Whitbread is restricting the auction of 250 of its pub-restaurants to established pub operators, with Mitchells & Butlers being tipped as the frontrunner in the estimated £600 million process.
The Beefeater and Brewers Fayre operator, which is being advised by Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, is understood to be running a tight process to avoid the uncertainty of a long, drawn-out disposal.
While it has not commented, the Premier Inn operator is understood to have approached pub companies including Greene King, Heineken, Marston’s and Punch in what one City source described as “testing the water”.
Whitbread is believed to have earmarked about 250 out of its 440 pub-restaurants for possible disposal, the majority located next door to a Premier Inn. Many of the sites identified
