Simon Collinson, managing director of Oak Taverns, has told M&C the group is adopting a ‘two-pronged’ approach to growth, partly funded by some of its sites in East Anglia.
The group currently has two sites from the region on the market and Collinson said he is keen to focus on acquisition targets in areas such as Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Hertfordshire, going forward.
He said: “We have put a lot of thought into the kind of areas that we are going to focus on going forward and our disposals and acquisition strategy will reflect that.
“Our growth model is really a two-pronged strategy – there are the larger sites we have taken on with the pubcos and the smaller, wet-led pubs that we own freehold.
“The tied model works well for us. It means we get the investment into the pub and we have very good relationships with the pubcos we work with. We have had a couple of conversations with Star and Greene King and we’re keen to add more of these kind of partnerships. I would like one or two more of these opportunities in 2016.
“The other focus is on freehold acquisitions where we can do something to make ourselves stand out from the crowd in the local market. We have done that through adding breweries and we’d be keen to do that again.”
