A national pub chain insists none of its 11 pubs in the city are at risk of closure despite its financing woes.
Stonegate manages 11 Brighton and Hove pubs and bars including Be At One Brighton on North Street, Charles Street Tap on Marine Parade and The Downs Hotel on Warren Road.
It was reported this week it is struggling to refinance £2.2 billion of debt.
Among the group’s partnered pubs is winner of the Best Brighton Pub title in this year’s Bravo awards, The Eddy – or Edinburgh – on Upper Gloucester Road.
David McDowall, CEO of Stonegate, said: “We have been very clear that we continue to work towards achieving our long-term balance sheet goals, with the successful refinancing of a portion of our estate in December marking a significant strategic step towards this.
“We would also like to assure our valued employees and partners that venues are not at risk as a result of this process.”
The UK’s biggest pub group published an alert on Tuesday, 9 April, saying there is no guarantee it can continue, after it failed to find new loan agreements before it published its annual report.
Stonegate needs to secure new loans to replace debt which is due for repayment in June 2025.
The article does not mention Hove, where the chain owns the Blind Busker on Church Road.
1st line 2nd paragraph 🤔
This is Brighton Eddy as opposed to Spanish Eddy
The same clowns who are responsible for running asda own Stonegate right pair of jokers
Stonegate the UK’s largest chain… So bigger then Mitchell and butlers, or enterprise inns
They are! enterprise inns.. And craft union..
Ei was bought out by Stonegate who now have 4500 pubs
2.2 billion in debt…… what are these people up to? I smell some serious doddy-dealings if not outright criminality.. They need to sell their property portfolio to clear these debts.
” Successful ” business’ are based on debt, with never any honest intention of repaying that debt, whilst also awarding massive pay cheques and share dividends to investors and company directors….until such time as it all comes tumbling down.
Thames Water is another example of debt-laden company brought to its financial knees by debt and dividend-paying greed….for FAILURE !!!!
Stonegate are registered in the Cayman Islands if I’m not mistaken.
I don’t drink in their establishments for that very reason and encourage others to do the same.
Stonegate are just another in a long line of dodgy, crooked and corrupt corporations that deserve to fail.
They clearly don’t want to support the British people by paying taxes they owe (hence Cayman Islands registration) so why should we care about them and their toxic business model?
This system *neoliberalism* encourages this appalling greed, selfishness and corruption.
Same people own Asda,borrow to buy the company then the debts added to the balance sheets. Strip out assets then dump the company.
It explains the sudden change in ASDA’s availability and restructuring of things such as in-store pharmacy hours/closures.
When they say something isn’t at risk, it invariably means that it is!
I thought Charles Street was a Mitchell and Butler venue? Pretty sure The Sportsman pub up by Withdean Leisure centre is a Mitchell and Butler too but under a sub- brand umbrella….