M&B sells 15 franchise pubs

Managed operator Mitchells & Butlers has accepted individual offers for 15 pubs from 13 franchisees.

Franchisees who had submitted bids for their pubs were told last Friday whether they had been successful or not. Sources report that one successful franchisee is ex-M&B executive Chris Gerard, who has had offers accepted for both his pubs — the Rusty Gun, St Ippolyts, Herts, and the Foresters, Church Crookham, Hampshire.

It is understood that award-winning M&B franchisees Jon and Paula Briscoe have also had offers for two pubs accepted.

M&B has decided that its 80-strong franchise division was non-core earlier this year. It is looking to sell non-core assets to raise money to expand six food-led brands.

The franchise division is very high quality with average weekly sales per pub per week of around £13,500.

There is speculation that the remaining 65 or so pubs in the division will now be offered for sale in a single block. One source said: "The major tenanted pubcos are not really buying pubs at the moment, but these sites would represent a high quality addition to any estate."

An M&B source said: "We have received satisfactory offers from existing franchisees for 15 pubs within our franchise estate and are in the process of progressing with these sales, subject to relevant legals and finance being in place. We're looking to complete these sales by 24 September or earlier.

"We continue to consider all opportunities for the remainder of the franchise estate and it remains business as usual for everyone concerned in that regard.

"This stage of the process has now concluded and we are not inviting further offers from franchisees. While we cannot stop franchisees making further offers if they choose to, in the interest of being fair to everyone involved, we invited full and final offers for this stage of the process and we have now worked through and responded to all of the offers made to us."