Turner's prize: the helm of Fuller's

After almost 25 years service with Fuller's, Michael Turner is to become chief executive. Mark Stretton looks at his five-year expansion plan.

Last week Fuller Smith & Turner, the brewer and pub retailer, revealed that executive chairman Anthony Fuller would step down in July to make way for Michael Turner.

The move was widely anticipated and is in keeping with the company's policy of evolution rather than revolution. But the change also represents the start of a five-year expansion policy that will see Fuller's double both its managed and tenanted estates, to a total of 500 pubs.

The growth plans may go some way to appeasing the City, which has criticised the company for being too conservative with its ambitions, and therefore failing to maximise shareholder value.

Although the Chiswick-based company always builds for the long term, it is encouraging for the industry as a whole that, following last year's terrorist attacks, a retailer such as Fuller's is looking to grow.

The trade was not as exposed to the fall-out of terrorism as other industries and, as the incoming chief of the London-based brewer, Michael Turner can speak with some authority on the impact of the September 11 atrocities.

Not only does his company have one of the biggest concentrations of sites in the capital, but it also opened two flagship hotels just days before the terrorist attacks.

"There was a complete dip in trade," he said. "People didn't go out for a week or two and it was clearly a very sombre time for everyone.

"But I think people paid their respects and then realised that in fact, life is pretty short. Once the flags were returned to full-mast I think everyone was ready to press on."

Many operators share that sentiment, which saw people quickly returning to Britain's pubs and clubs. Many retailers reported best-ever results for the Christmas and New Year period.

"People tend to blame September 11 for a lot of things," said Michael. "What it did was to bring into focus the amount of redundancies that were all already happening, especially in London.

"The City has lost some of its sparkle but we know the merchant bankers will return. It's all cyclical and one thing you can be sure of is what goes down must come up, and vice versa."

Michael, who has been with the company for more than 20 years, said the lack of people in London's financial district was especially noticeable on Thursday and Friday nights.

He says the fall in trade is not just due to fewer workers in and around London. "There are definitely less cross-Channel customers and fewer transatlantic customers," he said. "I think people are still avoiding travel to a certain extent."

He does not, however, share in the feeling of panic that has gripped many hoteliers around the world since that fateful autumn day.

Despite the lack of travellers and the low levels of occupancy experienced by many hotel groups, the two that Fuller's opened for business in September, one near Tower Bridge and the other in the city centre of Bristol, are already showing profit.

This, says Michael, is a hugely positive thing - if the hotels can make money now, in what is perceived to be a difficult period, think what they can do in happier times. He says people also forget that Fuller's is not new to hotels and have been running them for 30 years.

The Bristol site is the company's fourth venue in the city, and Michael says the M4 corridor between the west country and the capital is a natural expansion area.

Neither Michael nor the rest of the Fuller's management team are particularly worried about the market in general and the past 12 months have, as ever, been about building for the long-term.

The culture at the Chiswick-based firm is evolutionary. "We're always evolving what we've got," he said, "whether it's developing new retail concepts, making the food menus more exciting, or improving the quality of our beer."

The company has installed a cask dispense system into all of its managed pubs to ensure that ale is served to the customer in the same condition as it left the brewery, part of the company's constant focus on standards, says Michael.

The new boss says the firm's beer brands, under the guidance of John Roberts, are stronger than ever.

"Everything is going up, it's going very well," said Michael. "We have invested heavily in the quality of our beers, which are now ideally placed in the market. Many people will know that if you get a decent pint of London Pride, it is absolute nectar."

The company is also attracting new customers to ale through Honeydew, its honey-based bottled beer.

"Honeydew is a halfway house," he said. "It doesn't have the same edge as ale and it's sweet enough for people who would normally drink lager.

"It can also act as a stepping stone, with drinkers later moving on again, to normal ale. It's a great way to find new markets for our beer." Michael remained tight-lipped regarding further developments in Fuller's "halfway" range, but more product launches are expected, possibly a peach offering next.

The incoming chief executive left school in 1969, taking a year off to drive a Land Rover across Europe and Asia with two friends. After surviving a gunpoint incident in Afghanistan, the trio made it down to Australia before sailing back to Britain on a merchant navy vessel.

Having qualified as a chartered accountant, he then travelled through America before landing a job with the South African arm of what was to be become accounting giant Ernst & Young.

He joined the wines division of Fuller's in 1978, as an understudy to Anthony Fuller, before taking over in 1980. He became marketing director in 1988 where he undertook a revamp of Fuller's pub and beer brands, a project he describes as his single finest hour. As managing director for the past 10 years, he has worked closely with the current chairman.

Michael plans to more than double the size of Fuller's pub estate over the next five years, which currently stands at 120 tenanted and 114 managed pubs. Together with Simon Emeny, head of the retail estate, he will look to expand the company's managed concepts such as Fine Line, Ale & Pie and One of Two. Fuller's intends to add to its five "whistle & flute" style pubs. These pub-meets-bar outlets are London-focused, positioned in fairly affluent areas, and tend to be more wine orientated and female friendly. "There is a genuine place for the traditional pub and that is very much a part of our business," he said. "But it's much better to attack the market from lots of different angles.

"We now have the firepower, the expertise and the knowledge in place to make our aim of doubling the estate within five years very achievable."

Michael Turner on...​

...customer service​"I, like everyone, want higher standards, but we should not lose sight of the fact that we have made enormous strides in recent years. I'm not sure we want the completely antiseptic and superficial 'have a nice day' routine."

...red tape​"It's terrible - we're becoming a nanny state. It's unbelievable that all the talk from the EU is about adding more red tape. It's all been taken too far. The EU and the Government are endangering the entrepreneur."

...beer duty​"It's extraordinary that the Government looks at beer as simply a way of generating revenue. It doesn't care how much damage it does and how many businesses are lost. We have presented economic models to the government that show a cut in duty would result in more revenue. We pay six times as much as the French. More than 1.25 million pints are smuggled into the UK every day and they (the Government) tell us it is insignificant."