Merchant Inns goes into administration
Six pubs belonging to award-winning pub company Merchant Inns, the chain set up by property magnate Sir John Ritblat, have been placed on the market following the sudden announcement that the company had fallen into administration.
Joint administrators Neville Kahn and Nick Edwards of Deloitte said difficulties were caused by the discovery in recent weeks of a number of previously unknown financial liabilities that have made it impossible to continue running the business as it stands.
A spokesman for Deloitte said that no further details of these discoveries are available at this time.
"It is our intention to continue to trade the business, with a view to selling each of the pubs as a going concern - they are of extremely high quality, in first rate locations and we are confident of finding a buyer in the near term," said Kahn.
Ritblat, the honorary president and former chairman and managing director of British Land, one of the largest property development and investment companies in the UK, and Robert Breare founded the company two years ago to specialise in restoring unloved pubs and transforming them into boutique pubs with letting rooms.
Breare was sacked as chairman in August. Ritblat, the principal investor in the company, is also non-executive chairman of Colliers CRE, the commercial real estate consultancy that owns Colliers Robert Barry, which has been appointed to handle the sale of the pubs.
They include the Talbot Inn in Ripley, Surrey, the Lambert Arms in Aston Rowant, Oxfordshire, and the Carnarvon Arms in Whitway, Berkshire.
