Laurel Pub Company to enter administration

Laurel Pub Company is poised to enter administration after failing to find buyers for 94 loss-marking pubs put on the market last month.

The company placed the leasehold properties, including a mixture of Yates's, Hog Head, Litten Tree and Bar Med sites, up for sale in the same week it closed 22 pubs as part of a refinancing exercise.

It is now understood that 60 of the 94 sites are set to close this week.

According to today's Times once Laurel Pub Company is placed into administration, property entrepreneur Robert Tchenguiz (who owns Laurel through his investment vehicle R20), will look to buy back the business without its loss making sites.

A spokesman for Laurel said that negotiations were continuing on a refinancing deal but didn't comment further.

The pubs and bars division of the business accounts for approximately half of Laurel's 460 sites.

Laurel's casual dining division, comprising Slug and Lettuce and La Tasca, is thought to be performing well, ahead of a proposed stock market flotation.

Read the full article in the Times here >>

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By Christopher Walton

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