Onward and upward for Pubmaster

When the phone finally stopped ringing it came as a shock. It was, said John Sands (pictured)​, "like stepping into a cold shower on a hot day".

The phone had been ringing, it seemed, day and night for a solid five months as the Pubmaster chief executive battled to take over Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries (W&DB).

When the bid failed, by the narrowest of margins, on August 13, it must have been a huge disappointment.

As John himself admits, "we were so confident we would get it, the press was with us all the way. But now we have to say good luck to Wolves and move on.

"The deal was important to us, of course, but it wasn't crucial to the future of the company. When we refinanced Pubmaster last December Wolves wasn't even a target. We only turned to Wolves in January, when we realised its management buy-out had failed."

So what went wrong with Pubmaster's bid? "We lost it. They didn't win it," he said, cryptically. "It was so close. We had 47 per cent and were within a couple of shareholders of getting it. But the financial markets went against us in the last week of the campaign. A lot of people were wondering whether we could get the return on our investment.

"Maybe it shouldn't have been such a surprise that we lost it," he continued. "In the previous three-and-a-half years we had bid for 15 or 16 businesses and bought three - Mercury, Devonshire and Vaux. That's a hit rate of one in five, and that's probably better than the industry average."

W&DB's own ambitious plans for the business have been mentioned by others as the factor that swung it.

"Wolves has set itself a tall order to achieve. Only time will tell whether it will succeed," was all the Pubmaster boss would say, with a sense that, for him the whole matter is already something in the distant past.

"There are a number of other opportunities we can pursue," he said. "Pub Estate Company, InnSpired and Avebury are obviously of interest. You're going to ask me about Nomura, but I can't make head nor tail of what's going on there so I'm not getting excited about that." (Nomura recently disappointed speculation that it was to sell its pubs.)

What John is getting excited about is Scotland. Within two days of losing W&DB, Pubmaster clinched another deal, much smaller, but significant in its own way. The purchase of the 21-pub Edinburgh-based Solitaire Leisure for £5m boosted the company's presence north of the border to 33 outlets.

In the last couple of weeks it has been pushing through a deal for the 35-strong estate of Glasgow's Pubs.com, the operator formerly known as Eagle Taverns. In the still relatively fragmented Scottish marketplace, Pubmaster has suddenly become a serious player.

"I see lots of opportunity there," said John. "They've got proper licensing laws for a start! I also get the impression the economy is doing well post-devolution and there seems to be more awareness of the consumer. It's a really interesting market."

There are also geographical gaps south of the border which he is keen on filling - in the West Country and the East Midlands.

So there is plenty to take his mind off the disappointment of losing W&DB. However, it is not an experience that John wants totally to forget.

"We learned a huge amount from it," he said. "Because Wolves was not a willing seller we had to develop new techniques of analysing the business from afar. We had to use our own intelligence and managed to value about 95 per cent of the estate through visiting the pubs as customers.

"It's strange, but for all the hard work it was an enjoyable experience. It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle, you have to understand how the business functions and look beyond buying the company and start thinking about what you are going to do with it if you get it. That's a really interesting exercise.

"I also learned a lot about brewing," he added. John hasn't run a brewery since 1989 when he left Brent Walker which owned Camerons and Tolly Cobbold.

"I was surprised how the market has changed since then and how strong national brands have become. It is an uphill struggle for brewers like Wolves."

It was widely assumed during the takeover campaign that Pubmaster, if successful, would close or sell W&DB's four breweries. John denies this and is puzzled at the behaviour of the Campaign for Real Ale, which opposed the bid on those very grounds.

It probably didn't affect the result, but John appears slightly offended at the suggestion and he does come across as a pubco chief executive who is unusually committed to cask ale.

He has certainly taken the trouble to study the potential of W&DB's beer brands and where they are positioned in the marketplace.

The approach fits with John's view that Pubmaster is "not just a landlord". Although he still gets letters addressed to "the brewery", the company remains exclusively focused on tenanted pubs, and because they are the only source of Pubmaster's income it is vital that it is involved in making each of them successful businesses.

"We said in 1995 that the future is in tenancies, and I think that, along with Enterprise, we were the only ones saying that at that time.

"The tenancy is the backbone of the pub industry. You can make a lot of money from them and have a good time as well. But the company has got to help the tenant to market their business, to train themselves and their staff.

"After all, they are taking a risk alongside you and it's a lonely old world for tenants. They have no colleagues to turn to so it's important that we give them support."

The great challenge faced by the tenanted pub sector at the moment is, however, securing the talent of the tenants.

Although tenancies were indeed unfashionable in the mid 1990s, the situation is now reversed. Many hundreds of managed houses are being converted to tenancy and there is tremendous pressure to recruit quality licensees.

John, however, is not too worried. "There is lots of talent about out there, a pool of pub managers and assistant managers with a lot to contribute. It's a matter of giving them the opportunity to apply it and training them properly," he said.

"The problem with this industry is that you usually have to have money as well. Are there enough talented people out there with £20,000?

"We have to think in a different way. When we recognise talent, and we have the right pub for them, we put them in there as a turnkey operation. Otherwise you create a barrier.

"We will look at the fall-out from the recent redundancies at Marconi, for instance, but we aren't in the game of taking the redundancy money off them and watching them go bust. All that happens then is, they turn sour and you've screwed up a decent pub. It's no good having the money but not the talent."

John is relentlessly upbeat about the future. "We depress ourselves unnecessarily I think. People can forget what it's all about. We're in the business of selling enjoyment."

Related stories:

Pubmaster to finalise purchase of Pubs.com (12 September 2001)

Pubmaster looks for acquisitions despite W&DB failure (16 August 2001)

Pubmaster fails to buy W&DB (13 August 2001)

Wolves share offer attacked by Pubmaster (09 August 2001)