Wear Inns gains £10m investment

07-May-2012 - Last updated on 11-Mar-2017 at 22:33 GMT

New investment: Wear Inns receives financial boost to aid growth strategy

The Business Growth Fund (BGF) and NVM Private Equity (NVM) have announced they plan to invest £10m into Wear Inns, the North east England-based pub operator, to further aid its growth strategy.

BGF has invested £8m and NVM has invested a further £2m into the 15-strong business, which it has backed since start-up in 2006. As part of the deal, BGF will take a minority stake in the business and will join the existing board.

The companies said that the new £10m equity investment would enable Wear Inns to acquire further sites over the next few months, creating a further 40 new jobs, and provide flexibility for further acquisitions thereafter.

Founded in 2006 by John Weir, managing director, and John Sands, the former head of Pubmaster, Wear Inns focuses on the acquisition and management of freehold community pubs across the North East and Yorkshire.

The estate currently includes the Townhouse in Whitley Bay, Millstone in Gosforth, Black Bull in East Boldon, Cross Keys in Washington, Guidepost in Springwell, New Inn in Durham, Priory in York, New Inn in Wetherby, the Sun in Shipley and the Courthouse in Barnsley.
The company is headquartered in Billingham, County Durham, and currently employs 175 people.

NVM has backed Wear Inns from start-up and to this point has £4.2m of capital invested in the business. Since then, the company has built up an estate of 15 sites through regional and national acquisitions; from chains such as Mitchells & Butlers, Spirit, TCG Inns, Barracuda Pubs and Bars, and Greene King.

On average, Wear Inns has succeeded in improving the turnover of its pubs by c90% within six months of their acquisition and refurbishment. In the last three years, Wear Inns has trebled its sales with net revenues now totalling £7.3m and has achieved like for like sales growth of 7.2%.

This is a second investment for BGF in the North of England within six weeks, following its backing of Manchester and Leeds-based Mexican food chain, Barburrito, last month. It is also the second co-investment for BGF.

Weir said: “Since starting the business six years ago, we have worked with NVM’s support to build up an estate of great community pubs offering good value and good quality across the North of England. We have now reached a point where we want to take that approach a step further with the goal of growing our estate over the next few years.

Any acquisition programme requires a level of financial flexibility. So we set out to find an additional partner who could support us in funding further acquisitions. We were also keen to work with like-minded people with a commitment to this region. BGF fits the bill and it’s great to be working with them, as well as our existing backers NVM.”

David Colclough, Manchester-based investment director at BGF, said: “This is a great opportunity to back the proven management team of a fast growing company as they build their business through continued acquisition.

"With NVM’s support, John and his team have successfully delivered to date, significantly improving the turnover of their pubs in a short time frame in spite of the financial downturn and challenging times for consumers. This investment of £10m will help them to realise their short-term acquisition plans and potential exists for further investment to follow in the future.”