Pub chain Pernickety is offered for sale as receivers take charge

Cheshire-based pub chain Pernickety has gone into receivership.

Receivers at PricewaterhouseCoopers are looking for bidders for the chain, which it believes it will be able to sell as a going concern.

Pernickety's 10 pubs, which traded under the name Pernickety Inns, are in Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottingham and Worcestershire. The chain had a turnover of about £4m and employed 250 people. There have been just two redundancies.

A spokesman for the receivers said Pernickety was suffering cash-flow problems. It had spent more than £2m in capital investment over the past 18 months.

The company went into receivership on 14 July. Since then the pubs have been run by Albion Contracts, an interim specialist management company appointed by the receivers.

Pernickety was owned by a few investors with venture capital backing. Its chairman was Bob Holroyd, who was formerly a partner in the food logistics company, Holroyd Meek. Managing director and major shareholder Tim Doubleday was an accountant who had relatively little hands-on experience of the industry.

The pubs opened two years ago. Pernickety had predicted an annual turnover of £6m.

Pernickety's philosophy involved high service levels, customers keeping their table for the night, and fresh food - much of it cooked on the premises.

"We're a pub group and proud of it, but we're in the business of offering something more in food than frozen steak pie and frozen chips," said Doubleday.

by Linley Boniface