Stonegate mulls £1b sale of 1,000 pubs

Stonegate is believed to be accelerating plans for a £1b sale of more than 1,000 pubs.

Over the weekend, the Sunday Times reported Britain’s biggest pub company is looking to offload roughly a quarter of its 4,300-strong pub portfolio in an effort to reduce debt.

It suggested that senior executives at Stonegate Group have already held discussions with potential advisers to explore options for the owner of the Slug & Lettuce and Be At One chains, which has collected debts of over £3b following its merger with rival chain Ei at the start of the pandemic.

According to the Sunday Times, the 1,034 pubs believed to be up for sale are referred to internally as Stonegate’s ’platinum’ collection, valued as high as £1b.

A spokesperson for the pub giant confirmed to The Caterer: “We are looking at options for the ’platinum’ portfolio, of circa 1000 leased and tenanted pubs, which could include a refinancing, partial sale, or full sale of the platinum sites but as we explained to our bondholders, no decisions have been made. We are continuing to make good progress on our transformation strategy.”

Over the course of this summer, Stonegate invested £1.3m into the Slug & Lettuce brand as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations.

Stonegate also put 23 of its pubs up for sale this September, including London pubs the Dog and Duck in Walthamstow and the Crown and Anchor in Bromley.

In early 2023, the pub giant was reportedly looking to sell roughly 1,000 sites as part of a longer-term strategy for the group.

TDR Capital-backed Stonegate was founded in 2010 with 333 pubs and now has over 4,500 sites under brands such as Slug and Lettuce and Be At One following its acquisition of rival chain Ei Group in March 2020.