Whitbread is restricting the £600m-plus auction of 250 of its pub-restaurants to established pub operators.
Mitchells & Butlers is tipped as the frontrunner, but 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, which is being advised by Goldman Sachs, is understood to be running a tight process to avoid the uncertainty of a long, drawn-out disposal.
It is believed to have earmarked about 250 of its 440 pub-restaurants for possible disposal, the majority located next door to a Premier Inn. Many of the sites identified are either marginal or loss-making.
