UK: Britain's biggest regional brewer, Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries Plc, beat off competition from privately owned pub company Laurel on Monday to snap up Wizard Inns for 90 million pounds ($164 million). The brewer of Pedigree, Banks's and Mansfield beers said it would continue to look for acquisitions, but declined to comment on whether it was interested in Deutsche Bank's 432 Laurel-managed pubs, put up for sale last month, Reuters posted on June 14. "As far as further activity is concerned we would remain interested in the process of consolidation which is going on in the pub sector," Chief Executive Ralph Findlay told Reuters. "We do believe there will be further opportunities to come."

Wizard contains the last of the Nomura (8604.T: Quote, Profile, Research) pub empire built up in the late 1990s by entrepreneur Guy Hands to over 5,500 pubs before a big sell-off. The pubs are currently managed by Hands' new firm Terra Firma for the Japanese owners. Most of Wizard's pubs are in London and south-eastern England and about half are high street outlets, with the rest community or neighbourhood pubs.

W&D has over 1,600 pubs, which are largely community based and located in central England. It also owns the Pitcher and Piano high street chain, which has outlets in many major cities including London.

The Laurel Pub Company, owned by Deutsche Bank's private equity arm, is currently auctioning off about 432 community pubs for around 450 million pounds to focus on its 177 high street outlets.

16 June, 2004