Marston’s Inns and Taverns, the managed arm of the brewer and pub operator, has engaged on a tail trimming exercise as it shifts focus to its new build programme and said it has approximately a dozen pubs on the market.
It has three Pitcher & Piano sites up for sale in London, including the leasehold of its Fulham site for £50,000 via Fleurets, and its sites in Pollen Street and Crutched Friars. It’s Trafalgar Square site has also recently gone to Arbutus Restaurants, after Marston’s decided to sell with five years left on the lease.
Also up for sale for sale for £50,000 is the Que Pasa, in Staines, Middlesex, again via Fleurets.
The group has recently sold The Anglers in Walton on Thames to gastro- pub operator, Large Bars for an undisclosed sum. It is believed the unbranded Anglers had been a pre-rights issue experiment at a “Pitcher & Piano in the country” style concept.
However, the operator has shifted focus in the past 12 months, following its successful £165.5m fundraising last year. The group has declared it plans to use £146m of the cash call to fund an ambitious rollout of new build pubs.
Derek Andrew, the managing director of Marston’s Inns and Taverns, told M&C Report the planned disposals were as a result of “sensible sanitisation” of its estate.
He said: “Across the country I probably have around a dozen sites for sale, which with an estate of 497 pubs is not particularly material.
“Most of these are town centre bars that we haven’t got a strategic plan for and rather than come up with a new concept or go down the price route we have decided to let them go.”
Marston’s Inns & Taverns has opened six new build managed houses so far this year and currently has nine on site, under development.
