Punch expands its growing estate

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Estate numbers: Punch has around 1,300 pubs across the UK

Punch Pubs & Co has acquired a trio of Leicestershire pubs from Steamin' Billy into its leased and tenanted division.

The Dog & Gun in Syston, the White Bear in Hinckley and the Horse & Trumpet in Sileby will join Punch’s 900 leased and tenanted sites.

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Dog & Gun, Syston, Leicestershire

The 1,300-strong pub group also stated it has a strong pipeline of acquisitions across the Midlands region.

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White Bear, Hinckley, Leicestershire

Head of estate development and acquisitions Andrew Cannons said: “We are pleased to welcome the Dog & Gun, the White Bear and the Horse & Trumpet into the Punch family and look forward to seeing our proposed plans come to life."

Community pubs

He added: “Our publicans will have access to Punch’s industry-leading investment and support, which will allow each of these pubs to flourish once again.

“Our priority is in providing the communities of Syston, Hinckley and Sileby with fantastic community pubs and I am looking forward to sharing further updates as these plans progress.”

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Horse & Trumpet, Sileby, Leicestershire

Punch was recently named Best Partnership Pub Company (501+ sites) winner at the 2024 Publican Awards, impressing the judges with its energy, passion and innovation.

The business edged ahead of the field, showcasing great initiatives and schemes, which put its partners, the pub operators, in a strong position for success.

Furthermore, earlier in the year (February), Punch announced its performance for the first quarter of its financial year where it “remained strong”.

Company report

It reported total revenue for the 16-week period ending 3 December 2023 was £96m, against £92m in the previous year period of 16 weeks to 4 December 2022.

Punch spent £7.7m of capital expenditure investment into its estate during the quarter – down from £11.5m in same period the previous year. 

In the update, the group also reported it had converted 71 pubs from the leased and tenanted division across to its managed arm since August 2021 with plans to slow the rate of conversion as it took its time to select and build the next pipeline of pubs for investment and conversion, while taking learnings from the completed successful conversions.

At the time, Punch had identified its next tranche of pubs to convert into the managed model, which was around 70 more pubs that would be suitable for conversion.