Enterprise Inns mulls REIT as half-year turnover falls

15 May 2007
Enterprise Inns mulls REIT as half-year turnover falls

Enterprise Inns continues to investigate a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) and is holding informal discussions with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) to determine whether it could qualify.

In an interview with Thomson Financial News, Ted Tuppen, chief executive at Enterprise Inns, said while a REIT conversion was "appealing" it had to avoid the need for a material restructuring of the business.

Deutsche Bank has urged pub companies to lobby HM Revenues & Customs (HMRC) to evaluate its definition of rent income, which at present doesn't define beer sales and property rent as a combined income.

In the six months ended 31 March, Britain's second largest pub owner saw its turnover dip to £453m (2006: £473m) after the sale of its Scottish estate last autumn but pre-tax profit increase from £176m to £183m.

Enterprise said it would continue to enhance the quality of its portfolio through investment, acquisitions and disposals claiming it had pumped £35m into the estate during the six-month period to "improve the quality and potential" of the business.

It also said it was "too early" to drawn definitive conclusions from the impact of the 2 April smoking ban in Wales but expected to gain new customers and market share after the introduction of the ban in England on 1 July.

Smoking ban the catalyst as pub market diversifies >>

Enterprise Inns trading on track >>

Enterprise Inns pulls out of Scotland >>

Enterprise Inns all set for smoking ban >>

Read more on the smoking ban here >>

By Christopher Walton

E-mail your comments to Christopher Walton](mailto:christopher.walton@rbi.co.uk?subject=Enterprise Inns mulls REIT) here.

[The Caterer Blog](http://www.caterersearch.com/blogs/catering-news-blog/) Catch up with more news and gossip on the Caterer Blog here
[Newswire For the latest hospitality news, sign up for our e-mail news alerts.
The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking