Blood joins LT Pub Management
Former boss of Heineken UK Jeremy Blood has become chairman of LT Pub Management, the pub management company that emerged from the pre-pack administration of London Town.
Blood, who is a non-executive director at Mitchells & Butlers, is understood to have taken an equity stake in the business alongside chief executive Billy Buchanan.
LT Pub Management is now a specialist pub management business. It emerged from the London Town pre-pack administration running around 135 pubs on behalf of freehold pub owners — it has already added a further 44 pubs.
Its sizeable client list includes Enterprise, Punch Taverns, Commercial First, Oak Group and administrator PKF (UK).
The company has taken on the management of 26 pubs from Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company since the pre-pack — it is also running three Wishing Well pubs that were left in administration during the Bar Group administration.
Buchanan said: "It was an important part of the deal with the London Town administrator that as many trade creditors as possible were paid in full. I am pleased to report that was achieved. Losses to creditors were kept to a minimum.''
LT Pub Management is running pubs on a temporary management basis, but also taking pubs on three to five-year substantive leases.
Buchanan said: "Punch and Enterprise are being very realistic — I've always found Enterprise very fair and we have a good direct relationship with chief operating officer Simon Townsend. We also have a good relationship developing at Punch, with David Wigham as our key contact.
"Quite a lot of the pubs we operate on temporary management are running at a profit; it makes sense to keep them open. The pubcos seem to have decided to work with a select group of pub management companies.
"We've built our management services reputation on being open-book with clients: we supply full management information and there is a straight pass-through of margin to clients.
"We make our money entirely out of fees charged per pub per week.
"We're geared up to take on pubs at short notice and are about to install EPoS throughout the estate. The other growing group of clients is the banks, who have a lot of pub assets they're not sure what to do with."
LT Management has signed up for substantive leases this week on 10 Punch pubs left behind in the pre-pack administration of London Town. Buchanan indicated that the more realistic attitude of pubco landlords such as Punch has meant that new agreements have revised terms where appropriate.
On the appointment of Blood as chairman, Buchanan said: "Jeremy has a huge wealth of experience. I've known of him since the early 1990s when he worked in the marketing department of Scottish & Newcastle. He's currently spending quite a lot of time with us." Chairman Jeremy Blood said of his new business: "LT Pub Management already has a good reputation in its sector. I am excited about the opportunity to improve our existing services and to develop our business model to meet the changing needs of pubcos. We're determined to be flexible, transparent and innovative in our approach as I believe this is the best way to grow the business.''
Based in Attleborough, Norfolk, the company has a head office staff of 42 and a field operations team of eight, strengthened by recruitment of former Punch Taverns director of corporate affairs, Nigel Turpin, as planning director. Turpin, previously in charge of planning at managed operator Spirit Group, is overseeing the integration of new pub management contracts at LT Pub Management.
He said: "I am very pleased to be back in the business and particularly to be with Billy and Jeremy at LT Pub Management. We have great plans for the future and I am sure that we shall do well as a team.
