said in a statement.

The group's pubs are spread across England and Wales with the highest concentration in the Midlands, while its 17-strong staff have been recruited "for their experience in the community market and their ability to help tenants take previously underdeveloped pubs and develop them into better performing businesses".

Braithwaite said Discovery's structure was designed to bring maximum success to the new company and its tenants, and realise the potential of existing pubs.

"It gives us and our tenants all the benefits of a tight focus on one area of the market normally only found in smaller pub companies combined with the ability to draw on the strength of a much bigger player," explained Braithwaite.

Discovery's lease agreement meanwhile "includes a strong incentive scheme rewarding with generous barrelage discounts for business growth", he added.

"Its agreement terms range from non major repairing one and five year options to longer fully repairing and insuring agreements of up to 25 years in multiples of five.

"We have spent the last six months setting up the company so that everything is in place to support our tenants. An investment programme has already been drawn up with 20 projects planned for the year ahead and the company is ready for rapid acquisition as soon as the right businesses come to market," Braithwaite said.

"We want to focus on the needs of our tenants and we hope that the creation of DPC has given them confidence," he added.

Braithwaite said the company had contacted "every single lessee", while his team was getting to know the pubs in greater detail in order to understand their needs and help take their businesses forward. Rents, he said, would be "realistic for the market".

DPC would be on the look-out for more pubs, Braithwaite added. "We are a national pub company and we will be on the look-out for similar pubs across the country that fit our profile."