History
The company was established by former Pizza Express head Hugh Osmond and Café Rouge founder Roger Myers in 1997 when they bought the Bass portfolio of public houses. In 1999 Punch purchased Allied Domecq's pubs for £3 billion, beating a rival bid from Whitbread. After the deal, Punch spun off its managed pubs into a separate division, Punch Retail, which was later renamed Spirit Group.
In 2002 Punch demerged the Spirit Group and then floated itself on the London Stock Exchange. Punch bought Pubmaster in November 2003: the acquisition of larger rival Pubmaster, catapulted the operator to number one in the league. The acquisition took the group to more than 7,000 pubs and cemented Punch's position as a major pub operator. After completing this deal Punch later bought InnSpired Inns plc, and then Avebury.
Meanwhile, Spirit Group (at that time independent from Punch Taverns) expanded when it acquired Scottish & Newcastle's 1,450-strong pub estate in 2003, beating off rival Mitchells & Butlers.
In September 2005, Spirit Group sold its "City Nights" portfolio of in excess of 180 pubs and clubs, en-bloc, to Alchemy - the financial backers behind the newly-formed Tattershall Castle Group (TCG).
In December 2005, Punch agreed to re-acquire the Spirit Group for £2.68bn which since 2002 had been owned by the private equity firms Blackstone, Texas Pacific and CVC Capital Partners.
In 2006 the Company sold its Old Orleans pub chain, which it had acquired when it bought Spirit Group, to Regent Inns. Punch also sold 290 Spirit sites to the private equity firm GI Partners.
In March 2008 Punch withdrew from a bid to merge with Mitchells & Butlers.
On 22 March 2011 Punch announced that as part of a strategic review it would demerge its the managed and leased pub divisions into Spirit Pub Company plc and Punch plc; this demerger became effective on 1 August 2011.
Read more about this topic: Punch Taverns
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