City Pub Co appoints chief executives and buys three new pubs

The company, which was formed at the end of 2011 by former Capital Pub Company founders Watson and Bruce, has appointed Alex Derrick as chief executive of City Pub Company West and Rupert Clark as chief executive of City Pub Company East. Clark and Derrick will work alongside Watson, chief executive of the City Pub Company group.
The group intends that both City Pub Company East and City Pub Company West will seek to raise a further £10m through EIS fundraising at the start of 2014. The proceeds of the fundraisings will be used to finance further expansion of its pub estate, with the company on track to operate 20 sites by the end of next year.
The group, which recently acquired the Chelsea-based The Phene for c£4m, has added three further sites to its portfolio, The Lighthouse in Battersea, the Roundhouse in Wandsworth, and the Metropolitan in Bath.
The freeholds of the Lighthouse and the Roundhouse have been acquired from Charles Peel, who co-founded Peel Hunt in 1989. Peel Hunt was listed on AIM 2001 for £218m and Peel made over £40m from the business.
It is thought that City Pub Co paid just under £3m for the two London-based sites, which were operated by Alex Corbett.
Derrick was previously operations director of Capital Pub Company and was with company for seven years. Prior to Capital, he was operations manager of Jacomb Guinness Ltd and The Union Bar and Grill Ltd which operated five London-based gastro pubs.
Clark was previously operations manager at Capital and was with the group for four years. Prior to Capital, he worked as operations manager at The Food and Drink Group repositioning their City bars and at Fullers looking after their unbranded bars and gastropubs.
AG&G and Davis Coffer Lyons are believed to have acted on the Roundhouse and Lighthouse deals.