Living Ventures eyes stock market debut
19-Jan-2004
Living Ventures, the bar group headed by Tim Bacon, plans to float on the stock market within the next 18 months.Mr Bacon (pictured), chief...
Market forces?
12-Dec-2003
We ask which companies will be winners in 2004.As former Aussie rugby union ace David Campese can testify, trying to pick winners is a sport littered...
Cider puts the sparkle back into Merrydown
11-Dec-2003
Is cider recapturing some of its old strength? Life has not been easy for the cider men with the problems at HP Bulmer, the front runner, underlining...
Great survivor may face mammoth test
04-Dec-2003
Frederic Robinson, the unquoted, family-controlled brewer, has developed an insatiable thirst for shares of little Lakeland brewer Jennings Brothers....
Revolution's in retreat
27-Nov-2003
Another "drinks revolution" is feeling the pinch. Old timers will remember the infamous red revolution Watney Mann's desperate attempt to remain a...
McMullen's plans £40m loan for share buy-back
20-Nov-2003
by The PMA Team Hertford brewer McMullen's has negotiated a new £40m loan that will enable it to pay off family members looking to sell their shares...
How the shares are shared
06-Nov-2003
The Faversham brewer is controlled by a huge block of special "B" shares, held by the Neame family. Stuart Neame says he can speak for his two...
Brewers give Ofex ballast
30-Oct-2003
Constituents of the Ofex fringe share market are a contrasting bunch ranging from young, highly-speculative companies to solid, long-established...
Rumours fly at JD Wetherspoon
27-Oct-2003
Pub group JD Wetherspoon (JDW) has quashed rumours that the company could be sold to its directors.Shares in JDW soared last week fuelled by...
M&B avoids Scottish thorn
23-Oct-2003
Mitchells & Butlers made the right decision when it walked away from the Scottish & Newcastle pubs auction. To win, it would have been forced...
Level of debt means SFI Group shareholders are left with not
09-Oct-2003
SFI reveals £16m overspend by The PMA Team SFI Group shareholders will be left with nothing after the company overspent by £16m in 14 months...
Pope takes a tumble
02-Oct-2003
With the stock market still happy to toast traditional pub-owning brewers, I wonder if the Pope family, which for years successfully conducted the...
Allied ups bid for Australian winemaker
29-Sep-2003
Allied Domecq (A-D) has raised the stakes in its battle for control of Peter Lehmann Wines, upping its bid to A$4.00 per share, which values the...
SFI sell-offs to help recovery programme
22-Sep-2003
SFI Group has agreed a management buyout of its For Your Eyes Only (FYEO) table dancing business.The operator of the Bar Med, Litten Tree and Slug...
SABMiller volumes expected to fall in the US
03-Sep-2003
The City is expecting a fall in brewer's SABMiller's American volumes later this month when it reveals poor trading in its key US market.SABMiller,...
Pub entrepreneur Michael Cannon bid scuppered
29-Aug-2003
Pub entrepreneur Michael Cannon has fallen short of his target of acquiring 29.9 per cent of Dorset pubco Eldridge Pope (EP).Mr Cannon's takeover...
Pope rejects CI Traders' bid
28-Aug-2003
West Country pub operator Eldridge Pope has rejected a takeover proposal from Channel Islands-based CI Traders. The Eldridge Pope directors rebuffed...
Scottish misses out on stock market revival
21-Aug-2003
This year's mini stock market revival and our sun-kissed summer have, predictably, worked wonders for beer shares. With a few exceptions, what is...
This little piggy went to market
21-Aug-2003
This little piggy stayed at home This little piggy ate roast beef And this little piggy went "wee wee wee" all the way home. Brewers were as attached...
Share price boom as the sun shines
14-Aug-2003
As temperatures around the country soared last week, so too did the share prices of several pub and brewery groups. Top performers included Scottish...
The beat grows strong for Urbium's star turn
24-Jul-2003
At long last some real cheer from a company running venue bars and nightclubs. Urbium, the Tiger Tiger chain, caught the stock market completely on...
Yates soars on buy-out gossip
16-Jul-2003
Yates Group has poured cold water on suggestions that it is in talks over a venture capital (VC) funded management buy-out, after City rumours pushed...
Mixed messages in a tale of two brewers
10-Jul-2003
Britain's two biggest brewers had conflicting messages last week. Scottish & Newcastle, by far the nation's top beer power with a stock market...
M&B manages to avoid a Footsie humiliation
26-Jun-2003
Shares of Mitchells & Butlers have been in something of a ferment since they were floated on the stock market following the break-up of the old...
Po Na Na suspends shares
29-Apr-2003
The outlook was bleak for Po Na Na this morning as the cash-strapped bar operator asked for its shares to be suspended.The lastest move would...
