Young's acquires 16 pub sites for £20m

London brewer and retailer Young's has spent approximately £20m on 16 new pub acquisitions in the past

couple of months.

The move to acquire pubs comes in the wake of the company's £69m sale of its Wandsworth brewery to property developer Minerva, which has already paid Young's £14m. Payments of £8.5m and £46.5m are due in July 2007 and January 2008.

Young's has bought former Spirit-managed venues from Punch, as well as sites from Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) and property magnate Jack Petchey.

Pubs bringing the size of Young's estate to 221 are: the Crown & Anchor, Appledram, West Sussex; the Fire Stables, Wimbledon, London; the Grange, Ealing, London; the Grove, Camberwell, London; the Prince Alfred, Little Venice, London (all from Spirit); the Rising Sun, Epsom, Surrey; the Greyhound, Lingfield, Surrey; the Falkland Arms, Dorking, Surrey; the Royal Oak, Stonebridge, Dorking, Surrey; the William IV, Bletchingly, Surrey (all Petchey); a new venue at Battersea Reach, London; the Riverside, Vauxhall, London; the Waterside, Chelsea, London - not yet open (all St George); the Hand & Spear, Weybridge, Surrey (M&B - closed for refurbishment) and two private purchases - the Chequers, Cassington, Oxfordshire and the Hollywood, West Brompton, London.

A Young's spokesman said: "This is the beginning of the acquisition programme using money from the brewery sale.

"The programme is controlled more by pubs

becoming available than by targeting a figure of, say,

30 a year."

Most will be run on a managed basis. Additional purchases are in the pipeline.