East Midlands pubs sold in £23m deal

Apripose has sold a group of East Midlands pubs operated by Stonegate to investment firm Blackrock as part of a £23m deal.

According to reports in The Caterer, Apripose has offloaded the Slug and Lettuce in Derby, Yates’s in Leicester, the Burlington in Chesterfield and the Mailbox in Lincoln.

Mark Sheehan, managing director, Coffer Corporate Leisure, said: “The public house market in particular is in huge demand with appetite significantly outstripping supply. Institutional investors are attracted by the long leases, index-linked uplifts, strong underlying property value and liquidity of pub assets. Lack of stock remains our biggest issue.”

Geoffrey Shaw, portfolio manager at BlackRock, said: “Pubs provide a great diversifier for our clients as the demand drivers have a low correlation to other sectors such as hotels, offices or car parks. The assets are run by a very experienced management team and the individual lot sizes make the properties very liquid.”

Coffer Corporate Leisure advised Aprirose. BlackRock was advised by Fleurets.