Administration for Laurel just days away
Laurel Pub Company is poised to enter a controlled administration after opting to close another 60 high-street pubs.
The move means the company has called time on 89 loss-making sites, which continue to have an estimated weekly rent roll of around £150,000.
Chief executive Paul Symonds said that negotiations with its banks were in their "final stages" and the plan was to create a new pub and restaurant business. Insolvency
specialist Kroll is expected to be appointed at the end of March.
Laurel's owner, Robert Tchenguiz, would then seek to buy the viable parts of Laurel out of insolvency. The move to shut 60 sites follows the closure of 24 pubs in February. It means the company will have only five pubs still trading from the group of 95 it put on the market. The pubs are expected to trade until next Tuesday.
A spokesman said: "This is a logical, but regrettable decision." A large number of closed sites are Yates bars, which made up 42 of the 95 pubs on the market. It also includes a number of Litten Trees and Hog's Heads.
Symonds e-mailed staff to say that the company had been, "unable to find any suitable purchasers" for the sites. The closure of another large group of Laurel sites comes as the company adds 10p to the average price of drinks.
Robert Tchenguiz has spent a total of £560m plus costs buying the constituent parts of Laurel. It is unclear how much Tchenguiz will lose personally when Laurel is placed into administration. In December, the MA revealed that Laurel made a pre-tax loss of £12.26m in the year to 25 February 2007 on a turnover of £186.8m.
