Pub sales continue

The flow of pubs into the venture capital sector is set to intensify with the news that Japanese investment bank Nomura is considering bidding for 740 of Scottish & Newcastle's directly managed pubs.

Pubmaster, Noble House Leisure, Punch Group and Alchemy Partners are also thought to be planning a bid.

Pubmaster, Nomura and Noble House are also lining up for a battle over Wolverhampton & Dudley's four breweries and 1,800 pubs.

Attracted by their steady cash flow, Deutsche Bank's Morgan Grenfell Private Equity subsidiary agreed yesterday to buy Whitbread's 3,000 pubs for £1.63bn.

Whitbread will now initiate an aggressive growth strategy on its hotels and restaurants. About £300m a year has been set aside for refurbishment and expansion.

The company will add 90 Travel Inns to the 270-strong chain by 2004 and open 18 new Marriott hotels by the end of this year.

The firm will also step up the re-branding of its Beefeater restaurants into the more up-market Out & Out and the more "contemporary" Grill Bar and expand the family-friendly Brewsters restaurant chain from 120 to 220 by 2005.

Meanwhile, bucking the trend for offloading pubs, Avebury Taverns aims to expand its 750-strong pub portfolio to 2,000.