Ex-Spirit freeholds to go for auction
British Land will attempt to sell the freeholds of a further 10 Spirit pubs at a public auction on 11 February.
The firm hopes to raise between £15m and £16m from the auction, to be held at London's Le Meridien Piccadilly hotel by Allsop Commercial.
At a December auction, British Land sold three out of four Spirit freeholds — raising £4.65m — while one pub was sold after for an undisclosed amount off a guide price of £979,000 to £990,000.
David Sandeman, managing director of Essential Information Group (EIG), a leading auction information service, said: "This shows how fast and efficient auctions can be for realistically priced pubs.
"With the number of pubs closing at the moment, pub estates will be looking to liquidate stock — we'll see a lot more pubs going to auction."
The 10 pubs that will go under the hammer in February are distributed across the UK. Guide prices range from £825,000 to £2.6m (see box).
British Land acquired 65 freehold public houses from Spirit on a sale and leaseback when Spirit was under private equity ownership in 2003. The purchase price was £174m, reflecting an initial yield of approximately 6.1%.
Spirit occupies the properties on 30-year leases until 2034 without a break and with annual rental uplifts reverting to open-market rents from year 15.
