NewRiver sells community pub business for £222.3m

NewRiver sells community pub business for £222.3m

NewRiver REIT has agreed to sell Hawthorn, the community pub business, to Admiral Taverns for £222.3 million.

Hawthorn owns 674 leased & tenanted and operator managed community pubs across England, Scotland and Wales.

Admiral Taverns is a wet-led community pub operator, with approximately 1,000 pubs across England, Wales and Scotland.

“Over recent years, we have grown Hawthorn to become the UK’s leading community and wet-led pub business. As a consequence of this, we received significant interest from a range of potential buyers for Hawthorn, following the divestment plan we announced in April 2021,” said Allan Lockhart, Chief Executive of NewRiver.

”We have now agreed the sale of Hawthorn which, once completed, 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. I would like to thank the entire Hawthorn team and, in particular, Mark Davies, who the Board had previously mandated to lead the divestment of Hawthorn, for their professionalism and dedication throughout the process, which has delivered a great result for NewRiver shareholders,” he added.