Brewery, pub and hotel operator in talks to sell pub-chain for £30m-£40m

Wolverhampton-based Marston’s, brewery is in the process of selling the Pitcher and Piano chain for between £30m and £40m.

The chain of 18 Pitcher & Piano pubs, including the canal-side restaurant and bar in Bridleyplace, Birmingham, was bought by Marston’s for £20m from entrepreneur Crispin Tweddell in 1996.

Sapient Corporate Finance, a financial advisory firm, is working on a deal, which the BusinessDesk.com was told was “in the very early stages”.

Marston’s, which owns 1,550 sites across the UK including pubs and inns as well as six breweries, was known as Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries plc until 2007 when it rebranded.

It is an FTSE 250 company and in May, as part of its interim results, announced it was planning a £120m disposal of assets before the end of 2023 in order to combat debts, which stood at £1.4bn as of 30 March.

Marston’s shares have fallen over the past five years from a high of 146p to 117.30p on Monday and in January it abandoned expansion plans to focus on its existing assets.