Charity: MA100 seminar gets ready for lift-off

Next month, on 11 March at Claridge's, in London, the Morning Advertiser holds its first seminar for member companies of the MA100, the 100 biggest multiple independent pub retailers.

Four months of intensive research last year produced the first exhaustive picture of those who form this increasingly important group of emerging companies. Research showed that its membership has a combined turnover of about £800m, with members running anywhere between three and 50 pubs.

Think Geronimo Inns, Peach Pub Company, Glendola Leisure and Mercury Inns. The best-known graduate is JD Wetherspoon , which began with a single site in Muswell Hill. Member companies are among the most innovative in the sector, with expansion tending to be dependent on organic growth by dint of trading success.

They often make a slow start, because their expansion is driven by cashflow produced from out-performance at their first sites.

The superior retailing skills of the MA100 membership mean that they are highly-prized lessees of the larger tenanted pubcos.

The smaller - and, indeed, many of the larger - members have a very mixed property/occupation profile. They often begin with high-quality tenanted sites and move along the food chain to pick up freeholds and commercial leases.

The market opportunity for these sorts of companies has increased as tenanted pubcos have steadily improved the quality of their sites - one well-known tenanted pubco now has 500 pubs producing an average of £100,000 per annum for tenants.

Punch moved 653 high-quality managed pubs into its tenanted division last year, each looking for a high-quality tenant. The importance of this group of companies - and the innovative nature of the MA100 campaign - has attracted some of the biggest names in the industry to support it. Punch Taverns, Scottish & Newcastle, boutique finance house PC Hansen, on-line ordering services Barbox, beer-quality monitoring firm Brulines and cask-ale champion Wells & Young's are all sponsoring MA100.

A large part of the MA100 initiative involves holding two high-quality, free seminars each year for the membership. The content has been designed to address issues closest to member companies' hearts.

Our line up of speakers for the first seminar is second to none: Geof Collyer, lead leisure analyst at Deutsche Bank, will be giving an overview of the pub market; Les Murphy, Scottish & Newcastle's trading director, will be briefing on the on-trade beer market and the importance of category vision; Peter Hansen, of PC Hansen, will be talking about options for raising money to expand; and three member companies' bosses will provide their fellow companies with insights on their market vision. The speakers are Alistair Arkley, of New Century Enterprises, Scott Murray, of Bar Sport, and Chris Bulaitis, of Ever So Sensible. Clive Consterdine, of Brulines, will talk about how technology can help multiple operators sell more beer. Jon Collins, chief executive of CGA Strategy, will be examining how multiple operators are coping with the smoking ban. Finally, Ted Kennedy, who sold Mill House Inns to Punch Taverns, and Chris Hutt, who sold Wizard Inns to Marston's, will be talking about how they set about selling their companies to much larger operators.

The seminar will also unveil the details of the six awards categories the Morning Advertiser is launching for member companies and how they can go about entering these prestigious awards.

All in all, it should be a really informative day - and one that offers a great opportunity for the member companies to meet their peers and our sponsors, all of whom are experts in their respective fields.

See you there!