Wizard's bright spell

Wizard Inns is dedicated to transforming its outlets into quality destinations.

When Wizard Inns bought one of Phoenix Inns' unloved tenancies in Croydon, Surrey, three-and-a-half years ago, it was a tiny men's boozer. Now, the Porter & Sorter is four times as big, offers table service to diners, has a garden and provides a no-smoking area.

The transformation is remarkable, but Wizard was keen not to alienate the original customers - many of whom worked at the neighbouring station and postal sorting office - while bringing in more women and professionals.

"At one end we can have food, table service and no-smoking areas, but at the other end it is still quite male and we have a screen showing sports," managing director Chris Hutt (pictured)​ explained. "We are not trying to make it a plush bar for trendy people."

With 37 Phoenix pubs, Wizard has transformed 24 of them into high quality managed houses in the community market. But this year, it branched out into a new direction by opening four "plush bars".

But Wizard has not quite spun off into the world of "trendy people" - these are chameleon bars that appeal to office workers at lunchtime and young clubbers at night-time.

"The nub of what we are trying to do is to be the best operator of unbranded managed pubs and bars," Chris said. "What we are driven by in acquiring new sites is quality of location. When we look at a site, we think about what is a suitable business treatment for that particular location.

"There are other companies who play in the same market as us but most of them are hybrid organisations that are trying to do lots of other things at the same time.

"We have a better chance of getting closer to the excellence we aspire to if we remain terribly focused."

The bars are the product of 12 months of intensive investment, which has seen Wizard open 12 new pubs and bars after selling 13 of the original Phoenix outlets.

"We have progressively bought stronger locations and dropped off weaker ones," Chris said. "That has given us a terrific amount of growth in the business without huge growth in the total number of premises.

"We are not number driven in terms of the number of sites we operate. We are driven by quality."

As well as buying six pubs from Suffolk brewer Greene King last year, Wizard also bought its first three unlicensed premises which have now been converted into pubs and bars.

"We found that both approaches worked commercially so we want to do both going forward," Chris said.

The company was formed in 1998 under the banner of "giving the local back to the locals", attracting more women and offering more food. While Scottish & Newcastle and Bass Leisure Retail are investing in community brands, Wizard still believes in pubs with individuality.

"There is more to the trade than a Hungry this, a Crafty that or a Scruffy something or other. What we believe in is the good old traditional pub," Chris said.

Wizard was formed with a £32m funding package, with Nomura Principal Finance Group providing £9.5m of equity and the Royal Bank of Scotland £22.5m of senior debt.

Chris is well-known in the pub industry having come to prominence in the 1970s as chief executive of Midsummer Inns.

As boss of Unicorn Inns, he developed the Newt & Cucumber and Wig & Pen chains before selling the company to former Oxfordshire brewer Morland for £12.3m six years ago.

His previous enterprise, Isisgreen, which operated two pubs in Birmingham and Southampton, was sold to SFI Group for £1.46m before he turned his attention to Wizard.

Two months ago, he was back at one of Morland's former outlets in Sutton, Surrey, which was part of its chain of chromium-plated Ice-o-bars. It is now Café Mango, which opened in April after a £375,000 investment with a 1am licence on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and Wizard's first dancefloor and DJ booth.

While the core estate is within the M25 with a scattering across to Bristol, the estate has spread to new parts of the country, such as Café Maximo Bar in Norwich city centre (pictured right)​.

While Wizard may be opening bars and buying shops, Chris stressed that the central focus was still taking "good sites that have frustrated trading operations". Two months ago, it unveiled another traditional community pub, the King's Head in Ashford, Kent.

"Some companies buy a pub and just continue running it for a few years," Chris said. "We like to bring in raw metal that is undertrading and full of potential, and then work our magic to transform the raw metal into a pub or bar that is doing as well as it possibly can."

With the continuing support of Nomura and the Royal Bank of Scotland, Wizard will buy more individual pubs and small packages.

"We have a very good relationship with both our equity and debt providers," Chris said. "It's a much stronger position to be in for a moderately sized business than being quoted on the Alternative Investment Market where there's a clear equity constraint on most listed companies.

"The sector is out of fashion and prices are low, so they probably can't raise new equity for acquisitions.

"To be privately owned by a single shareholder who combines financial muscle with a broad understanding of the industry is a happy position for us to be in.

"Flotation is not on the agenda, but that could change one day if it became a way of creating value rather than destroying it."

At present, Wizard is focusing on its new website, which is used for recruitment, promotions and customer feedback, and its training programmes for developing staff from within.

"We have come to the end of an intensive period, so we are now taking a little breather," Chris said.

Wizard Inns​