Punch: Operator managed model makes us better at running pubs

Punch Pubs & Co’s work to develop its operator managed pub model over the past few years has benefited the overall business in many ways and has seen it get “better at running pubs”, CEO Clive Chesser told the audience at MCA’s Pub Conference.

Speaking on a panel on pub partnerships, alongside Lawson Mountstevens MD of Star Pubs & Bars and Chris Jowsey CEO of Admiral Taverns, Chesser told host and MCA contributing editor Peter Martin that the business had “got better knowledge, skills and infrastructure that flows through into our leased and tenanted pubs” – which make up the majority of its 1,300 strong estate.

“We are better equipped now to support our publicans,” he said. “Having the managed expertise is enabling us to improve our own expertise.”

Punch now has around 300 operator managed pubs, however Chesser said he always keeps in mind that “the customer neither knows nor cares what the model is behind the scenes”. “The important thing for us is to get the best possible proposition and best offer that we can in the market, to win market share.”

Viewing the pub sector as having a wide spectrum in terms of opportunities, he said that from one end you can own your own freehold and do your own thing, or come into the tied sector, and move into a salaried job as a GM in a managed pub company.

“I think the whole franchised operator managed model has really filled a hole – it is providing a solution for a very talented group of retailers who want to build a career and run pubs,” added.

“Increasingly they come out of the managed sector as opposed to out of the independent or leased and tenanted sector.

“These are really talented individuals, probably without great finance behind them, who have got the skills, who want to build their own business but want the support structure of a pub company behind them.”

Jowsey echoed these comments and said the addition of its 180-strong wet-led retail division, Proper Pubs, had been fantastic, because it caters for “a large group of people that are brilliant at running front of house and providing hospitality, but may not be brilliant at the back of house and running a business”.

“This is a fantastic stepping stone for a number of those people to run their own business, do what they are really good at and over time learn how to run a business as well and then transfer into tenanted,” he said.