Gary Landesberg

Gary Landesberg owner, Admiral Taverns (7)

Why he is on the list:

Landesberg owns Britain's third biggest tenanted and leased pub company, and the largest privately-owned one.

A significant number of outlets were initially purchased from the lower end of other pub estates. Numbers currently total around 2,000 or so.

What the past year has held:

Landesberg told the Morning Advertiser a year ago that the company was sitting on its

hands in acquisition terms, as the credit crunch caused bank after bank to fall like mighty redwoods. The Admiral boss switched his strategy to paying down as much debt as possible — it's rumoured £100m got returned to his banks last year, and he has set a conservative target of £60m for the current year. The regular refreshing of the Admiral disposal list is a reflection of how many pubs are struggling in his bottom end.

Challenges ahead:

There is unlikely to be much of an appetite for acquisition at Admiral, as its owners wonder whether the property market for its discarded pubs will hold up.

Among remaining pubs within the estate, the trick is to, as they say in property-slinger circles, prevent sites from "falling over".