Activities

Spirit Group is the managed pub division of Punch Taverns and is one of  the UK’s largest operators of managed pubs and restaurants. 

It specialises in food-led venues and community pubs, having sold its city bars and pubs in late 2005.

Spirit was demerged in 2002 from Punch, which became an unbranded leased and tenanted pub company until it re-acquired Spirit in January 2006.

The Spirit brands include Chef & Brewer, Two for One, Wacky Warehouse, All Day Family Feast, Oak Inns, Millers, Country Carvery, Orchard, Tom Cobleigh, Mr Q's, Q's, Bar Room Bar, John Barras, Firkin Beer Co, T&J Bernard, Squares, Henry's Bar & Cafe, and Baha Beach Club.

Timeline

• 2000: The Punch group, which was created in 1997 from 1,399 Bass pubs and expanded through acquisitions such as Inn Business and Allied Domecq, splits its estate into two divisions – Punch Pub Company for its leased and tenanted venues and Punch Retail for its 1,040 managed pubs.
• 2002: Punch Retail demerges from Punch to become the independently-owned Spirit Group, which comprises 1,035 managed pubs. Spirit is owned by a private equity consortium that includes Texas Pacific Group, Blackstone Group, CVC Capital Partners and Merrill Lunch Private Equity.
• March 2003: Spirit buys Tom Cobleigh Holdings for £106.4m, from Electra Partners. The 75 food-led pubs operate under the Tom Cobleigh and Mighty Nice brands.
• November 2003: The group wins the auction to buy S&N Retail (the 1,406-strong pub, restaurant and budget hotel division of Scottish & Newcastle) for £2.5b. The acquisition brings around 14 new brands to the Spirit stable, including Chef & Brewer.
• March 2004: Spirit agrees a 30-year sale-and-leaseback deal on 220 pubs with property investment firm Prestbury for around £500m.
• July 2004: Spirit sells the 141 Premier Lodge budget hotels it acquired from S&N to Whitbread for £536.2m, including 19 co-located pub-restaurants
• October 2004: Spirit enters into a 30-year sale and leaseback agreement with British Land for 65 pubs for £174 million.
• December 2004: Spirit sells 364 pubs to Robert Tchenguiz’s Globe Pub Company for £345m. They will be managed as tenancies by Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises.
• September 2005: The group sells its 178-strong city pubs and bars division to the newly-formed Tattershall Castle Group for £177m. The division includes the Bar 38 and Rat and Parrott brands.
• December 2005: Punch Taverns buys Spirit back for £2.7b in cash in a deal that completes in January 2006. Spirit brings 1,832 pubs and 38,000 employees to Punch, which announces plans to convert 750 pubs to leased and tenanted status, sell another 82, and review the rest of the estate during 2006.

Contact

107 Station Street
Burton upon Trent
Staffordshire
West Midlands
DE14 1BZ

Tel: 01283 545320
Fax: 01283 5025357

E-mail: info@thespiritgroup.com
Website: http://www.thespiritgroup.com

Commentary

When Karen Jones became chief executive officer of Punch Retail in September 1999, she took on an estate of 1,040 pubs that were largely in decline. Jones turned the business around in just two years. She went on to double the size of the estate within two years of its demerger from Punch in 2002 while maintaining high profit margins.

Until the end of 2005, Spirit was the only player among the top four pub companies to remain in private hands. This changed with its re-acquisition by Punch Taverns in early 2006.