Admiral Taverns completes £222m pub group takeover

Admiral Taverns has completed the purchase of Solihull pub chain Hawthorn for £222.3m.

The deal brings together Admiral’s 1,000 venues and Hawthorn’s 674 managed pubs.

Hawthorn’s former owner NewRiver REIT will receive £216.1m, after transaction costs, which it will use to reduce its debt and strengthen its balance sheet. £100m will go to repay the outstanding balance on its revolving credit facility.

NewRiver may also receive a further £4m from a pending insurance claim by Hawthorn.

NewRiver chief executive Allan Lockhart said the sale “will deliver on our key priority to reset loan to value, strengthening our balance sheet and enabling us to focus on executing our resilient retail strategy.”

Hawthorn is a community pub group and 80% is tenanted and leased pubs. The remainder forms its operator-managed division.

The group invested £7m in more than 200 capital expenditure projects in the financial year, many of which were focused on improving the outside space of its pubs. It also provided £8m of support for its partners and operators since the first lockdown.