Frederic Robinson out of managed sites

Frederic Robinson is the latest regional brewer to pull out of managed houses.

Following a similar move by Everards and Charles Wells, in response to rising costs, the Stockport-based company will transfer its eight remainining managed pubs to traditional tenancy agreements.

Its managed estate operations team will be switched to giving help to Robinson's 400 tenants in North West England and North Wales with retail manager David Nixon taking on the newly created role of tenant support manager.

Tied trade director William Robinson hopes the eight house managers affected will continue to run their pubs as tenants. Negotiations are underway on agreements and the optimum timing of the transfers.

"You really need at least 40 or 50 pubs to justify the operations systems you need to run a managed estate," said Robinson. "Having eight managed pubs out of 400 just doesn't make sense any more. It's very costly and getting costlier.

"It's also an opportunity for us to use the expertise of our retail team in supporting our tenants."