At risk of becoming the lead correspondent for public house sales - here is an offer published in the Morning Advertiser today.
Looks like @pauline 's infallible nose for real news was accurate after all - think she deserves to be awarded for scoop of the year. By several weeks too - how does she do it ?
The advert says you can have the Sylvan Post for £700k.
Poop.
It states that it’s available as an investment, presumably with the existing tenant, hurrah, or with vacant possession, in which case, yes, POOP!
The sale is with or without the existing business, so the operations may not be impacted:
Freehold with vacant possession, subject to a 999 year lease. The upper parts are sold off on long leases.
Alternatively the property can be acquired subject to a 20 year FRI lease in favour of the existing operator subject to 5 yearly rent reviews with a passing rent of £45,000 per annum.
£700k cost for rental value of £45k gives a yield of 6.4%, so not a bad investment.
might make a nice hotel.
LOL
Make a nice Post Office!
Or nail bar.
Cheeky!
It’s big enough for a church.
Extract from the sales document:
VIEWING
Strictly by appointment only through Fleurets London office 020 72xx 47xx.Please note that staff are unaware and should not be approached under any circumstance.
This might explain the staff/management (commercially discrete ?) denial of @pauline’s early revelation.
I trust all ye naysayers and doubters of the true word of @pauline are beating a path to her door to make suitable and humble apologies to her.
I’m sure I recall the use of the undeserved phrase “horse’s rear” - you know who said it.
I doubt the staff/Mike knew anything… they seemed extremely surprised at the time.
They’re totally going to be approached by the way… seems a bit naive to put that in a publicly available sales doc?
Got to agree with @Watershed.
My guess would be that when the listing was being circulated privately amongst the agent’s clients, it might have made sense in those circumstances.
Once it was placed in the public domain however, it’s tone and the actual statement should have been altered.
It actions like these that seriously diminishes the sense of value that good staff have and are entitled to. And I regret any pain that must cause them especially when an option of vacant possession is on the table.
Looking at the advert in detail leads to a view that only those assets that are freehold are being offered for sale. It could not be less clear at this stage who the beneficial owners of the assets are as opposed to the the company that operates them.
I used the name Antic from an historic perspective but actually cannot be certain they play any role in either ownership or management of these establishments.
The beneficial owners of 24 Dartmouth Road are in fact an LLP. And this assumes that this is an accurate interpretation of the pub’s address. It is listed in the sale as having an address that is 24-28 Dartmouth Road.
I’ve got my fingers crossed for the staff in particular.
No apologies needed guys, though thanks @anon51837532 
I just get told info and pass it on as I get it.
Can’t reveal my sourses as they might not inform me again 
Some more info on the reasoning.
Limited life funding? I’m still none the wiser…
the elephant is always buzzing when I’ve been in, surprised to see them sell it on. Can’t see it being anything else either at that spot. It must be an asset of community value too?
Good point. I googled it. Most google finds were this listing. But I did find something which suggested the capital received to acquire these pubs may be limited and required a sale after a period of time in order to release the equity back to the backer.
Yeah. I’m still none the wiser.
Makes sense. Antic seems to have had an interesting history…
I seem to remember that there was a change of ownership / change of holding company - went looking and found this report from 2013: https://www.bighospitality.co.uk/Article/2013/02/20/Antic-Limited-pubs-out-of-administration.
Limited Life Funding normally relates to a fixed term Private Equity fund which investors pay into and is used by the fund manager to make careful and astute (you hope) investments in promising looking companies.
As the fund itself is ‘limited life’, there will be a pre-agreed date on which the fund stops making new investments and is subsequently be wound up. Typically a fund invests in new projects for six years and is wound up in 10 years.
So I guess that if Antic took some capital from such a fund, then its likely the fund is in its wind up phase and is due for repayment - plus interest… I’m assuming that selling off a few of their pubs is their way of meeting that obligation.
Hopefully it’s bought as a going concern! Unlike the much-lammented (by me at least) Battersea Mess in Clapham Junction
Some of those are still pretty new! Suttons in Lewisham and Walker Briggs. Both nice, both a year old or less.
Unless Antic decide to do another fake windup.
