Punch Taverns, the hugely-indebted pub group, today said that it had seen improving trends across its estate in the last three months and managed to sell off more of its unwanted outlets than expected.
Punch is looking to finalise a massive debt-for-equity swap to deal with its £2.4 billion of borrowings by the end of June. It said it was making “encouraging progress” in its talks with bondholders.
In the three months to March 2 the decline in sales in Punch’s core estate slowed from 5.2% to 3.5%. In the last six months it sold 164 pubs for a total of £55 million, which puts it on target for £105 million raised from sales by the year-end.
Stephen Billingham, executive chairman of Punch Taverns, said: “We have strong plans in place to return the core estate to growth in the medium term. We expect to make further progress in the second half of the financial year and are on track to meet our full-year profit expectations.”
