Enterprise Inns
 |
|
| Public (: ) | |
| Industry | Pubs |
| Founded | 1991 |
| Headquarters | Solihull, West Midlands |
|
Key people
|
Robert Walker (Chairman), Simon Townsend (Chief Executive) |
| Products | Public house leases and tenancies |
| Revenue | £632 million (2014) |
| £286 million (2014) | |
| £30 million (2014) | |
|
Number of employees
|
505 (2012) |
| Website | www |
Ei Group plc, formerly known as Enterprise Inns plc, is the largest pub company in the UK, with around 5,000 properties, predominantly run as leased and tenanted pubs. Ei Group plc is headquartered in Solihull, West Midlands. The company is listed on the .
Enterprise Inns was founded by Ted Tuppen in 1991, initially with 368 pubs from Bass. The company listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1991. The group made a series of acquisitions including:-
Enterprise Inns had over 9,000 pubs on completion of the acquisition of the Unique Pub Company and it formed part of the FTSE100 Index at that time. However, the decline in the UK pub trade led to its removal from the FTSE100 in 2008. In the face of the level of its debts the company stopped paying dividends to shareholders in 2009. The group has sold many pubs, with 5,493 remaining at the end of September 2013.
Ted Tuppen stood down as Chief Executive in February 2014.
Enterprise Inns rebranded to Ei Group in February 2017.
The pubs are operated by tenants, which means that the company collects rent from individuals who live in and operate the pubs. They also operate (in most, but not all cases) what is known as a beer-tie. This means that tenants renting public houses from them are under contract to buy beer, ciders, RTDs and other alcoholic drinks from Enterprise Inns only. Under some leases tenants are required to also purchase other products, such as soft drinks, wines and spirits from Enterprise, although this is not as widespread as the beer tie.
In the year to 30 September 2013 the net income of Enterprise Inns, £373m, was derived:-
In the year to 30 September 2013, there were 579 business failures with tenants, being 257 agreement failures and 322 agreement surrenders. The rate of failures in that one year represents 10.5% of the size of the estate and was less than in the recent past.
The Enterprise Inns group had net debt of £2,521m at 30 September 2013 . The pubs and other assets were valued at £3,997m.
On May 12, 2009, The Guardian newspaper reported how "Enterprise Inns counts cost of bad pub landlords": the recession had forced the pubco to take action against more than 100 "poor quality and underperforming licensees" since last autumn. It is spending £1.4m a month on financial assistance to help those in distress, on top of the £700,000 a month cost of freezing the price of five lager and ale brands. Chief Executive Ted Tuppen told The Guardian: "If people are genuinely struggling and will work with us, we are providing an awful lot of help". The cost of these programmes was however contributing to a slump in profits.
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Wikipedia