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News Article Comments : A modest proposal for helping pubs
Last man standing is the phrase on the lips of many pub bosses these days. They mean that if you can just hang on in there, chances are your rival pubs will be closing and you’ll clean up with all the local trade.
Seeing who can hold their breath underwater for the longest is a similar phrase doing the rounds.
To make sure their pub is the last man standing, or has the strongest lungs, some companies are stepping up the help they offer their licensees.
Shepherd Neame, for example, has spotted the massive potential in coffee and is hiring top-of-the-range machines to licensees at cheap rates. And offering to pay half the sub for Sky is another idea some are considering.
At Admiral, the management is asking its licensees to come up with business-building tips to share across the estate.
And brewers like Carlsberg, Coors, InBev and S&NUK are training their sales force to be able to offer customers advice on how to grow their business.
The message that’s being pushed to licensees
103 Posts(s) found for this thread: Now displaying page 8 of 11
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Nigel Wakefield 12/07/2008 23:32:41  |
A modest proposal for helping pubs Whatever the Pub Co's may do, either breaking up into different companies etc to confuse the issue, there are a number of them still destroying peoples lives and removing as much money as they can from gullible newcomers to the industry and running a tread mill of impossible dreams. This didn't happen on anywhere near the same scale before the advent of these Pub Co's reaching the dominant or near monopoly position in the market that they hold. Rachman was stopped, when he was exposed. Apathy, misinformation and corporate bull have allowed this to happen, so many organisations think they are dependant on Pub Co's business and will not confront them because they are worried about the consequences. Pub Co's can run as a partnership with sensible commercial rents and realistic insentive based discounts and everyone can make money. The root cause is borrowed money and the need for ever higher rents and income to service the loans and overheads, if they had expanded within their profitability in stead of this megolamania to be the biggest and supposedly most valuable Pub Co most of these problems would not be being voiced. You could say a battle of Board Room Ego's regardless of the consequences. This post replies to Dave Evans > A modest proposal for helping pubs |
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Dave Evans 13/07/2008 00:26:05 |
A modest proposal for helping pubs You say nothing that I disagree with in essence Nigel. You are right, they are struggling with their own viability because of their overstretched finances. The fact remains that by changing their status, they will be seen as having addressed the problem of the tie for a start. Rents are another matter, they may get away with that by stating that they have to feed the loans. It is undeniable that to ensure their continued survival, they MUST feed the loans. As you say, THAT is the root of the problem, quite apart from the greed they have displayed. If it weren't for their greed in extracting every last penny, perhaps they would never have been able to create the projections that allowed them to overstretch their finances to the extent they have. In which case the financial institutions should shoulder some of the blame. It will never happen like that though. When was the last time any bank actually took responsibility for lending to bad risks? They have never done it with respect to third world debt, preferring to cut their losses by charging domestic customers to cover their errors. It may be impossible for the pubcos to achieve realistic commercial rents and remain viable in themselves. What then? I don't know. Just don't expect too much if that is the outcome. Dave E. This post replies to Nigel Wakefield > A modest proposal for helping pubs |
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edward carpenter 13/07/2008 00:53:26 |
A modest proposal for helping pubs Grow up Ken. You`re boring. I can take all the criticism you can give and more. You on the other hand have the flexibility of a plank. Dave E thanks for the mediating. This post replies to Dave Evans > A modest proposal for helping pubs |
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| Dave Evans 13/07/2008 01:23:20 |
A modest proposal for helping pubs Oh well. Not quite the response I hoped for lol. Can I retire to a safe distance now? Dave E. This post replies to edward carpenter > A modest proposal for helping pubs |
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Ken Nason 13/07/2008 06:36:13 |
A modest proposal for helping pubs The content of this post is currently under review |
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| Ken Nason 13/07/2008 06:40:43 |
A modest proposal for helping pubs The content of this post is currently under review |
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jon downes 13/07/2008 07:59:37 |
