M&B appoints three MDs

Mitchells & Butlers has appointed three managing directors to run three defined segments of its 2,000-strong pub and restaurant estate.

The individuals — all existing senior operators—- will report into chief executive Adam Fowle.

Fowle told M&C Report​: "There is still just one division but within this we have identified three channels, segmented along the lines of customer affluence."

The three segments are City & Country, Suburban, and Value.

Kevin Todd will run City & Country, comprising brands such as All Bar One, Browns, Nicholson's, O'Neill's, Vintage Inns, as well as M&B's premium country dining outlets and its unbranded "metropolitan professional" pubs.

Amanda Coldrick will operate the Suburban arm, which will include brands such as Ember Inns, Harvester and Toby.

Roger Moxham will run M&B's Value operation, including brands like Crown Carveries, Cornerstone, Goose, Sizzling Pub Company and some unbranded community pubs.

The company merged its two divisions — "restaurants" and "pubs and bars" — into one group in January of this year, arguing that there was no longer such a clear distinction between the two trading groups, as the majority of venues within the wet-led pubs and bars arm had significant food sales.

Todd, Coldrick and Moxham were all divisional directors under this old abandoned structures. Todd worked in the restaurant group while Coldrick and Moxham served at the pubs and bars arm.

A fourth divisional director who served in the restaurant group under the old structure, David Henderson, retired last year and has not been replaced.

M&B said it would continue to employee a regional operations director for each pub or restaurant brand, reporting into one of the three newly-anointed managing directors.