Let's hope it's not just rhetoric
It's deeply encouraging to see how much is changing in front of our very eyes at the moment.
Punch is re-casting its approach to machine income, and a whole lot more besides. Enterprise is saying it agrees with much of the Bec report, including greater transparency in rent setting. And Admiral, well, it's admitting that owning small, wet-led boozers doesn't make sense when you can't flog them off for alternative use.
Things that no pubco would dream of publicly acknowledging less than a year ago are now said frankly and openly —
and how much healthier that makes the dialogue between all parties on the trade's future direction.
Credit for this glasnost is due primarily to Punch. The embattled pubco's chief executive Giles Thorley pulled off a masterstroke when he recruited Roger Whiteside to run the tenanted pubs.
A former Thresher's chief exec and head of food at Marks & Spencer, the new man has been encouraged by Thorley to bring modern and progressive retail thinking to bear on the trade's besetting ills. And already, how it shows.
The Morning Advertiser has been championing Whiteside since our initial introduction six months ago. But it is still jaw-dropping time when hearing him assess what his company got wrong, and list all the things that must change.
For the first time in modern pub history, someone who has proved themselves as a brilliant operator in the food world, the most competitive business going, is applying his knowledge and skills to
our world.
Sometimes, listening to his impressions of the way the pub world operates, it's rather reminiscent of a modern-day explorer parting the jungle foliage and coming across a primitive tribe performing bizarre rituals. Too often, we really are that far behind the way the big boys do things in the world of modern retailing.
Clearly, it's all still very early days. And many of the concessions Punch is willing to make will only apply to new licensees. The leaders at Fair Pint will need no reminding of Napoleon's dictum that there is no victory until the final victory.
Bec chairman Peter Luff also knows that it's deeds not words that count. And for him to back the ALMR's request and ask Government to give the trade more time to sort out its problems, he would have to be totally convinced of pubco sincerity.
Clearly, this is a gift horse that does need to be looked in the mouth. But if examination finds evidence of genuine pubco desire to find a better way to work with licensees, this is an epoch-making time for us all. And certainly, if pubco finances improve — either through writedowns or rights issues — there will be fresh opportunity to "rebase" pubco finances and share fairly with their licensees.
