Speaking to the Publican's Morning Advertiser's sister title M&C Report following publication of results showing a 1.4% rise in like-for-like net income for the full year, chief executive Simon Townsend said: “In the past we have often disposed of properties which we didn’t believe had a sustainable future and someone else has converted them into a convenience store.
“Now that we are no longer relying on disposals to repay debt we are able to convert those sites ourselves and we currently have 22 convenience stores. They are being run on commercial leases.”
Townsend stressed there was no target for growth of this model and said they would look “on an individual basis” at future conversions.
Enterprise’s results showed the company currently operates 159 commercial properties – of which 137 are free-of-tie pubs.
Enterprise reported disposal income of £73m for 2014, down from £150m last year. The average value of sites disposed also dropped – from £350,000 in 2013 to £317,000 this year. The company said this reflected the fact that the majority of assets being sold were underperforming where returns do not justify their retention. It said the disposal programme is expected to reduce in size again next year with proceeds for the year to 30 September 2015 expected to be in the region of £60m of which up to £40m is expected from the Unique estate.
A re-evaluation of the pub estate resulted in the value of Enterprise’s current estate being written down by £75m (2013: £139 million), a 1.9% (2013: 3.4%) reduction to £3.8bn with £42m charged to the income statement and £33m reflected in the revaluation reserve. Enterprise said it expected sustained growth in lfl net income to be reflected in valuation stability and, ultimately, growth.