Our Portfolio

Founded in 1872, Adnams is a regional brewer based in Suffolk with some 45 managed and tenanted pubs, plus stores, and has a reputation for product innovation (including brewing collaborations) often with “green” credentials.

There are unlisted 25p A shares (limited liquidity: traded on AssetMatch) and £1 B shares which are traded on the AQSE market: each class enjoys one vote per share. There are also two small issues of 3.85% Cum Preference shares and 4.9% Non Cum Preference shares. Adnams announced in February 2024 that it was seeking additional funding to counteract the adverse effects arising from increased costs and challenging market conditions.

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Based in Belgium, AB InBev claims to be the world’s largest brewer. In the UK it owns the iconic cask Draught Bass brand, which is contract brewed by CMBC (Marston’s) at Burton.

London dealing facility.

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Asahi is a major Japanese multinational brewer. It acquired the Fuller’s and Dark Star brewing businesses in 2019, and announced in early 2024 that the Dark Star and Meantime beers will be brewed at Chiswick. Nevertheless, Asahi appear to remain committed to real ale in UK. Asahi owns other premium beer brands around the world.

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Based at a farm in the South Downs, the business entered administration in February 2023.

There will be no return for equity shareholders.

A Nottingham based EIS private company, founded in 2014 and operating five externally managed pubs.

Initially raised just over £1m, but further fundraisings since.

At one time the largest brewery in the UK by volume, the Trumans brand was once ubiquitous in the Greater London area, but it fell on hard times and closed in 1989. Reborn in 2013 under the Black Eagle name it continued to struggle and changed its name again in 2022.

Its beers (not cask) are now contract brewed but it operates outlets that do sell real ale.

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Established in 1992 as a free trade brewer, Black Sheep entered into administration in May 2023. The business was sold to a private equity firm. There will be no recovery for PLC shareholders.

Administrator’s Report

The family controlled company was already in a troubled financial position prior to Covid, suffering from too much debt, but the issues arising from the pandemic exacerbated the situation and, in May 2022, it sold the majority of the 99 pubs it still owned. The disposal programme continued through to November 2023 when it stated it had fully repaid its bank debt.

The business is now focused upon its state of the art Dragon Brewery facility, where it brews for its former estate and under contract for Molson Coors.

In November 2023, it announced a new non-family Chairman, who previously was a senior director of Carlsberg Marston Brewing, and fresh non-executive directors: essentially it is a new Board. The Club holds two classes of rarely traded cumulative preference shares neither of which is currently paying dividends. Ordinary shares are not listed.

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A micro Belgian co-operative brewer (with approx. 300 members) of artisanal organic beers. Shares can only be traded within the co-operative.

The business is seeking a buyer.

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The company owns cask beer distributor Matthew Clark and various alcohol brands, including Bulmers and Tennants.

Until February 2023 it had a 47% stake in Admiral Taverns, which owns around 1500 pubs, most of which are community based. C&C also owns an 8% stake in Scottish craft brewer Innis & Gunn (brewers of Inveralmond cask beers), and its Wellpark brewery in Glasgow packages for I&G.

An Irish company but is a member of FTSE250 Index. Quoted in £.

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This London listed investment trust has owned Liberation Group (Butcombe and Liberation breweries: including approximately 110 pubs with c60 in the Channel Islands). Since 2016 there is a significant cask beer free trade (over 500 outlets) as well.

In 2022 it bought the Cirrus group of pubs, which introduced the first London premises to the company.

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A Danish brewery operating internationally, Carlsberg owns the Tetley branded UK cask ales (brewed by Camerons or by CMBC) and is a major distributor of real beer in the UK. It has two classes of shares. London dealing facility.

Carlsberg has entered into a joint UK brewing operation with Marston’s: it is the 60/40 majority partner in CMBC (see Marston’s below) of some sixty tenanted pubs which are concentrated in South Devon. Extended family controlled with two lines of shares (different voting rights) both traded on the AIM market.

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Hong Kong based and listed real estate business, CK Asset Holding is part of a larger group of businesses controlled or substantially owned by multi-millionaire KS Li of Cheung Kong fame.

As part of a plan to reduce exposure to Hong Kong and China, while obtaining higher recurrent income, it bought Greene King for £2.7bn cash in 2019, and has indicated intent to support Greene King strategy and business mix.

Greene King, based in Bury St Edmunds and founded in 1799, operates and brews under many brands including Belhaven, Hardy & Hanson, Hungry Horse, Morland, Ruddles, Taylor Walker, and Tolly Cobbold. It has some 2730 sites, of which, approximately, 1050 are tenanted, franchised, or leased pubs.

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Once a leading brewer of cask beer at its Chiswick plant, the company, which is London listed, sold its brewing business to Asahi in 2019. It now concentrates on retailing and has some 180 managed pubs and hotels, and a tenanted estate of roughly 200 inns: 44% of the portfolio is located within the M25.

