Foundation Inns, the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) backed pub company run by former Whitbread and Spirit managers, has bought five pubs from North-east operator the Ladhar Group.

The company, which had raised more than £6m for pub purchases and picked up its first site, the Vine in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey in October, has snapped up further pubs in London, Essex, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire.

Foundation Inns will now look to launch another EIS fund and raise a further £15m for expansion.

Foundation Inns managing director Ian Grundy, formerly operations director at Whitbread, said: “We have managed to spend all the money we raised the first time around and we have some debt propositions. But we have bought quite quickly and this is a good time to be buying if you are buying in cash.

“The aim now is to very quickly introduce a strong food element to these pubs, as we did with the Vine, but keep what they are doing well as well.”

As a result of the deal Ladhar, the largest independent operator in the North-east with 62 sites, has disposed of its interests in the South of England which it picked up buying 28 pubs from Wessex Taverns in March 2007.

By Christopher Walton

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