Scotland’s largest pub landlord has hailed its sales record, after parting with an ahead-of-target total of 164 pubs over the last six months.
Pubco Punch Taverns, whose 276 Scottish pubs are part of a UK estate with more than 4,300 premises, launched a restructuring plan last month as part of a turnaround designed to reduce debts which run to £2.4 billion.
It expects to sell assets valued at £105 million during the year to August, and yesterday said it was ahead of target.
The sale of bars, and disposals of other assets, brought in receipts totalling an ahead-of-book-value £55m during the first six months of the financial year.
The group also revealed that profits across its estate had been encouraging, with improving like-for-like trends in income from drinkers and diners.
Executive chairman Stephen Billingham said the board of the firm were pleased with the performance.
“Our profit performance for the first half of the year has been in line with management expectations, with improving trends in the underlying business,” he said.
“We have strong plans in place to return the core estate to growth in the medium-term. We expect to make further progress in the second half of the financial year and are on track to meet our full-year profit expectations.”
“We are encouraged by the progress we are making in our discussions with stakeholders on our capital restructuring proposal and believe a consensual restructuring can be launched in the first half of 2013,” Mr Billingham added.
January trading was impacted by poor weather, the group said.
However, the 12 weeks to March 2 continued an improving trend with net income down 3.5% in the core estate, as opposed to a 5.2% slip in the first quarter.
“We expect that the second half of the year will benefit from the recent improvements we have made in the areas of letting, investment, food development and increased field team support, and we remain on track to meet our full-year profit expectations,” a company statement added.
Punch also hailed an increase in investment in its pubs, with a total of 270 premises benefiting from an average spend of around £100,000 intended to “transform the customer offer” including a shift towards food service.
It said it expects those locations to show an associated trading uplift in the second half.
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