The A shares are listed. There are also B and C category shares which are family controlled and unlisted. Each share has one vote: there are roughly 33.5m As, 89m Bs, and 14.5m Cs. In addition, there are two small issues of Preference shares that are rarely traded.

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Heavitree is an Exeter based pub chain, which no longer brews. It has been strengthening its balance sheet by carefully trimming its property portfolio and disposing of unwanted sites. The current estate consists of some sixty tenanted pubs, which are concentrated in South Devon.

It is extended family controlled, with two lines of shares (different voting rights), both traded on the AIM market.

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A Dutch headquartered brewer that claims to be second largest in the world is also said to own the second largest pub estate in the UK (Star Inns).

In June 2022, it announced the closure of the Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh. Production was transferred to Greene King’s Belhaven brewery. Heineken also owns Brixton Brewing (which does brew some cask) and the Beavertown brewery which doesn’t.

Two share classes. London dealing facility.

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Operating primarily in the Wiltshire area as a cask ale brewery, the company was an early beneficiary of CAMRA’s campaigning.

Founded in 1987, it owns and operates ten pubs. Its flagship beer, Summer Lightning, is widely available in the free trade. Shares have limited marketability.

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Now based in Salford, Hydes is a long-established business, which has restructured itself into a specialist brewer of seasonal and multi micro branded beers, supplying its own estate in the greater North West of England, and a strong regional free trade. It also has a significant and growing contract brewing business.

Shares are non-voting and traded from time to time with the company acting as facilitator.

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Founded in 1849, this family-controlled brewery now has sixth generation members involved in running the business comprising some 120 tied pubs, one hotel, and 500 free trade outlets with national distribution. It operates the Bootleg brand as well.

In conjunction with the Restaurant Group, it operates a microbrewery at Manchester Airport. Shares have limited liquidity being traded via closed auction twice a year.

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Founded in 2011, the family run company produces traditional cask and supplies small batch craft beers to national UK supermarkets and wholesalers. There is a significant export trade.

A crowdfunding in 2018 financed a new brewing centre, but planning delays have frustrated further expansion on the site. It is hoped that an additional facility will be built nearby during 2024, which will probably also include a distillery as the company expands its single malt gin product lines.

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Floated on AIM in April 2019, the company has over 240 predominantly café-bar outlets throughout England and Wales (but not central London) trading under the Cosy Club and Lounges brands.

The company launched a roadside restaurant brand, Brightside, in 2023. The aim is to open around 30 new sites each year with a longer term target of c600 outlets nationwide. Some of the 65 or so Club sites may sell cask or bottle-conditioned beers.

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Now a pub owning business, Marston’s merged its brewing interests into a joint company with Carlsberg (CMBC) in June 2020. Marston’s owns 40% of CMBC.

It had been brewing at Burton since 1834 and operated from six sites producing a number of different branded beers. These included, for itself, Banks’s, Jennings, Mansfield, Ringwood, and Wychwood. Although it bought the Lancaster and Wainwright brands from Thwaites, it could not use the brewery name.

CMBC contract brews the Courage cask beer range (it acquired the Charles Wells, Courage, and Eagle brands in 2017), Brakspear range, and Draught Bass.

In 2022, CMBC announced the closure of the Jennings facility in Cockermouth, with cask production being moved to Burton. This was followed by the sale of the Bedford Eagle site to Spanish brewer Damm, and in 2023 the company announced the closure of the Ringwood and Wychwood sites.

In December 2020, Marston’s agreed with SA Brain to operate the latter’s pub estate. Early in 2021 it received an unsolicited takeover bid from a US based private equity fund which it rejected.

Marston’s continues to rationalise the lower end of its tied estate, using the proceeds to reduce its debt burden, but still runs some 1400 outlets.

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McMullens has c125 tied pubs across South-East England, with a strong cask beer tradition. The business, founded in 1827, is still family controlled.

The Club owns preferred ordinary shares which are occasionally secondarily traded under company auspices.

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Mitchells & Butler is a leading pub company with over 1700 largely freehold sites across the UK and Germany.

It is fully listed and trades under various identities such as All Bar One, Ego, Ember Inns, Miller and Carter, Nicholsons, Orchid, and Vintage Inns. Most pubs offer a range of cask beers. Nicholsons house cask beer is brewed by St Austell. Listed in 2003.

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Based in Denver, Colorado, the company acquired parts of the Bass business from Interbrew in 2002. It bought Sharp’s of Cornwall in 2011, and has invested heavily in promoting the Doom Bar brand into the top selling cask ale in the UK.

