Signature Pubs, the firm behind venues that include The Rutland Hotel, Element and The Basement Bar in Edinburgh, has completed the acquisition of five former Maclay Group pubs.
The units – The Wick in Prestwick, Clerk’s Bar in Edinburgh and Glasgow bars The Hope, The Raven and Munros – bring the Signature estate to 12 venues. The five units, which were acquired for an undisclosed sum, had previously been owned jointly by Maclay and Tennent Caledonian and were most recently operated as Thistle Pub Company, a subsidiary of Tennent’s, after Maclay went into administration in January 2015.
Signature owner Nic Wood said the Thistle units had all been trading strongly.
“You look at the EBITDA, at how the units look, we’ve not done a bad deal here with Tennent’s at all,” he told SLTN.
“Looking at some of the pricing that’s in at the moment, I know from some of the [supply] deals we have there’s better margins to be had. If we thought it was a good deal to start with, it definitely looks a lot better now.
