Stonegate chief Ian Payne rules out Barracuda takeover

29-Aug-2012 - Last updated on 11-Mar-2017 at 18:44 GMT

Stonegate, the TDR Capital-backed managed pub operator, is “categorically not” looking to acquire rival Barracuda, chairman Ian Payne has told M&C Report.

However, Payne, who said Stonegate has looked at every deal on the market in the past year, did not rule out an approach for TCG, the pub and bar operator that was placed on the market earlier this year.

Payne said there is “no numerical target” to grow the circa 560-strong Stonegate, which operates brands including Slug & Lettuce, Yates’s and Scream.

“Our aim is to build the best managed pub company in the United Kingdom and if we do that everything will look after itself. As part of that we’ve looked at every single deal that’s come on the market in the past year.”

Asked about Barracuda, the circa 200-strong operator that Stonegate is understood to have run a slide rule over last year, Payne said: “We are categorically not looking at Barracuda.”

As for TCG, he said the sale process of that business has “been an unbelievably long process, and it remains an unbelievably long process. That’s all I can say about it”.

Payne added: “At the moment we are looking at a couple of individual sites that have come up and at two small packages as well.”
He stressed that Stonegate “will not overpay” and will “only do the right deals”.

“We have got enough organic growth in Stonegate. We don’t actually need to buy anything.”