No plans to tenant out Honeycombe pubs, says Cains

Liverpool brewer Cains has rejected claims it is to transfer over to tenanted operations the 100-plus managed Honeycombe Leisure pubs it acquired via the recent reverse takeover of the group.

Reports reached thepublican.com​ last week that the brewer, newly listed on the stock market and run by brothers Sudaghara and Ajmail Dusanj, was looking to tenant out the Honeycombe estate as well as returning 14 leases belonging to Punch Taverns.

However, this was flatly refuted by Cains chief executive Sudarghara Dusanj. "We are close to completing our 100-day review of the Honeycombe business, during which time we've been getting to understand the estate as well as related issues such as getting Cains pouring in a number of sites," he said.

"There may be the odd one or two pubs that are transferred to tenancy or are sold, but we're ruling out any significant numbers of transfers [to tenanted operations]."

Nor were there plans to return leases to Punch, said Dusanj, although eight Ma Hubbards sites managed by Honeycombe prior to Cains coming on board had been returned to their owners.

The 100-day review, launched after Honeycombe's reverse takeover of Cains was finalised in June, comes to an end next week. On completion, Cains is to kick off an investment programme across the enlarged estate, as and where such investment is needed. But Dusanj warned there would be "no quick fixes", and that the group's operation "would always be under review".

At the time of the takeover announcement in May this year, Dusanj said the deal afforded Cains "a direct route to its customer base via its ability to market its own beer into an additional 100 pubs through our existing in-house distribution facility, thereby increasing the footprint of the Cains brand".

The move effectively saw the dissolution of the troubled Honeycombe, and Cains becoming a stock market listed company for the first time, on the Alternative Investment Market.