Marstons sold its interest in the Carlsberg Marston Brewing Co in June, leaving the Danish brewer as the sole owner. It has continued its brewing tour of destruction with plans to close the 150 year old Banks’s brewery in Wolverhampton announced.
Marstons is now a pub Company owning 1,339 pubs. Its latest results (Times 10th October) reveal good trading which has allowed debt to be reduced to £855m, still however around 4 times the market value of the Company. That is noteworthy but not a huge immediate issue while Marstons continues as a going concern.
Food sales in the last 13 weeks went ‘exceptionally well’ and like for like sales in the pubs overall were up 4.8% in the year to the end of September 2024, outperforming the wider market. The Times reports that the results put Marstons in a ‘strong position to drive value for shareholders’.
Those of us who are primarily here for the good beer may wonder about the priorites here..
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