Yahoo Finance The City Pub Company hires brokers to push on Aim flotation plan
The privately owned City Pub Company has hired Liberum and Berenberg as its joint brokers as it prepares a listing on London’s junior market.
Chairman Clive Watson said the company was set to float on the Aim market later this year once it had merged its two divisions into one entity.
Shareholders in City Pub Company (West) will have to accept an offer from City Pub Company (East) and if that happens, the two will merge to create The City Pub Group, which is the entity which will list on the stockmarket.
Mr Watson, who sold the Capital pub company he founded with David Bruce to Greene King in 2011, first outlined plans to float last year after the company raised £10m from a convertible preference share sale to help it acquire new sites.
But now those hopes have taken a step closer to reality after the appointment of its joint brokers.
Mr Watson said the company would raise cash as part of the flotation by selling shares to new institutional shareholders as well as offering current owners, many of whom gained access to the company through an Enterprise Investment Scheme, the chance to snap up more stock.
The chairman said he hoped the injection of cash from the listing would mean it could double the size of its estate from 34 sites now in the next three or four years - a growth rate of roughly 11 per year.
Profits for the company are expected to be £7.5m in its 2018 fiscal year, according to projections for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation made in documents released by the company.
Mr Watson said he thought it was a good time to expand given the pressures on the industry from rising costs, such as business rates and wages.
“I think there will be less competition for sites and so more opportunities for us,” he said.
“We would rather be buying assets at this point in the cycle rather than the top of the market.”
The company has sites in various cities across the UK, including London, Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol and Exeter.