Aussie's plight
24-Apr-2003
Tony Froggatt, a 54-year-old beer-drinking Australian, will soon be drawing pints at Scottish & Newcastle, Britain's only player in the world...
Time to take stock of market forces
11-Apr-2003
Mark Stretton examines the role of the City analyst - the professionals charged with the difficult task of predicting winners and losers of the stock...
Chez Gerard restaurant chain falls to Paramount
10-Apr-2003
It's taken a long time but Paramount, the former pubco, is about to acquire a new occupation in effect swapping the bar for the grill. Last week...
Hardys & Hansons rides just below all-time peak
03-Apr-2003
For a share to be riding a few notches from its all-time peak is an outstanding endorsement of its investment appeal. Indeed, in these days of...
Osmond goes hostile on 6C
07-Mar-2003
Serial entrepreneur tables £5.6bn bid to tempt Six Continents shareholders. By Mark Stretton.After weeks of hot air, insults and derision, Hugh...
City briefs
07-Feb-2003
Hampshire brewer Gales has appointed a new chairman. Charles Brims, a non-executive since 1995, will assume the role from George Bowyer, whose family...
Steep profit warning rise in leisure sector
30-Jan-2003
The leisure, entertainment and hotel sector saw the steepest rise in profit warnings in the last quarter of 2002 according to Ernst &...
Cider with woe is sorry
30-Jan-2003
tale for Bulmer's boss It looks as though HP Bulmer is up for sale. After the stock market closed on Friday the world's biggest cider maker served up...
What the Sunday papers said
27-Jan-2003
The Sunday TimesINVESTMENT bankers working on the break up of Six Continents are examining ways to release additional capital tied up in its £3.5...
Takeover sees distillerBurn quit stock market
23-Jan-2003
Shares of Scotland's smallest quoted distiller are set to disappear from the stock market. Burn Stewart Distillers is now 55.7% owned by CL...
Share values drop across the pub sector
22-Jan-2003
Depressed pub share-prices have been hit further by a series of grim trading updates from pub operators in the past few days.Publicly quoted...
Slow-starting Urbium's got a Tiger in the tank
16-Jan-2003
Urbium, the quaintly-named trendy bar chain, has experienced sobering times since it arrived on the stock market in the spring of last year. Although...
Casualties pile up after trade's annus horriblus
09-Jan-2003
It's a bleak new year for the trade's two recruits to the stock market's growing army of seriouslywounded companies. In what was a grim year for...
Osmond and Johnson eye 6C Retail
16-Dec-2002
Hugh Osmond and Luke Johnson are both said to be mulling bids for Six Continents' retail pubs division, which will be demerged from the group's...
What the Sunday papers said
16-Dec-2002
The Independent on SundayCUSTOMS & EXCISE has suffered another embarrassing setback, with the latest collapse of a fraud trial bringing its total...
Stock market overreacts to retailers' doldrums
12-Dec-2002
Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson once fretted that a week is a long time in politics. Well, I have just had confirmation that two weeks is an...
What the Sunday papers said
28-Oct-2002
The BusinessBRITVIC, the UK soft drinks manufacturer, is to be put back up for sale next year, once its largest shareholder, Six Continents, has...
Feeling so dizzy on the
10-Oct-2002
Bass merry-go-round Has it all been worthwhile? Certainly the City merchant bankers whose fee income has been inflated by the Bass merry-go-round...
What the Sunday papers said
30-Sep-2002
The BusinessSix Continents is poised to renew efforts to merge its pubs business with Scottish & Newcastle, once it has finalised plans for a...
Analyst calls for 6C and Anheuser to break up S&N
11-Sep-2002
A top analyst from WestLB Panmure has called for Scottish & Newcastle, Britain's biggest brewer, to be broken up through a hostile...
What the Sunday papers said
08-Jul-2002
The Sunday TimesThe number of companies in trouble increased by seven per cent last month, according to the Sunday Times / Mandis Agony Index. The...
Punch leaves lessees reeling
04-Jul-2002
Recent flotation could result in OFT's involvementby David Clifton, one of thePublican.com's legal team of experts from London solicitors Joelson...
Equity firm bids £434m for Brake Brothers
25-Jun-2002
A private equity company has offered £433.7m for the food supply business Brake Brothers.Clayton, Dubilier & Rice offered 825p-a-share,...
Trading Punches
10-Jun-2002
John Waples, deputy business editor of The Sunday Times, examines the Punch flotation.As the saying goes "all's well that ends well" but there are...
Punch: the resurrection
27-May-2002
Punch, the 4,300-strong pub company, abandoned its high-profile float, only to list on the stock exchange seven days later. By Mark Stretton.They say...
