Banks give a 'bad deal' says JDW boss

Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin has attacked bank-owned pub companies for giving tenants a rough ride.

Speaking as he revealed his company's half-year results, Mr Martin said that companies such as Unique and Laurel were forced to transfer their managed houses to tenancies because the banks "can't run managed houses".

He added that tenants were given a "bad deal" by pub companies.

"Bank-owned pub companies depend on selling beer at above the market price to tenants and passing repairing obligations to the tenants," he said. "It's a bad deal," he said.

But Maureen Heffernan, spokeswoman for the Deutsche Bank-owned Laurel Pub Company, said: "What Mr Martin forgets is people have a choice whether to be managers, tenants or lessees. We run all of these, depending on what suits the sites."

She said leases offered people a good opportunity to run their own business, with financial and marketing support behind them, and pointed out that leased pubs have the lowest rate of business failure in the entire small business market.

"One in three of our lessees have been with us for more than 10 years," she said. "So we must be doing something right. There are thousands of tenants out there running successful businesses - it's not as black as Mr Martin paints it."

Mr Martin predicted some of the banks would pull out of pubs altogether. He said Nomura's sale of the Unique Pub Company and Voyager Pub Group provided evidence that banks were beginning to withdraw from pub ownership - something he said would be good for the industry.

It is not the first time Mr Martin has courted controversy with his remarks.

In September, he launched an anti-euro campaign by putting up posters and distributing beer mats in his outlets which explained his stance against the single currency.

The campaign, which Mr Martin said was intended to encourage debate about the single currency, is continuing, with new anti-euro beer mats being sent out.

"Our anti-euro campaign is going very well," Mr Martin said. "The beer mats have, for some reason, really wound up pro-euro supporters - so we've got some more of them."

He said he believed the campaign was still important.

"We've polled people in our company and 90 per cent said they were opposed to the euro," he said. "We've printed articles for and against the euro in our in-house magazine Wetherspoon News and, in my opinion, most of the public just want to know the facts - which is what we're telling them."

Related stories:​

JD Wetherspoon reported to Trading Standards for "misleading customers" (28 February 2002)

Pub boss slams Wetherspoon's pricing strategy (31 January 2002)

Cornish licensee bans euro, fearing loss of trade (18 January 2002)

200-year-old pub amongst the first to take euros (2 January 2002)

Many pubs will not accept euro (7 December 2001)

Wetherspoon boss will accept euro in his pubs (28 November 2001)

Wetherspoon boss anger at high tax (1 November 2001)

Wetherspoon chairman attacks euro (7 September 2001)