Brook lands new role with Punch

InnSpired chief executive Peter Brook is set to join Punch Taverns as property and strategy director, according to Morning Advertiser sister publication M&C Report.

Brook will fill the post at the end of January once the integration of InnSpired ­ the 1,064-strong tenanted and leased pub business Punch bought for £335m last month ­ is complete in January.

Giles Thorley, chief executive, said: "He is a very capable guy and I'm very glad he's joining us." Punch management is known to have been impressed with the way Brook ran InnSpired.

One Punch insider said: "We were monitoring InnSpired for a few years before the acquisition. We thought a number of the targets for InnSpired were pretty stiff but the company managed to hit them time after time."

It is thought Brook will eventually join the executive board at Punch. The executive had started to look a little light for a business that has doubled in size in little more than a year with the acquisitions of Pubmaster and InnSpired.

It comprises Robert McDonald, finance director, Adrian Fawcett, chief operating officer, and Jonathan Paveley, commercial director, alongside Thorley.

The news follows last week's onward sale of 545 pubs, mostly from the InnSpired estate, to "Pubfolio" for £162.5m.