At risk of becoming the lead correspondent for public house sales - here is an offer published in the Morning Advertiser today.
Looks like @pauline 's infallible nose for real news was accurate after all - think she deserves to be awarded for scoop of the year. By several weeks too - how does she do it ?
The advert says you can have the Sylvan Post for £700k.
The sale is with or without the existing business, so the operations may not be impacted:
Freehold with vacant possession, subject to a 999 year lease. The upper parts are sold off on long leases.
Alternatively the property can be acquired subject to a 20 year FRI lease in favour of the existing operator subject to 5 yearly rent reviews with a passing rent of £45,000 per annum.
£700k cost for rental value of £45k gives a yield of 6.4%, so not a bad investment.
I doubt the staff/Mike knew anything… they seemed extremely surprised at the time.
They’re totally going to be approached by the way… seems a bit naive to put that in a publicly available sales doc?
My guess would be that when the listing was being circulated privately amongst the agent’s clients, it might have made sense in those circumstances.
Once it was placed in the public domain however, it’s tone and the actual statement should have been altered.
It actions like these that seriously diminishes the sense of value that good staff have and are entitled to. And I regret any pain that must cause them especially when an option of vacant possession is on the table.
Looking at the advert in detail leads to a view that only those assets that are freehold are being offered for sale. It could not be less clear at this stage who the beneficial owners of the assets are as opposed to the the company that operates them.
I used the name Antic from an historic perspective but actually cannot be certain they play any role in either ownership or management of these establishments.
The beneficial owners of 24 Dartmouth Road are in fact an LLP. And this assumes that this is an accurate interpretation of the pub’s address. It is listed in the sale as having an address that is 24-28 Dartmouth Road.
the elephant is always buzzing when I’ve been in, surprised to see them sell it on. Can’t see it being anything else either at that spot. It must be an asset of community value too?
Good point. I googled it. Most google finds were this listing. But I did find something which suggested the capital received to acquire these pubs may be limited and required a sale after a period of time in order to release the equity back to the backer.