Pubs bitter as no buyer is found

Yates’s pub group parent Laurel has gone into administration, sealing the fate of around 90 loss-making pubs. But two new firms have been set up following the collapse.

The move will see nearly 300 pubs staty open including the Yates’s, Litten Tree and Hog’s Head venues in Wolverhampton, the Yates’s in Walsall, and the Litten Tree in Stafford. 

A string of pubs and bars across the Midlands – including Yates’s in Kidderminster, Cannock and Birmingham, Bank in Wolverhampton, and Hogs Head pubs in Walsall and Stafford – have all been closed in recent weeks.

Now Laurel’s billionaire owner, property tycoon Robert Techenguiz, has put the whole group into administration and then set up two new companies to buy back 293 profitable sites.

The Town & City Pub Company has taken on 161 pubs and bars including Yates’s and Hogs Head venues. Bay Restaurant Group will now run 84 Slug & Lettuce premises, 24 Ha Ha bar and grills and more than two dozen other pipeline sites as well as outlets of The Litten Tree. These have been merged with the 85 La Tasca restaurants. 

The 90 pub and bar venues left, most of which have already closed, are in the hands of the administrators, insolvency specialist Kroll.