City & Business Diary
Knowles gets up close & personal
Ebullient Beds and Bars boss Keith Knowles praised his former landlord Punch Taverns last week - and took a tilt at Enterprise Inns, which rents his company three venues. Knowles has found Enterprises lessthan - responsive to some of the issues that have arisen over the years. And there's another thing. Many years ago, Knowles gave personal guarantees when it came to renting a venue from Whitbread having been assured by the company that it never enforces them.
The pub world, if you haven't noticed, has gone through a few changes. The site in question was in the part of Whitbread that was sold to Laurel Pub Company and then sold to, er, Enterprise. Knowles makes the entirely-fair point that there's something odd about inheriting a
personal guarantee.
JDW's a real turn-off star
JD Wetherspoon impressed City analysts by promising margins will stay intact. One reason is a fastidious approach to turning lights off at pubs, which means energy
consumption is down by 15%. Chief executive John Hutson tells City Diary: "We've encouraged staff to turn lights off back-ofhouse, and every piece of equipment in the kitchen now has a sticker on it saying what time in the morning it should be turned on rather than starting everything first thing.
Just like Down Under in Darwen
Life might be tough at Admiral Taverns, but a bit of old-fashioned Australian hospitality
seems to have done the trick at a pub in the Lancashire town of, er, Darwen.
Former Perth resident Gary Horner and his wife, Kayleigh, are now behind the bar at the Bowling Green. The couple have given the pub a lickof paint, reinstalled Sky Sports and are championing new beer lines and cask ales from Darwen-based brewery Hopstar. Gary said: "The locals are enjoying the Aussie hospitality and my accent is a talking point. We have seen custom pick p over the last two weeks, with regulars returning and new faces."Good on yer, cobber.
Punch's managed side's a bit sticky
Punch is making good progress on disposals and debt buy-back fronts. But here's an unpleasant reality from the managed side of things courtesy of Deustche Bank's Geof Collyer.
"Punch has sold around 50 top-end managed pubs, but has had more than that number revert from prior-year disposals so far in 2009. If one adds back the 20 sites that reverted from Alchemy last year (from Spirit's disposal in September 2005) plus the potential for some or possibly all of the 30 Old Orleans sites sold to Regent Inns to come back, if that group goes through a pre-pack now it has gone off-market, then Punch's managed pub estate could end up with 15% of the pubs making little or no money. This is partly why we believe that division is performing so far behind its peers."
