Laurel drafts £400m pubs plan

LAUREL Pub Company, the managed pubs group that owns the Hogshead chain, is planning a sale and leaseback programme to raise up to £400m. The venture capital-backed operator is examining plans to sell and lease back about half of its 600-strong estate to a property company as the mainstay of a refinancing package.

The deal is being planned to raise between £200m and £400m, depending on the number of freeholds that go under the hammer.

Morgan Grenfell Private Equity, which bought the business from Whitbread for £1.63bn a year ago, raised £875m from the sale of 1,860 tenanted pubs in the estate to Enterprise Inns last month, in what was seen as a steep valuation of the chain. Enterprise had separately paid £262m for another slice of the estate, the previous summer.

While the 200-strong Hogshead-estate is seen in need of some serious restructuring, conservative estimates calculate MGPE will eventually sell the remaining estate for a minimum of £800m some time next year, promising a lucrative return on its original investment.

Marketing consultants are working with Laurel to reposition Hogshead in the market. Currently, the brand is used for a host of different venue types, from large city centre premises to more traditional sites.

The review could result in Hogshead being retained solely for the large town centre locations, with local-style pubs returning to their original Dog and Duck type names. As well as the Hogsheads, the Laurel-managed estate includes the Casa and Shotz pub brands.