Sunday 6 January 2019

Ownership of UK pubs 1990 - 2017

The 2018 edition of the BBPA Statistical Handbook dropped onto my doormat yesterday. A nice late Chirstmas present. It's one of my favourite books, unencumbered as it is by much in the way of text.

Flicking through its pages, my eyes were drawn to one table on pubs. And their ownership. The numbers tell an intriguing tale of the fall and rise of brewery pub ownership..

In my early drinking days, the vast majority of pubs were brewery owned. And the few that weren't were really free either, having some sort of loan tie. The Beer Orders changed that and the large breweries offloaded their pub estates, mostly to pub companies.

Pub companies existed before Beer Orders. Sometimes, like Heavitree, they were breweries that had stopped brewing, but helf onto their pubs. But none operated on the scale of the large pub companies which had estates numbering thousands of pubs.

Between 1990 and 2003 there was a huge shift in ownership from breweries to pub companies, leaving the latter owning more than 50% of the total. But after 2003, the picture became very different. Independently-owned pubs, which had a fairly constant 30% share for 15 years, began gaining at the expense of pubcos.

The growth of indepently-owned pubs was spectacular after 2010, almost reaching 50%. Breweries also increased their share, though not by as much. I'm not sure if the 1,900 pubs Heineken acquired from its purchase of Punch in 2017 are included in the figures. I suspect they are.

What will the future hold? My guess is that the pubcos share will continue to fall and that of breweries increase. Like the Big Six, the pubcos will soon be a thing of the past. At least the unbranded ones. I can't see Wetherspoon disappearing anytime soon.


Ownership of UK pubs 1990 - 2017
Year Brewers Pub companies Independent Total
No. % No. % No. %
1990 43,500 68.50% 0 0.00% 20,000 31.50% 63,500
1991 29,500 47.43% 12,700 20.42% 20,000 32.15% 62,200
1992 25,700 41.72% 15,900 25.81% 20,000 32.47% 61,600
1993 26,200 42.95% 14,800 24.26% 20,000 32.79% 61,000
1994 26,000 42.83% 14,700 24.22% 20,000 32.95% 60,700
1995 22,200 36.39% 18,800 30.82% 20,000 32.79% 61,000
1996 22,300 36.68% 18,500 30.43% 20,000 32.89% 60,800
1997 21,900 36.14% 18,900 31.19% 19,800 32.67% 60,600
1998 19,700 32.30% 21,700 35.57% 19,600 32.13% 61,000
1999 20,400 33.17% 21,700 35.28% 19,400 31.54% 61,500
2000 11,200 18.42% 30,400 50.00% 19,200 31.58% 60,800
2001 10,100 16.64% 31,600 52.06% 19,000 31.30% 60,700
2002 9,800 16.31% 31,500 52.41% 18,800 31.28% 60,100
2003 8,300 13.97% 32,500 54.71% 18,600 31.31% 59,400
2004 8,900 15.08% 31,700 53.73% 18,400 31.19% 59,000
2005 9,400 16.04% 31,000 52.90% 18,200 31.06% 58,600
2006 9,400 16.15% 30,400 52.23% 18,400 31.62% 58,200
2007 9,400 16.35% 30,000 52.17% 18,100 31.48% 57,500
2008 9,100 15.99% 28,900 50.79% 18,900 33.22% 56,900
2009 8,900 15.92% 28,400 50.81% 18,600 33.27% 55,900
2010 8,700 15.70% 24,200 43.68% 22,500 40.61% 55,400
2011 8,500 15.54% 22,800 41.68% 23,400 42.78% 54,700
2012 9,300 17.29% 19,800 36.80% 24,700 45.91% 53,800
2013 9,300 17.71% 19,000 36.19% 24,200 46.10% 52,500
2014 9,800 18.88% 17,500 33.72% 24,600 47.40% 51,900
2015 9,400 18.50% 16,900 33.27% 24,500 48.23% 50,800
2016 9,400 18.69% 16,900 33.60% 24,000 47.71% 50,300
2017 11,000 22.75% 14,700 30.40% 22,650 46.85% 48,350
Source:
BBPS Statistical Handbook 2018, page 68.

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