Blue Star Pub Co pays down £14m
Blue Star Pub Company, the 400-strong freehold tenanted pub firm owned by Heineken, has paid down £14m of its original £180m purchase price in the first 15 months of trading.
Heineken moved to acquire the former Globe Pub Company in October 2009 for £180m after it found itself not getting paid for beer deliveries.
The company, which was and is managed by its Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company (S&NPC) subsidiary, was in breach of its securitisation covenants, which included bondholders being paid interest ahead of Heineken being paid for its beer.
Accounts filed for Blue Star for the 15 months to 21 December 2010 show Blue Star was able to pay back £14m of the original purchase price.
However, an internal review of the value of the estate in the wake of the "deteriorating performance of the UK pub sector" saw the value of the Blue Star estate reduced by £26.8m.
The company turned over £32.6m and produced a gross profit of £24m.
Its operating loss was £7.2m after exceptional items of £22.1m — an interest bill of £13.5m took its loss after tax to £20.7m.
Former S&NPC boss Willie Crawshay said last week that the performance of Blue Star improved after Heineken moved to buy in Globe's debt.
The story of the Blue Star/Globe estate reflects the fortunes of the pub property market.
Globe Pub Company saw an impairment charge of £199.1m in the value of its pubs in the year to 31 May 2008.
Each pub was worth around £380,000.
Robert Tchenguiz paid £345m to buy 364 pubs from Spirit in December 2004, a value per pub of £947,000, although lower-value pubs were added to Globe afterwards.
