The group, which merged with Broken Foot Inns three months ago, currently has 12 sites and is looking to expand across its south of London heartland. It is also considering creating a corridor towards the southwest of England where it has its first freehold — acquired through the merger.
Shotton told the Publican's Morning Advertiser's sister title M&C Report: “We have a war chest to spend and we are aggressively looking.”
Redcomb is raising money through EIS at the moment to increase this fund to £15m to enable it to acquire between five and seven new sites each year.
“We’ve found funding is becoming easier to come by. We’re seeing a freeing up so we’re back on the acquisition trail”, Shotton said.
Offers
The company has made offers on a number of sites in suburban London as part of its plan to acquire “three or four” freehold sites or up to 10 if it takes on free-of-tie sites instead.
The company will consider anything in secondary market towns ideally with accommodation or scope to add rooms.
With accommodation becoming a greater priority for the company, Redcomb has begun work to add 16 bedrooms to the Station pub in Hither Green, London.
Shotton said: “Pubs with rooms or where we can add rooms is definitely something we want. It’s a great support to the profit line to have a food and accommodation offer, but we are not becoming hoteliers.”
Merger
Since the merger with Broken Foot, Shotton continues to run the company with Draper as managing directors, former Broken Foot boss David Franks is the chairman, with Peter Mackie and Quentin Williams also sitting on the board.
Shotton said the former Broken Foot Inns premises had been run by Redcomb prior to the merger so there were few operational changes in the handover.