Chris Jowsey: ‘If you don’t invest, you go backwards’

The community pub operator’s latest programme represents an increase from £34.1m in FY26 and will take investment across its estate to more than £100m over three years.

Jowsey told The Morning Advertiser (MA) the increase was being driven by opportunities to grow sales and profitability across both its leased and tenanted estate and operator managed Proper Pubs division.

“If you don’t invest, you go backwards,” he said. “We can see the opportunity to grow sales and grow profitability for licensees, for operators and for ourselves. Faced with that, we’re willing to take the risk.”

He added Admiral would like to move “faster and further” with investment but said taxation and Government policy had made further spending more difficult to justify.

Growth investment

Around £8.5m of the FY27 programme will be directed towards maintenance, leaving the overall split broadly in line with last year, when around three quarters of capex was allocated to growth projects.

Jowsey said maintenance projects were increasingly used as opportunities to improve trading performance, with work such as roof repairs often combined with external decoration or other upgrades.

Admiral has also started deploying this year’s budget quickly, with more than 30% already spent during the first four months of its financial year.

“We’ve got more schemes than we ever have. We’ve had a really fast start.”

Returns vary significantly by scheme, he added, with Admiral assessing performance across the overall programme rather than applying a uniform return to every project.

“You can spend a relatively small amount and get a really big return in percentage terms. Then if you spend half a million quid on a pub, the percentage might be lower, but it’s still giving you lots of pound notes.”

Recent investments have also highlighted the potential for larger community pubs within Admiral’s estate.

The Y Pentan in Mold, north Wales, has passed £1m in annual sales following investment, with the pub now generating around £20,000 a week. Its success prompted Admiral to invest again and expand into previously underused outside space to accommodate increased demand.

The Crown at Fordham has also performed strongly after Admiral invested further during its rebuild following a major fire. Jowsey said some summer weeks had reached between £30,000 and £40,000 in sales, with the pub now averaging more than £20,000 a week.

“It just took off,” he said.

Outside trading areas are expected to remain an investment opportunity, with Admiral having also spent more than £100,000 developing the garden and car park area at the Railway in Pontefract.

Jowsey said the project was “returning fantastically well”.

Proper Pubs to reach 250 sites

Proper Pubs will remain another major focus, with the operator managed division set to open its 250th site, the Charles Darwin in Shrewsbury, in November. The division had around 27 pubs before the pandemic.

Jowsey said typical Proper Pubs investments now ranged between £250,000 and £400,000 per site and were currently generating stronger average returns than Admiral’s leased and tenanted investments.

The division is also investing an additional £600,000 in operator incentives, rewarding pub partners for driving sales, improving yields and reducing wastage. Three operators recently received £5,000 bonuses after reaching weekly sales of £20,000.

Jowsey said the programme was designed to “encourage people to grow their sales even further”.

Energy efficiency also remains part of Admiral’s investment strategy. The group is trialling a number of sustainable initiatives each year before rolling successful projects across the wider estate.

Its latest programme will include a larger trial combining solar power with battery storage. Previous initiatives have included cellar management systems, heating controls and measures designed to manage energy use more efficiently on a room by room basis.

“We trial about four or five different things every year and then the ones that work, we start to introduce across the whole estate,” Jowsey said.

Acquisitions

The £38.4m programme is ring fenced specifically for Admiral’s existing estate, with acquisitions funded separately through profits, investor capital, bank lending and proceeds from disposals.

Jowsey said the group remained keen to acquire further community pubs following its recent purchase of 10 Mountain Pub Company sites.

“They’re good pubs, good operators, well maintained, wet led and community based. They are absolutely our sweet spot. If we can buy more of those community pubs, we would.”

Looking ahead, Jowsey said success would mean another 200 pubs receiving meaningful investment over the coming year.

“Another 200 great looking, well invested pubs with happy licensees and operators and happy communities enjoying them,” he said.

However, he warned the current tax burden was limiting the amount operators could invest, particularly in more marginal pubs. Jowsey said almost 40% of pub revenue was being absorbed by tax in one form or another, making some investments more difficult to justify.

“If the Government took less at that point, we’d be able to invest more and the pubs would generate more. They effectively stifle investment and make it less attractive for anyone to put their money in.”