Admiral Taverns - Leased & Tenancy

Admiral Taverns is the UK’s leading community pub group, with around 1,600 pubs across the UK. It uses a predominantly Leased and Tenanted model, with around 10% of its estate being made up of managed pubs. Operating across the UK and headquartered in Chester, its goal is creating sustainable, individual and authentic community pubs, by supporting its licensees to build great local businesses.

The Leased & Tenanted pub model is a partnership between Admiral Taverns and business entrepreneurs, who want to create and run their own sustainable pub business, whilst benefitting from Admiral’s extensive support. Admiral Taverns own the building, but the licensee has complete responsibility for the day-to-day handling of the business. The Group invests in its pub portfolio through targeted Capex programmes which support long-term successful futures, whether that is through a complete refurbishment, installing a new garden or training its licensees. During the pandemic, Admiral’s operation-centric support saw over £15 million invested in financial support for its licensees.

Admiral operates under the tenanted and leased model whereby it as the pub company own the pub and agrees to rent the premises to you via a lease or tenancy agreement. Most tenancies/leases include a negotiated supply agreement covering the purchase of all drinks categories and possibly a range of other goods and services (hence the phrase ‘tied’ pubs). The level of rent you agree to pay at your pub will be dependent upon the extent of your purchasing obligations. The rent offers are based on a Full Tie, and hence reflects the lowest rent payable. For licensees on long term agreements, it offers free-of-tie options for certain drinks categories in exchange for an annual fee. The prices you pay for drinks purchased from Admiral are likely to be different to those on the open market. When you take on the pub your Business Development Manager will discuss rent and the tie with you.

Admiral's unique operational approach has earnt industry recognition with the Group awarded Best Leased and Tenanted Pub Company in 2019, 2016 and 2013 and ranked highly commended as Best Community Pub Operator in 2017. The Group was also singled out and praised for its licensee support during the pandemic in the Pubs Code Adjudicator 2022 annual report. This included cancelling rents as soon as pubs closed their doors and providing extensive re-opening support.

Admiral Taverns has constantly achieved the highest overall score amongst the regulated, national pub companies for its licensee-centric approach in the annual independent UK licensee survey. The survey, led by Kam Media, consults tenants from 19 pub companies, including all six of the UK’s largest pub companies to establish the ranking, assessing a variety of criteria. These included pub-company support offered to licensees throughout the pandemic, effectiveness of Business Development Managers, recruitment, ordering and delivering platforms, product support, business support, marketing and communications, landlord services, and net promoter scores to determine whether a tenant would recommend the pub company.