Overall ranking: 21 (12)
Pub ranking: 2 (4)

Giles Thorley - Snapshot
Giles Thorley is chief executive of Punch Taverns, which was created in 1997 from an original estate of pubs bought from Bass and is now the operator of more than 9,500 leased and tenanted pubs. It is the UK’s largest pub operator and reported a pre-tax profit of £200.5m on a £770m turnover in the year to 20 August 2005.

Giles Thorley - Career guide
Giles Thorley, who was born in 1967, initially qualified as a barrister and was called to the bar in 1990 – the same year he joined Nomura as a property finance specialist.

Here he joined entrepreneur Guy Hands in 1994 to found the Principal Finance Group where he was involved with the acquisitions of Phoenix Inns, the Inntrepreneur Pub Company and Spring Inns.

From the core estates of the latter two brands, Thorley created and developed the Unique Pub Company where he served as chief executive between 1998 and 2001.

Thorley joined Punch in December 2001 as executive chairman, and became chief executive in January 2003.

Giles Thorley - What we think
Giles Thorley has played a major role in the resculpting of the pub landscape over the past 15 years and has boosted the Punch estate from 4,515 pubs in August 2003 to 7,800 at the start of 2005 and 9,500 by the end of the year.

During his time at the Principal Finance Group, Nomura became one of the UK’s largest pub owners. As property director of the 1,800-strong Phoenix Inns, Thorley reorganised the business before selling the core estate to Wellington Investments.

He then built up the newly-created Unique Pub Company from 2,600 pubs to more than 4,000 before its acquisition by pub giant Enterprise Inns in early 2004.

When Thorley joined Punch in late 2001 as executive chairman, the company had reorganised into a leased and tenanted arm (Punch Pub Company) and a managed pubs business (Spirit Group). Thorley oversaw the demerger of the 1,040-strong Spirit Group in March 2002 and the flotation of Punch on the London Stock Market two months later.

As chief executive, Giles Thorley led a refinancing package that won the ISR European Securitisation Deal of the Year in 2003. The enlarged war chest enabled Thorley to buy Pubmaster’s 3,115-strong estate for £1.2b in November 2003 in a deal which swelled the Punch portfolio to more than 7,400 pubs following disposals.

The next big buy was the InnSpired Group for £335m in September 2004, which added a net 1,064 pubs to the estate.

Punch started 2005 with 7,800 pubs and added 419 managed houses in July when it bought Avebury Taverns for £219m. December, however, bought one of the company’s biggest-ever deals when it re-acquired the revitalised Spirit Group for £2.7b.

Spirit chief executive Karen Jones had turned around the tired managed estate within two years and more than doubled its size to 1,832 branches, most notably with the £2.5b acquisition of a package of 1,400 pubs, restaurants and budget hotels (which it sold on to Whitbread) from Scottish & Newcastle.

The Spirit deal helped Punch shoot up the rankings in the peer-reviewed Britain’s Most Admired Companies 2005 from 89th to 24th position in the pan-industry top 220. This made it the second most esteemed hospitality group in the country after Mitchells & Butlers.

Giles Thorley looks well on track to achieving his ambition of growing Punch Taverns to a maximum of 12,000 sites.

Giles Thorley – Further Information

Punch Taverns hospitality profile on CatererSearch

Punch Taverns official website

Punch Taverns profile on Google Finance

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