Wetherspoon dividend back as profit rises March 11, 2010 PUB chain Wetherspoon announced the end of a year-long dividend freeze yesterday after successfully completing its debt refinancing. Shareholders will receive a 12p dividend on 1 April for the year to July 2009 with a further special dividend of 7p a share. Last year it scrapped its dividend payment as it negotiated its refinancing. It [...]
Enterprise says less pubs closing September 29, 2009 Enterprise Inns, the UK’s second-biggest pubs firm, said the rate of closures across its properties had slowed and fewer tenants needed financial support as conditions improved. Enterprise, which has around 7,500 leased and tenanted pubs, said yesterday it had benefited from selling underperforming pubs and had seen a stabilisation in beer sales, improved food sales [...]
POLO IN THE PARK GETS CITY’S VOTE FOR BEST CORPORATE DAY OUT June 6, 2010 IT WAS off to Hurlingham Park in sunny south-west London at the weekend for an action-packed few days at the second annual Polo in the Park tournament. With the event extended this year from two days to three due to popular demand – and Friday earmarked as the official corporate hospitality day for the City [...]
Attention turns to the pub as leisure sector steps out October 11, 2009 This week will give us a glimpse of how consumers are spending their time, with Whitbread, Punch Taverns and PartyGaming all reporting. But it will be opinion-polling firm YouGov that gets a reaction from investors today, as it reports its full-year results. The company said in July that it was beginning to see the benefits [...]
Honeypot homes are luring buyers up to Stanmore June 10, 2010 STEPPING off the end of a Tube line seems like entering a vacuum to most Londoners. One imagines a tangle of motorways, perhaps. Some cows. A few car parks. Visitors to Stanmore might be surprised. Stanmore is a place whose name anyone who regularly rides the Jubilee line will have heard, but the town is [...]
Punch writes off 663m of its pub estate October 14, 2009 Debt-laden pubs firm Punch Taverns yesterday said its annual losses had jumped to £406m after it wrote down the value of its estate by £663m. Punch, which own over 7,600 pubs, said its pre-tax profit for the year to 22 August fell 39 per cent to £160m compared with £262m the year before. Following the [...]
Hugh Osmond bidding for UK building firm April 25, 2010 PIZZA-to-pubs entrepreneur Hugh Osmond has made a takeover offer for Crest Nicholson that values the UK housebuilder at £300-350m. Horizon Acquisition, Osmond’s quoted vehicle, put the takeover plan to a meeting of Crest’s 40 owner banks on Wednesday. The potential deal is part of bold plans by Osmond to consolidate the recession-hit housebuilding sector. According [...]
M&S finance boss quits for Punch Taverns May 5, 2010 MARKS & Spencer’s incoming chief executive Mark Bolland received an unwanted welcome gift after his first day at the firm – the resignation of its finance director. Ian Dyson yesterday made the shock announcement that he will leave the firm to become chief executive of Punch Taverns, the UK’s biggest pub chain. Dyson was passed [...]
HE’S MOORE THAN JUST A CHAMPION June 14, 2010 ON 15th May 2000, at the tender age of 16, Ryan Moore steered Mersey Beat to victory in a hurdle race at Towcester. “I learnt to ride at Grandad’s”, he tells me on his way to ride at Salisbury in relentless pursuit of his fourth flat jockey’s title in five years. “I originally thought I [...]
HE’S MOORE THAN JUST A CHAMPION June 14, 2010 ON 15th May 2000, at the tender age of 16, Ryan Moore steered Mersey Beat to victory in a hurdle race at Towcester. “I learnt to ride at Grandad’s”, he tells me on his way to ride at Salisbury in relentless pursuit of his fourth flat jockey’s title in five years. “I originally thought I [...]