Stonegate Pub Company

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Stonegate Group
Industry Hospitality
Headquarters Solihull, England, UK
Key people
David McDowall (CEO) Dave Ross (CFO)
Brands Scream
Slug & Lettuce
Tattershall Castle
Henry's Café Bar
Yates's
Missoula
Social Squirrel
Flares & Reflex
Popworld
Rosies
The Living Room
Retro
Sports Bar & Grill
Walkabout
Be at one
Fever Bars
Tank & Paddle
The Liquorist
Whittle Taps
Craft Union Pub Company
Owner TDR Capital
Website www.stonegategroup.co.uk

Stonegate Pub Company is the largest pub company in the UK, operating around 4,800 managed, leased and tenanted pubs. [1] It is owned by TDR Capital. The head office is based in Solihull, England, and the company is registered in the Cayman Islands. [2]

Contents

History

The Auctioneer (now The Lost Hour), an unbranded Stonegate pub in Greenwich, London. Auctioneer, Greenwich, SE10 (3613824590).jpg
The Auctioneer (now The Lost Hour), an unbranded Stonegate pub in Greenwich, London.

The company was formed in 2010 by the private equity firm TDR Capital, after it purchased 333 pubs from Mitchells & Butlers. [3] Originally trading from rented offices near Birmingham Airport, it then moved its operations office to Capability Green in Luton in June 2011, when Stonegate bought the Town & City Pub Company, which was in receivership, creating the largest privately held managed pub operator in the UK and acquiring the Yates's and Slug and Lettuce brands in the process. [4]

In August 2013, Stonegate acquired thirteen Living Room sites from Premium Bars & Restaurants. In June 2015, a further fifteen sites were acquired from the Scottish pub, bar and hotel operator Maclay Inns, and later that same year Stonegate acquired 53 pubs from Tattershall Castle Group (TCG), including the Henry's Café Bar and Tattershall Castle brands. [5]

In January 2016, the company began updating former TCG estate pubs and rebranding many of the venues to Slug & Lettuce. Later that year, Stonegate exchanged on a package of ten JD Wetherspoon pubs and acquired the Walkabout owner Intertain, adding a further thirty sites to its portfolio. [5]

In 2017, the company acquired the Sports Bar & Grill concept and, in 2018, Be At One and fifteen Novus Leisure sites. [5]

In January 2019, Stonegate acquired Bar Fever Ltd (Fever Bars) – 32 venues: 29 bars, including Fever Boutique, Zinc and Moo Moo, as well as three Bierkeller Bavarian pubs and a further six sites from Novus Leisure. [5]

Following the acquisition of Ei Group, on 3 March 2020, for £1.27 billion, Stonegate Pub Company became the largest pub company in the UK, with around 5,000 sites. [6] [7] It has 1,270 sites within the managed division and 3,457 leased and tenanted businesses. [6]

In 2023 Stonegate was found guilty of a breach of health and safety law that led to the death of Olivia Burt in Durham. As a consequence the company was fined £1.56 million. [8] In September 2023, the company announced it was to introduce dynamic pricing, increasing the price of alcoholic drinks at busy times. [9]

Employment issues

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Stonegate furloughed 16,500 workers under a UK job-retention programme. This drew negative attention due to the company's Cayman Islands registration. A Stonegate spokesperson said: "Last year Stonegate paid over £300m in tax in the UK. As a UK business, fully paying UK tax, we have every right to access government assistance." [2]

In July 2023, the company was convicted of an offence under health and safety legislation after a February 2018 event in which Olivia Burt, a 20-year-old student at Durham University, was killed when a crowd-control screen fell on her as she was queuing to get into the company's Missoula nightclub in Durham. The victim's parents commented: "Our heartbreak and pain have been prolonged by Stonegate pleading not guilty and fighting the case to trial. We have been waiting 1,976 days for Stonegate to be held criminally responsible. We thank the jury for seeing through Stonegate’s smoke and mirrors defence blaming everyone but themselves for what happened to Olivia." [10] A fine of £1.56 million was imposed for the offence. [11]

In February 2024, Stonegate Group was named by the Department of Business and Trade as one of the companies that had failed to pay the minimum wage, underpaying 3,650 workers. [12]

Brands

Stonegate's managed pubs division is split into branded and traditional (unbranded) pubs. Branded pubs are Slug & Lettuce, Walkabout, Be At One, [13] and venues (including Popworld and Fever). [14]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Stonegate Pubs". TDR Capital. Retrieved 8 February 2022.
  2. 1 2 Neate, Rupert (27 April 2020). "Sunak rejects church leaders' call to bar tax-haven firms from bailouts". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  3. ↑ "M&B sells 333 pubs to TDR Capital". Morning Advertiser. 20 August 2010. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  4. ↑ "Stonegate-and-Town-City-pub-companies-merge". Publican's Morning Advertiser. 22 June 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Stonegate's biggest deals: a timeline of the pubco". Morning Advertiser. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  6. 1 2 "Stonegate/Ei deal approved by CMA". Morning Aadvertiser. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  7. ↑ Ramnarayan, Abhinav (23 June 2020). "Slug and Lettuce owner plans debt issue as UK pubs set to reopen - sources". Reuters. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  8. ↑ "Olivia Burt: Pub chain fined £1.56m over Durham student's queue death". 7 July 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
  9. ↑ Eastwood, Noah (11 September 2023). "Busy pubs to charge customers more under new 'dynamic pricing' scheme". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 September 2023. Retrieved 11 September 2023.
  10. ↑ Brown, Mark (6 July 2023). "UK's largest pub firm guilty of health and safety breach over student's death". theguardian.com. Guardian. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  11. ↑ Brown, Mark (7 July 2023). "Pub group fined £1.56m over death of student hit by screen at Durham bar". theguardian.com. Guardian. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
  12. ↑ "Over 500 companies named for not paying minimum wage". GOV.UK. Retrieved 20 February 2024.
  13. ↑ "Stonegate to acquire Be At One". The Caterer. 23 July 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  14. ↑ "Stonegate continues to invest in roll-out of Popworld brand". Bar Magazine. 5 February 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
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