City diary
Cannon has plenty to grouse about
A little local difficulty for serial entrepreneur Michael Cannon who has been left facing a legal bill for nearly £300,000. It came after his management company admitted illegally driving two tracks through one of Britain's finest shooting estates.
Mr Cannon, who sold Eldridge Pub Company to Marston's, paid £4m for the Wemmergill grouse moor
in County Durham five years ago and invested another £3m into it, saying he was determined to restore
3,000 acres of wildlife habitat that had become downgraded.
But he was taken to court by Natural England where his management company, Wemmergill Moor Ltd, admitted three breaches of the Wildlife & Countryside Act and was fined £50,000.
Judge Brian Forster, sitting at Durham Crown Court, also ordered the company to pay £237,548.99 in costs as a warning to others that the courts will act to protect similarly important sites.
The court was told that when inspectors visited the site they did not find an unsullied Site of Special Scientific Interest but a network of stone-surfaced roads, turning circles, drainage ditches and two car parks. Life was always easier in the pub trade.
When to say yes and no
Interesting advice from Geronimo boss Rupert Clevely on when to say no and when to say yes in the world of business. He says an important early move was to use an external property consultant to help expand the business to 17 pubs with a £15m turnover. "The biggest thing in searching for property is to say 'no' rather than 'yes'," he said. However, he admits that he should have appointed a finance director before Geronimo had grown to a chain of 10 pubs. "I was always nervous about not being able to afford a good finance director on £40,000, but the reality was that, in her first full year, the savings made were triple the salary. She made a dramatic change."
Don't give me that vacant look
A lot of people seem to be looking at pub vacancies - and whether they are on the rise. The local rag in Suffolk notes Punch Taverns has a total of 26 pubs on the market in Suffolk at the moment, with Greene King advertising 21, Admiral Taverns offering 13 and Enterprise Inns displaying three.
Auction action for trio of pubs
City Diary notes the appearance of three Mentor Inns pubs for sale at a public auction. Mentor is run by Jongleurs founder John Davy - he took the chain from one site to eight before selling out to Regent Inns. The pubs, two of which look like they weren't shifting through property agents, are being offered as a package through Colliers CRE. The Clayton and the Glasshouse, Barnstaple, was on the market through Christie+Co in mid-2006 for £1.3m, and later through Bettesworths in December 2006 for £1.15m. The pub has been let since August 2007 on a rent of £60,000, rising to £75,000 in year two. A second pub, the White Hart, in North Tawton, Devon, was let on a rent of £40,000 per annum on 10 September, rising to £52,000 in year two. It was on the market through Betteswoths for £675,000 with a turnover of £3,000 a week. The third pub, the Fox Inn, Ellisfield, is a much more recent acquisition, bought by Mentor off an asking price of £525,000. Interesting company, Mentor Inns.
A year or so in Provence
City Diary offers one more chastening tale from the Provence School of Price-Ramping. Pub company Provence, as you'll remember, offered daft rents to ramp freehold prices at public auction. The Goldmine in Mainway, Lancaster, sold for a mighty £405,000 in a September 2005 Harman Healy auction thanks to the dotty offer from Provence of a £42,000 per annum rent. It looks like a squat and uninviting £10,000 per annum pub. Perhaps, not surprisingly, then, it's being offered for sale at an Eddisons auction in Manchester with a much more sensible guide price of £100,000.
Where's the link to Lincolnshire?
Credit to JD Wetherspoon for highlighting the quality products of supplier John Langford, who is an ace sausage-maker based in Welshpool, Wales. The company's in-house magazine tells readers: "John owns and runs the Welsh Sausage Company, with his business partner Christine, and has a passion which dates from schoolboy days - for sausages! John now proudly provides his sausages to the likes of Marks & Spencer and, of course, Wetherspoon." City Diary only has one issue. Currently, John provides five types of sausage for the Wetherspoon menu, one of which is Lincolnshire sausage. As a local lad, City Diary has problems swallowing a Lincolnshire banger that's never been to Lincolnshire.
Going against the grain
ABN Amro has upgraded Enterprise Inns to "buy" from "hold", but cut its price target to 485p from 720p in a review of the UK leisure sector. The broker said it expects leisure stocks to remain volatile in the near term, with a severe economic slowdown still a possibility. Upgrading your recommendation while downgrading your price target seems a little odd, doesn't it?
Maybe less pain in Spain
One couple in a tenanted pub have had enough of the pub trade. But only in the United Kingdom. Ripponden couple Debbie and her husband Tom are moving with their two children, Melissa and Kurt, to Murcia, Spain - where they plan to open another pub. Debbie reports that locals are planning to petition their pub company in protest at their treatment. Tenanted bar companies in Spain are, presumably, in a fledgling state.
£2,000 finder's fee from Pub Innsite
Here's one way that it might be possible to make good any financial shortfalls occurring in 2008. Boss of agent Pub Innsite, Chris Whirledge, a former acquisitions manager for Marston's Pub Company, is offering a £2,000 finder's fee for each pub that is uncovered off-market for British Country Inns, the Enterprise investment Scheme with oodles of cash to spend on buying boozers. Whirledge is determined to find good solid pubs for his client in record time and to this end has made a new year's resolution of his own. Up until March 2008 Pub Innsite will pay a fee of £2,000 to anyone who introduces a pub, which is subsequently bought by BCI, or any retained client. Full terms and conditions regarding introduction fees and relevant contact details can be found on Pub Innsite's website - www.pubinnsite.co.uk.
Matey beer mats
Northampton police are taking a different approach to community policing - by plastering the faces of local beat bobbies on beer mats. The scheme aims to put a recognisable face on community policing and raise public awareness of who local police are, what issues each officer specialises in and how to contact them. Says one local bobby: "I hope it will help our community to familiarise themselves with who we are and not be afraid to approach us." Would the same idea work with bar staff?
Outlook on Globe goes negative
A little more drip-drip of bad news for Robert Tchenguiz. Credit ratings agency Fitch has switched its outlook on his Globe Pub Company debt from "stable" to "negative". The agency last downgraded Globe's debt rating last May. Total sales for the 442-strong pub group fell by 7% for the three months to the end of November. Fitch said it "considers that the combination of the first winter under the smoke-free regime and pressures on consumer confidence could make it difficult for next quarter's performance to slow down, let alone reverse, this decline". The agency noted Globe had a "weaker estate" than larger peers.
Enterprise's stellar cast
What do superchefs Gordon Ramsay and Jean Christophe Novelli have in common with former Spirit boss Karen Jones? All three are Enterprise tenants. Ramsay's new pub in Chiswic
