Karl Harrison 23/11/2009 20:23:52

2 Star Rating

RE: Fair Pint welcomes S&N free of tie deals

Vince/4707 - thanks for reading my post.

There was, to some extent, a time when it did work as you suggest.The pub sector had a certain corporate naivety. The arrival of financial engineering, securitisation and the treatment of pubs as pure property assets has led to a great deal of damage. Some in the sector felt forced to copy the bad practise, some dived in head first seeing easy money from exploiting tenants and all around there have those with their noses near the trough who have done nothing to stop the rot. The failure was forecast in banking and ignored and with bankers in the pub sector it was forecast there as well and similarly ignored.

In reality most of the pubcos and brewers don't truly have a view of pub tenants as their commercial partners or equals and they have most recently and largely seen pub retailers, particularly individual tenants, as being under their control, disposable and there to be exploited. That has been the culture from top down to BDM level. Although not employees of their companies the retailers in tenanted pubs are the front line for brewers and pubcos. Responsible,modern and successful companies have cultures of respect throughout their own organisations, through their supplier networks and through their commercial partnerships. Ultimately this gives the customer the right feeling about the decision to buy and to keep coming back for more. Pub tenants are the customers of the pubcos and brewers but when tied cannot exercise normal commercial freedom and independence. No pressure to deliver a service or products at a competitive price exists in the tenanted sector. The pubcos and brewers have acted like a cartell, carving up the pub market and then spreading largesse where necessary to try to keep the whole thing tottering along. Not good.

My response to above:

Aha Mr Harrison, nice the way you slipped that naughty little upsetting the applecartel word in there like that. The pubcos prefer the description 'franchise' to 'cartell' to describe their business activities. Rather in the way that the state executioner preferred to be called the 'State Executioner' rather than 'Hangman'. Strange since there's nothing wrong with using the word in Britain.