Fuller's, the London brewer and pub operator, has the acquisitive firepower to "do another Gales", according to finance director James Douglas.
Douglas, speaking in the City as the group announced annual turnover up eight per cent for the last financial year, said it had the resources to do a deal similar to its acquisition of Gale & Co, the Hampshire brewer and pub operator which it bought in 2005 for £91m.
While much of its recently-announced £100m bank facility would be used to pay down existing debt, Fuller's had the wherewithal to buy - and possibly buy big - provided the right assets came along, added the group's chairman, Michael Turner, although "it would have to be a fantastic deal".
Simon Emeny, head of Fuller's pubs and hotels operation, agreed, noting it would be "hard to do a deal as good as last year's", referring to the near-dozen pubs it acquired from Punch Taverns and Mitchell's & Butlers.
Emeny said Fuller's was looking at the market for potential acquisitions, including the 300-odd pubs Mitchells & Butlers currently had up for sale.
He was "sure" more pubs would come up for sale in the coming year, prompted, perhaps, by a shakeout in the market.
He declined to reveal how much better the pubs Fuller's had bought last year were doing, other than to say "all had grown earnings under the new management".
Fuller's said last year's capital expenditure figure of £44.1m on the group's estate, including pubs acquired, was the most it had spent in a 12-month period in its history, bar the Gales deal.
Capex was likely to be slightly lower in the current financial year, it added.