Glasshouse owed tax man £500,000 arrears

Glasshouse, the 12-strong pub company led by Peter Linacre, owed HM Customs & Excise around £500,000 when it went into a pre-pack administration at the end of January, a report by the administrator reveals.

The debt amounted to six months of tax arrears and HMRC was threatening to wind up the company after a repayment plan lapsed. The report reveals that there had been an attempt to sell the company, but negotiations failed in November 2008 after five months.

Glasshouse had also been trying to persuade Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises since May 2008 to take back loss-making sites, write off debt of around £900,000, improve beer discounts and revise rents — but no agreement was reached.

In January 2009, the company was unable to pay rent and beer arrears to maintain trading. The New Pub Company, a company also headed by Linacre, bought seven of the 12 sites on 21 January 2009 for £150,000 plus £84,058 for stock and fixtures in a pre-pack administration.

Administrator RSM Bentley Jennison said a pre-pack was in the best interests of the creditors. "Four of the seven sites were trading at a loss. The remaining three sites were making a small annual profit."

Sources close to the situation say that Glasshouse had originally done S&NPE a favour by taking leases on Globe sites, allowing the Globe securitisation to go ahead. The £900,000 loan had arisen after Glasshouse had refused to pay rent because it found trade figures supplied by S&NPE completely unreliable — unpaid rent was converted to a loan.

A source added: "Glasshouse had offered to repay part of the £900,000 loan with real money and reinvest in the sites — but negotiations with S&NPE went on too long."