TV soccer fans boost sales at Regent Inns

Drink consumption during the World Cup helped pub company Regent Inns to break several of its own sales records, it said last week.

In a pre-close trading statement for the 12 months to 6 July, Regent said its Walkabout pubs had broken numerous group records in the first two weeks of the World Cup, including highest gross weekly sales - £171,000 at Newquay, Cornwall - and average venue gross sales of more than £65,000.

Group like-for-like turnover for the 11 months to 15 June was up by 3.8%, and up by almost 11% within Walkabout, it added.

Regent also announced that it had sold 20 of its unbranded pubs to Wizard Inns for £27.9m. The sale is part of Regent's plan to get rid of all its unbranded pubs and to concentrate on its Walkabout, Bar Risa/Jongleurs, and Pals pubs.

Discussions on the sale of the remaining 25 unbranded pubs were under way, said the group. Stephen Haupt, chief executive of Regent, said: "I am pleased that we are well on the way to the completion of the reshaping of the group into the UK's leading operator of entertainment-led, branded venues.

"Returns from the discrete estate have been declining for a number of years and a disproportionate amount of management time has been spent on these units. These disposals clear the way for an improvement in the quality of our underlying earnings going forward, and considerably enhance our future growth prospects."

Although the group said the sale of 20 pubs to Wizard would result in an exceptional profit, it expected its total exit from the unbranded estate to result in an overall exceptional loss.

Regent announces its full-year results on 5 September.

by Samantha McClary