Property company in the bidding for Laurel

by The PMA Team

A property company has been named as the third bidder in the Laurel Pub Company auction.

St James Place Capital, the majority shareholder in the Earls Court and Olympia complex, has gone forward to the second round of the auction alongside property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz and GI Partners, the private equity firm that backed the management buyout at Yates Group.

All three bidders have tabled offers in excess of £150m for Laurel's 160 pubs and bars. Second rounds bids are due in on 22 November.

"There is a very clear thirst for pub assets in the property world at the moment," said one source close to the auction.

The Laurel estate has sales of around £120m, which works out at £687,000 of sales per pub per annum. It is believed a service-based sales initiative has meant like-for-like sale are up by around 5%, but percentage labour costs for a wet-led estate are very high at around 27%.

Another source said: "Laurel's bars have been taking more this year but making less money ­ it's the labour line that has gone very high. It's also fair to say that takings are also quite a long way from its heyday."

The Laurel estate is attractive to property buyers because of the 120 freehold sites in the estate. "A final sale figure in the range of £150 to £160m would seem to be right," one source said.

Last week, Laurel chief executive Ian Payne, who had hoped to launch a management buyout, withdrew from the sale after tabling the lowest bid.