Tuppen: pubco probe 'worth doing'

Enterprise Inns chief executive Ted Tuppen has described the committee of MPs' investigation into the pubco/tenant relationship as an "exercise worth doing for the benefit of everyone".

Tuppen has been critical of MPs questioning the relationship in the past, calling them "moronic" at one stage.

But this week, in a presentation to City analysts, he said: "We are evolving the business model to meet the market needs and, along the way, to meet the needs of politicians.

"And to be fair to the Select Committee, they shone a torch into our industry, and, while their views in many cases may have been extreme, they did force the industry to have a very good look at the way we operated and without doubt we have introduced improvements.

"And there have been improvements across the industry so it was an exercise worth doing for the benefit of everyone."

The Business, Innovation & Skills Committee, the successor to the Business and Enterprise Committee that released its critical report on pubcos last year, is due to re-examine the progress made by tenanted pubcos in making requested changes in early 2011.

Tuppen also reflected on the way tenanted pub companies are being run by Enterprise and fellow companies - the company reported flat income for the second half of its financial year.

"Our peers don't run their pubs a lot better or a lot worse than we do — we're all doing a similar job and working very hard.

"None of us have the magic that just turns the running of a pub into something spectacular — we just have better pubs (in Enterprise)."

Commenting on economic prospects for the company and its licensees in the coming year, Tuppen said: "The confidence that we have is that our licensees have worked out how to operate in this environment.

"I'm not saying it'll all be alright next year because the economy's going to get better.

"I'm saying we delivered flat in the second half because we and our licensees are doing (things) better despite very difficult circumstances.

"They will continue to do things better in the same difficult circumstances that we expect for the next year or so."