It brews some 110,000 of barrels of cask beer a year (under licensing arrangements with other brewers) with Sharp’s capacity stated to be 200,000 barrels per year. It owns a number of cask brands but no pubs. The breweries at Burton and Tadcaster do not brew cask.

Plans to close the National Brewery Centre in Burton were announced in late 2022, but the historical archive will be moved elsewhere.

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One of the original microbreweries (being formed in 1986), Nethergate had a troubled history before being eventually bought back by its founders in 2014.

A new brewing centre was built in 2017, just a couple of miles away from the original site. Brews a mixture of traditional and more modern styles, with water from its own bore hole.

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Founded in 1991, in Ashton under Lyne, the company originally focused on operating late night bars and clubs. Its listing history has been mixed with a period on the main London exchange before being taken private, but since July 2020 it has traded on AIM.

The late night economy has not recovered from the Covid lockdowns, meaning that the bars division has suffered and is being rationalised. The company also operates over 20 upmarket, food led pubs (many with rooms) based in the heart of England, which it acquired when it bought Peach Pubs in October 2022. Peach sites tend to offer cask beers and the company has committed to increasing the Peach estate and bought a new site in November 2023. In late March 2024 it announced that it was seeking additional funding as it struggled to realise some of its bar assets.

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A leading property company, owning what many view as the pre-eminent central London retail and leisure portfolio, including more than 290 pubs, cafes, and restaurants totalling 1.7m square feet of hospitality space.

Has a strong community focus in its heartland which is centred on Covent Garden and Soho.

Following Shaftesbury’s agreed merger with the larger Capital and Counties REIT, the combined portfolios had a value of c£4.9bn in March 2023. Main listed REIT.

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Claiming to be the UK’s oldest continuous brewer (from 1698), the Kent based business owns some 300 pubs (c70 managed) in Kent, London, and the South East of England, most of which sell cask.

It also operates under the Whitstable Bay, Faversham Steam Brewery, and No 18 Yard Brewhouse names and supplies c2000 other outlets. Heavy family involvement and traded on AQSE with a market value of c£150m.

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The family-controlled business continues to brew and retail its own beers despite closing its long established bulk brewery in Blackburn, in 2014.

It sold its then key brands to Marston’s in 2015. It continues to rationalise its estate of 240 or so pubs and operates a number of country-house type hotels and lodges. It established a craft brewery in 2018, just outside Preston, to produce its own branded cask beers. Traded on AQSE.

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Founded in 2004 by American Steve Brown, the company now claims to be London’s oldest, independent standalone brewery and has a reputation for producing traditional cask beers but with a modern twist. It uses a wide variety of hops sourced globally.

It owns one pub and the brewery usually opens when the nearby stadium is hosting events.

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Founded in 1875 and based in Wiltshire and largely operating in the Wessex region, the business remains firmly family controlled, though, in April 2023, it announced the appointment of its first non-family member to the post of non-executive Chairman.

In 2022, the company stated that it had completed its pub restructuring programme and now operates c150 pubs (c130 tenanted). The pruning resulted in operational efficiencies and an improved financial position ahead of building a new brewery on the outskirts of Devizes, which opened in September 2023.

The grade II listed Northgate brewery building is expected to be redeveloped: the new purpose built Folly Road site is now fully operational.

There is a complex share structure with Ordinary, A Ordinary and two classes of Cumulative Preference shares. Shares are now auction traded on AssetMatch.

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The company entered into administration in January 2022. There will be no return to ordinary shareholders.

A leading pub operator with over 810 outlets (including c55 hotels and three franchises) throughout the UK.

The Republic of Ireland estate is being significantly reduced. Elsewhere, the estate is not static and there are frequent disposals as well as an opening programme. The Board believes that the business can support 1000 sites. Over 70% of its premises are held freehold. Founded in 1979 and listed on the main London market.

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No longer directly brewing but owning over 300 pubs, operating under various brands such as Beefeater and Brewers Fayre.

Also operates 785 hotels with bars attached.

Main London listing.

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Founded as a brewery in 1831, the company fully sold its beer brands to Charles Wells in 2014, following a merger in 2006. These are now brewed by CMBC/Marston’s.

Following the sale of the Bedford brewery, production was transferred to Wychwood and it is thought that, when that site shuts in November 2023, the beers will be brewed at Wolverhampton (see above).

Young’s now concentrates on its pubs which are largely based in London and the South East but is expanding into the South West and Home Counties. There are roughly 220 managed houses (including hotels): the majority of its tenancies were sold to Punch in mid-2021, but it has kept a few, probably pending conversion to its managed estate.

Traded on AIM, it has both A Ordinary and non-voting shares. It is possible to arbitrage trades between the share classes, but liquidity is often tight.

It bought the City Pub Group for c£162m via cash and shares in early 2024. The enlarged company has a managed estate of 279 pubs and over 1060 rooms.

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