Bass pub estate to be part of Six Continents Retail

Managers and barstaff working for Bass Leisure Retail are set to become part of Six Continents Retail next month.

The pub company is on course to be renamed after Bass sold its brewing arm and the Bass name to Interbrew.

It has settled on the name of Six Continents PLC to "emphasise the global spread of the business".

As well as 2,000 pubs and restaurants in the UK, Bass now owns or franchises more than 3,200 hotels in nearly 100 countries across six continents.

It already owned the rights to the trademark of Six Continents, which is the name of a loyalty scheme for its Inter-Continental Hotels.

If the renaming is approved by shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting on July 20, it will be introduced on July 30.

All Bar One, O'Neill's, Vintage Inns, Harvester, Browns, It's a Scream, Edwards, Goose and Ember Inns will all come under the new Six Continents Retail.

Chairman Sir Ian Prosser said the new identity would be rolled out across the business over the next 12 months.

From August next year, only the owner of Bass ales will be allowed to use the 224-year-old name.

The historic red triangle logo is also being dropped in favour of a modern blue-and-white image based around the number 6 and the letter C (pictured above)​.

The idea of Six Continents was thought up by two unnamed Bass employees working in its European hotels. The group went on to pay consultancy Interbrand £375,000 to develop it into a brand and make sure it was applicable across the world.

Bass rejected the idea of Seven Continents because it has no plans to open any hotels or pubs in Antarctica.