The Teddington‑headquartered group currently operates some 337 bedrooms across its estate, with further sites in the pipeline over the next 18-months as part of its £40m investment drive.
“It’s been a transformational period for the business as we’ve really focused in on pubs with rooms as a platform for growth”, Ferrier told The MA.
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“We’ve been opening pubs and pubs with rooms in healthy numbers and are on track to see £100m turnover this year, which is no mean feat in an unquestionably challenging market.”
Since the start of the last financial year, Heartwood has opened around nine new pubs, with its next project, the Potters Heron Hotel in Romsey, Hampshire, set to welcome guests from Saturday 4 April.
Boasting 60 bedrooms, the multimillion-pound refurbishment marks one of the pubcos’ biggest developments to date.
Other upcoming openings in its pub-with-rooms division include the Muddy Fox, a coaching inn in Solihull due to launch at the end of 2026, a Trumpington pub formerly known as the Lord Byron that will reopen as the Meadowlark, and the Lord Bute, a 19‑bedroom hotel in Highcliffe, Dorset.
Heartwood 2.0
Ferrier added Heartwood, which has been backed by private equity firm Alchemy Partners since 2022, planned to open a further five to six pubs each year for the next three years, hoping to reach 500 bedrooms by 2027.
The business is also eyeing sites across the UK, including the north, Scotland and Wales, though the south east will remain its primary focus in the near term, Ferrier explained.
“It’s a really exciting period…we’re looking at several things at the moment”, he continued.
“To be doing multiple things at once just gives everybody energy and such a positive feeling, particularly during a period when the wider economic climate is not helping.
“But we’re pushing through and doing them anyway, we’re very fortunate to have the investor that we have because they are so incredibly supportive of our business.”
In addition to new openings, Heartwood has earmarked £1.5m to refresh six of its older sites by the end of June to bring them in line with the brand’s newer look. Ferrier added significant investment was also being made in developing its teams.
“It’s a two‑pronged strategy,” he said. “We describe it as Heartwood 2.0.”
Learning curve
The CEO explained the strategy was devised around 18-months ago in a bid to combat rising operational costs, notably labour and rising national insurance contributions, highlighting the labour cost for a pub-with-rooms model is lower.
He said: “When you sell a bedroom for £120, the labour costs needed to deliver that revenue is infinitely lower than regular pubs, so over time, as you blend in more pubs with rooms into the business, it brings the overall labour cost of the group down.”
Ferrier predicted more operators were likely to look at pubs-with-rooms strategies as cost pressures persist, but cautioned the model requires heavy investment.
“There’s definitely a desire from people to do it,” the CEO said.
“But you’ve got to have the availability of capital, projects like [Potters Heron] require £8m or £9m investment, and there just aren’t a lot of investors willing and able to do that.
“I think the wider sector would love to do more rooms and be creative about how they achieve that.”
However, while Heartwood’s occupancy rates currently sit at around 70%, a milestone for the group, Ferrier told The MA the move to primarily focus on pubs with rooms had been a “steep learning curve” for the business.
“It takes time to build occupancy in room sites,” he continued. “Now we’ve hit 70%, it gets really exciting from here. But that’s not possible without an amazing [team] of people.”
