Punch sells 545 InnSpired pubs
Punch is to sell 545 of the pubs it bought from InnSpired in September to a new company, Pubfolio, for £162.5m or £300,000 each.
The deal, for a chunky 10.3 times outlet profit, means a £37.5m book profit for Punch just two months after the acquisition of InnSpired.
The sale will leave Punch with just 471 pubs from the Inn-Spired estate after the earlier sale of 88 pubs to Admiral Taverns for £23m.
A source close to the sale told the Morning Advertiser: "Punch has ended up paying £344,000 per pub for the remaining InnSpired pubs producing an average of £52,000 per pub earnings each year compared to the £384,000 per pub it paid for Pubmaster pubs producing £41,000 per pub in earnings per annum.
"Punch has paid a 10% discount, in earnings multiple terms, for the InnSpired pubs compared to the Pubmaster deal for pubs that are 25% larger."
The key element in buying InnSpired for a relatively cheap sum was its owner Alchemy Partner's unwillingness to sell the InnSpired estate in two blocks. The source added: "Alchemy didn't want to break up the portfolio. "We knew it was, basically, two portfolios of pubs.
"In effect, the insistence of Alchemy that InnSpired should be sold as one portfolio limited the number of people who could buy it.
"Credit has to go Giles Thorley (Punch chief executive) for seeing that the InnSpired estate could be broken up."
Pubfolio is to be managed by County Estate Management, which will take over InnSpired's Trowbridge headquarters. Inn-Spired chief executive Peter Brook is to continue working for Punch.
Pubfolio beat a group of four other bidders interested in the InnSpired disposal. "The market for these sorts of pubs has been transformed," a Punch source said. "A year ago, there would really only have been a couple of possible buyers."
