Three of the most active private equity firms in the pub sector are among the suitors that have approached Mitchells & Butlers (M&B), the embattled All Bar One and Vintage Inns operator, since it announced a strategic review on Tuesday, The Times has learnt.
Two of the firms, TPG and CVC Capital Partners, are best known for their joint ownership of Spirit Group until its sale to Punch Taverns two years ago for £2.7 billion. Both had been investors in Punch. A third, Cinven, owned the Unique Pub Company before selling out to Enterprise Inns in a £2.3 billion deal. Robert Tchenguiz, the property entrepreneur whose failed property venture with M&B led to a £391 million hedging loss this week, is likely to play a key role in the event of a formal auction of M&B, although he is not thought to be among those to make an approach.
M&B shares fell 27¼p to 445¾p yesterday amid some scepticism that approaches would result in a takeover, given the state of the financial markets. The board of M&B came under fire over the hedging loss at the company’s annual meeting yesterday, with several shareholders calling for Roger Carr, the chairman, to follow the example of Karim Naffah, its finance director, and resign.
Mr Carr rejected the calls, although he apologised over the loss. He said that the company had been “laid low by a banking system in global crisis”, insisting that the loss should not mask the strong underlying performance of M&B in the five years since its demerger from Six Continents. “It has been the best of times, the worst of times,” Mr Carr said. But one shareholder said that his explanations sounded like those of a “drunkard who is in total denial”, claiming that M&B’s actions were no better than those of a punter at Epsom betting the house on “a 20-1 outsider in the final race”.
To polite applause, Mr Carr told investors that they had “a board with the humility to learn from the difficulties of 2007”. He added: “The company was a victim to something that, in my lifetime, I have never seen before and hope I never see again.”