Admiral Taverns denies flood of returned pub keys

Admiral Taverns has denied claims its licensees are handing back keys to their pubs in droves as trading conditions worsen.

Lynne D'Arcy, chief operating officer of the 2,300-strong privately owned pub group, said it was not the case that the company was facing a wave of failing licensees.

D'Arcy said if people were going to return keys and give up their pubs "they would have done it by now", given the nature of the economy.

The Admiral boss also made light of concerns in certain quarters about the group's finances. "We don't need to borrow," D'Arcy said. "We're a private company, we don't need to worry about a share price or a dividend and we're not securitised. We don't have that pressure."

She admitted consumers were becoming "very cash conscious", but said trading across the group's estate was "in line with expectations".

She admitted Admiral expected the first few months of 2009 to be tough, but added that it was committed to helping its pubs trade through. D'Arcy said Admiral "wanted to help tenants to help themselves first. Sometimes pubs close at odd times and we help them trade as effectively as possible".

There was "no point" in the group letting its pubs go under, she added. Admiral looked at rent concessions and beer discounts, with a scheme called '£s for Barrels', which attracted discounts of up to £150 per barrel.

Annualised rent concessions in the months of August and September came in at £172,000, D'Arcy said.

Meanwhile, capital expenditure would be maintained at existing levels - around £15m for the year.

According to its website Admiral has around 210 pubs for sale and a further 220 available to lease.

Recently Admiral controversially slashed the price of the pubs it has up for sale by up to 50 per cent in an attempt to clear its estate of unprofitable sites. D'Arcy was unrepentant. "We price them to sell them," she said. "That's the state of the market and they are selling."