Delays fail to put Burns off acquisition trail

Burns Leisure is pressing ahead with a £10m acquisition programme despite delays in completing a string of other deals.

The Wiltshire-based brewer and pub operator has said it is on the look-out for about 50 pubs in the South West this year to add to its 120-strong estate.

But it has emerged that it has been hit by delays in completing acquisitions announced last year.

In December, it announced the acquisition of Bristol-based Booze Inn Company, which owns 10 managed houses.

However, Booze Inn Co proprietor Alan Wignall revealed last week that the deal, originally agreed 12 months ago, had still not been completed.

He said: "We have been waiting for things to happen since early March last year, which makes it difficult for us to run the business."

Wignall, who founded Booze Inn Co seven years ago, said he has now been forced to break up his estate by finding buyers for individual pubs.

Burns Leisure development director Eddie Kerins did not want to comment.

In December, Burns Leisure also announced the takeover of Moles Brewery in Melksham, Wiltshire, along with its 11-strong pub company, Cascade Public Houses, and its wholesale business, Cascade Drinks.

But it is understood that, four months later, this deal has also not been completed.

Last year, Burns Leisure agreed to buy the Tom Hoskins brewery in Leicester plus five of its pubs for £750,000.

On August 30, former chairman Richard Ellert announced that he expected the deal to be completed "during September".

In December, Burns Leisure completed on the acquisition of the brewery and its adjoining pub but, on December 22, new chairman James Dudgeon announced that the completion date for the remaining four pubs had slipped again, this time to January.

Burns Leisure finally completed a deal for only three of the four pubs in January. The fourth, the Rowell Charter, in Rothwell, near Kettering, Northamptonshire, is understood to be back on the market.

It is a blow for Tom Hoskins, which hoped to dispose of all its assets by October last year so it could become an empty cash shell on the Stock Exchange, ready to be reborn as a new company.

Burns Leisure was founded in 1981 by Stewart Burns and expanded two years ago with a takeover of Archers Ales in Swindon, Wiltshire.

It approached Bristol brewer and pub company Smiles Brewing last year but was rebuffed.