Fuller’s picks up six of Punch’s best pubs
Six of London's most sought-after pubs have been bought by Chiswick brewer Fuller Smith & Turner as the fire sale at troubled giant landlord Punch Taverns gets into full swing.
They include the Red Lion in Whitehall, whose MP and Lobby correspondent regulars are catered for with a live TV feed from the House of Commons and a Parliamentary division bell.
Fuller's has also acquired Ye Olde Mitre in Hatton Garden, one of the capital's oldest alehouses at 450 years old; The Swan, a tourist trap on the Bayswater Road overlooking Hyde Park; and three hostelries loved both for their food and their ales by their upmarket clientele — the Scarsdale off Kensington High Street, the Hereford in South Kensington and the Queens Head on Brook Green.
Michael Turner, chairman of family-controlled Fuller's, long regarded as one of London's best-run pub companies, said the pubs were "exceptional assets".
The sale of the six pubs, which together made £2.5 million of profits last year, indicates the urgency of Punch's fire sale of assets to pay down its £4.7 billion of debts and avoid breaching its banking covenants.
The pubs have been sold for £21.1 million, £4.5 million less than their value on Punch's books. Punch is reckoned to be offering for sale dozens of London pubs. It sold three Suffolk pubs to Adnams earlier this month.
