Chris Welham is to step down as managing director of the 450-strong Spirit Leased estate at the end of this month, M&C has learnt.
His departure comes two months after Spirit Pub Company was acquired by Greene King in a £773m deal. M&C understands that Welham is set to stay in the pub sector.
Welham joined Spirit Pub Company in February 2012 from Greene King, where he had been an operations director since September 2009 and responsible for the performance of c.500 pubs within the Bury St Edmonds-based operator’s Pub Partners division. Previous to that he spent over five years at Punch as a regional operations director.
A Greene King spokesperson told M&C: “Following Greene King’s acquisition of the Spirit Pub Company, Chris Welham, managing director of Spirit Leased will be leaving the business at the end of this month after a period of hand-over. Chris has done a great job of leading and developing the Spirit Leased business over the last few years and we wish him all the best for the future.”
M&C understands that Clive Chesser has been promoted to oversee Greene King’s 900-strong tenanted and franchised arm, Pub Partners.
During his time at Spirit, Welham, who is a non-executive director of the BII, oversaw the evolution of the company’s leased estate, with new agreements and support packages aimed at leveraging the benefits of the group’s c900-strong managed arm.
He introduced a turnover-based rent deal - The Joint Venture Agreement - for new tenants and lessees as the company looked to move “from the Premier League to the Champions League”.
Welham will join Mike Tye and Paddy Gallagher, formerly chief executive and finance director respectively, in leaving Spirit since its acquisition by Greene King.
Earlier this summer, the Rooney Anand-led group restructured its management team in preparation for the acquisition. As part of the restructure, Richard Lewis was promoted from managing director of the group’s Destination Pubs & Restaurants division to oversee its entire Retail division, which incorporates its c1,050-strong managed operation.
At the same time, the company hired Peter Blake, formerly managing director of Café Rouge, to replace Lewis as head of its Destination division, which comprises Hungry Horse, Old English Inns, Eating Inn and Loch Fyne Seafood and Grill.
Anthony Hemmerdinger, who spent over two years as managing director of Telecoms at Sainsburys, is the new managing director of the company’s Local Pubs arm.
Jonathan Webster was appointed integration director to oversee the merger of the two companies, with the completion of the Spirit deal leading to the formation of a c3,100-strong pub company.