A modest proposal for helping pubs On reading some of these posts it appears obvious that the pubco's have already mapped out their future ? Create a machine to obtain finances ....by buying up the maximum amount of pubs allowed....borrow money on the strength of future rentals & ties plus the revenues created by the constant stream of tenants in the lower to middle end properties without going into every detail the announcement of REIT in recent years also plays a strange part in the plans it all seems to be going through some kind of pattern and appears to be fully controlled in stages by the cigar chomping money men. If you actually stand back from being a publican and look at the bigger picture from an industrialist or high finance view the whole thing appears to being manipulated. My father told me a story about green shield stamps and this situation has that ring about it. The select committee are also in danger of being blamed for the demise of hundreds more pubs because it seems that whatever happens these pubs will close as a victim of the financial struggles the pubco's are about to face especially now we are entering bear territory. edited by: jon downes at: 13/07/2008 08:00:08 This post replies to this thread |
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| David Morgan 13/07/2008 07:20:51 |
A modest proposal for helping pubs Dave E..spot on!The aim of Fair Pint is not the wholesale destruction of anything,but the positive creation of a sustainable and economically viable industry that yes,is effectively controlled by financial institutions.Take one little point,AWP rental.Did you realise that the machine co's pay a massive'royalty'to the Pubcos for 'supporting their companies'.If you look into the company reports you will find that said royalties to the Pubcos in general EXCEEDS £100million per anum! If that 'royalty'were not paid,site rentals to you the lessee would be cheaper and your machine would make you more profit.The same scenario,it is alleged,could apply to any other 'no choice' supplier of goods or services.The list is long and blatently obvious.Fair Pint is aware that change will not occur overnight,but the glare of white hot publicity before and during the Westminster hearing will darken the sky with chickens coming home to roost!The Hearing is a one off chance to ensure that the knowledge of very few outside the Pubcos can be shared industry wide. This post replies to Dave Evans > A modest proposal for helping pubs |
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| J Mark Dodds 13/07/2008 09:02:41 |
A modest proposal for helping pubs If AWP rental is £50 a week to us, the tenant, at LEAST half of that bounces straight out of the Machine Operator's account and into the PubCo's as a royalty payment for the privilege of having the machine in your pub. When the profits on machine income are divvied out between the tenant, the operator, and the PubCo, the PubCo has already received at least the same income as the Operator's rent in royalties so it is quite clear that PubCo earns more cash out of machines than either the tenant or the Operator. Ehrm. For doing precisely nothing other than letter exchanging and rubber stamping when setting up the exclusivity deals. £100 million a year? If that were retained by the 25,000 or so pubs who are AWP tied would it make a difference to their viability? Maybe. If anyone has read about Machine Operators getting out of the pub market to concentrate on other areas of their portfolio and wondered why. Well here is the answer: They have been losing money in the tied pub sector just as lessees and tenants have. Which Elephant in the Room actually IS making the money? EXACTLY. In this context BBPA's hand wringing to the Community Pubs' Enquiry asking the government to reduce games tax is hard to swallow. edited by: J Mark Dodds at: 13/07/2008 09:03:34 This post replies to David Morgan > A modest proposal for helping pubs |
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| Nigel Wakefield 13/07/2008 10:12:41 |
A modest proposal for helping pubs Jon, I have said for some time that the market has been manipulated from a number of directions for the major Pub Co's to dominate the market and dictate terms and people did not believe me. Without boring readers about the RICS Valuation Paper 2, it came in about four to five years ago and since then rents have escalated, good freehouses have been swallowed up at crazy prices raising the Pub Co estate values out of all proportion, their borrowings have escalated beyond belief and without this approaching recession and credit squeeze these companies would have been nearly rock solid, the shares would certainly not have plummeted and people in the City would not be asking questions and making damaging statements, if enough lessees can provide a wealth of case studies to Fair Pint this could not be a better time to raise these issues. I am still astounded that these people have the gall to get the RICS to endorse this Valuation Document as a directive to all it's members, to me it is a brilliant peace of timing and strategy in their development, the only thing wrong is that a number of us found out about it. I just wish the MA would publish the relevant bits. This post replies to this thread |
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