Managed houses fit for future success

After many years in the business with Whitbread and three venture capitalist companies, I am now going into my fourth — Stonegate Pub Company, which is 500 units strong.

You always think you have learnt everything in this business, but they are now putting all barstaff, managers and senior managers through a training course called Albert Einstein. Being a bit of a dinosaur I was very sceptical — "here we go again," I thought — but this training course is an easy, in-depth scheme to introduce the modern way for me and my staff to run a pub. Which brings me to the future.

I must say, being a stalwart trade unionist, I thought I would not be able to work with the ideals of venture capitalists, but, surprisingly, though we seem to change names every three-and-a-half years for some strange reason, it doesn't affect our job security, and our managed business seems to get stronger.

There have been a few casualties along the way and many hiccups with pension funds and working practices. But collecting all these different managed house groups collected into one large company called Stonegate, without losing any jobs and keeping everybody sane and happy, has been a monumental achievement. It's early days, but going on the past 11 years it's possible it will be a success.

More than a dozen brands are synergising into one company, but with each brand having a different ethos. Attending meetings with representatives of four or five of those brands is exciting because almost all of us are from the same geographical area. The group has two basic rules: compliance, compliance, compliance and sell, sell, sell. If you stick to these rules and move from brand to brand you can carve yourself a great career.

Coming from a stable Whitbread background 10 years ago, I was convinced that sort of managed house would not survive with property deals, lease-back schemes and backroom deals all around.

However, it seems that a lot of the managed houses are running a lot stronger than they were 10 to 15 years ago, including a few wet-led town-centre pubs.

I must say that our members have had a rocky ride, but thank goodness someone had the idea and expertise to gel these companies and make them successful.

Here's to a bright future and a great UK managed house system.

As General Patton said: "Success is how high you bounce when you hit rock bottom."

Dave Daly is north-west coordinator for the union Unite​