Not really IMO. Spoons went through a growth frenzy 1996-2006 and were opening wherever they could find a half-decent site; one opening funded the next (there's some town on the south coast where two were literally facing each other across the street but I forget where - I did both in 20 minutes!). Some of these haste purchases have been unwinding from the estate as the target internally is to serve towns where no Spoons exists, rather than multiples in a similar area (esp since the demise of the Lloyds estate as a stand alone brand, which was the reasoning for multiples previously - one codger pub with much cask and one kids pub with minimal).Originally Posted by Mobyduck
It's not the first package of disposals and it won't be the last; Spoons are the Aldi/Lidl of the pub world - pile it high, sell it cheap and make sure there's enough margin at the bottom line. The business has also matured in that time away from the drinkers being the main customer base to dining and coffee. Kitchen size and covers then start to matter. We've lost two in Reading but they were the smallest two and both I believe were leasehold; they're more likely to hang on to a freehold even if there's less turnover than a leased equivalent for obvious reasons. There's also a backdated refurbishment programme which really needs to kick in soon to stop the more older grubby places becoming unappealing flea pits (hello Hope Tap!).
The timing may not be coincidental however - there's a Y-O-Y trading loss of potentially* £30million to offset because post COVID and massive increases in the cost of overheads like staff wages, fuel and raw ingredients. I believe October is when they next report to the LSE so they need a sweetener to stop the share price tanking further. Timbo is a bit like in Humph in having a large % of freeholds if my understanding is correct so they are still fine financially with fixed assets but they need an injection of liquidity pretty sharpish.**
* - based on what I hear.
** - As a shareholder I have a vested interest.
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