Enterprise Inns to let go of its strongest pubs

Pub firm Enterprise Inns has plans to dispose of some of its best performing pubs over the next two years, to assist in refinancing its £400 million of bank debts.

It aims to raise up to £200 million a year by disposing of 200-300 of its pubs. It has a total of 6,200 tenanted pubs.

Enterprise Inns has sold about 1,000 pubs in the past two years. In March 2011, it announced plans to sell off about 400-500 pubs throughout the year to generate about £125 million.

More recently, the firm has sold 15 pubs to Fuller, Smith & Turner for £22.9 million this year.

Enterprise’s chief executive Ted Tuppen commented on the continued sell off to the Financial Times, “It’s a bit of asset management – we have the opportunity to generate a lot of cash by selling a relatively small number of very attractive pubs.”

“We are required to refinance our bank debt by December 2013 and it will be a lot easier to refinance a slightly smaller debt.”

Mr Tuppen founded Enterprise Inns in 1991. Pubs have been suffering in recent years due to rising beer prices, and higher energy bills, but not due to lower customer spending.

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