Overall ranking: 43 (44)
Rub ranking: 4 (7)

Rooney Anand - Snapshot
Rooney Anand is chief executive of brewer and pub operator Greene King, which has brewed ale at Bury St Edmonds in Suffolk since 1799.

The group has grown from a regional brewer and pub operator into the UK’s third largest national pub company (after Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns).

Greene King currently has around 2,400 pubs covering both managed and tenanted properties. In the year to 30 April 2006, it reported pre-tax profits of £120.96m on a turnover of £818.6m.

Rooney Anand - Career guide
Rooney Anand, who was born in Delhi, India, moved to Walsall when he was two years old. Before joining Greene King, Anand spent 13 years in the food industry.

Anand was with McVities for four years before he moved on to Sara Lee Bakery where he worked for five years as marketing director, general manager retail and, from October 1999, managing director.

Anand joined Greene King in August 2001 as managing director of its brewing division and was promoted to chief executive in May 2005.

Rooney Anand - What we think
Rooney Anand – who in 2005 was named the 18th most influential figure in brewing by the trade magazine, the Morning Advertiser – had consistently boosted volumes of Greene King’s three core beer brands (IPA, Abbot Ale and Old Speckled Hen) despite a declining market for real ale. An active campaigner for real ale, Anand was a driving force behind the group’s “Beer to Dine For” initiative.

As chief executive, Anand now presides over the country’s third most admired hospitality company. Greene King ranked 29th in the peer-reviewed Britain’s Most Admired Companies 2005 pan-industry tables after shooting from 113th to the 11th position.

Greene King has shown consistent growth in recent years in both size and in profits. Its string of acquisitions before Anand took the reins included 432 neighbourhood pubs from Laurel in 2004, 107 Morrells pubs in 2002, 135 Old English Inns in 2001, 422 Morland pubs in 1999 (along with Marston’s 165-strong southern estate) and the Magic Pub Company’s 273 venues in 1996.

The pace of expansion has not slackened under Rooney Anand’s leadership. Two months after his promotion, the group snapped up Ridley’s 73-strong pub estate and Essex brewery. Just a month later, in August 2005, it snapped up Belhaven, Scotland’s oldest and largest brewer and the operator of 270 pubs. In June 2006, it bought the 174-year-old brewer Hardys & Hansons and its 268 pubs into the Greene King fold.

The quality of these purchases is underlined by the fact that Belhaven and Hardys & Hansons took the 80th and 103rd positions in the peer-reviewed 2005 top 220 list of Britain’s most admired companies and the acquisitions consolidated Greene King’s presence in Scotland and the East Midlands.

Greene King has three trading divisions – brewing, Pub Partners (its tenanted and leased estate) and Pub Company (its managed pub estate).

It has reorganised its Pub Company division into four divisions which include the food-led Hungry Horse brand and the Inns division (which has made Greene King a top 30 player in the UK hotels market).

Rooney Anand – Further Information

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