Marston’s boss: ‘Business rates and VAT relief extensions until 2022 are minimum needed to save pubs’

Marston’s boss Ralph Findlay today said an extension of the business rates holiday and VAT relief measures throughout 2021 is the “minimum requirement” needed to help pubs get through the pandemic.

Industry leaders lambasted the Chancellor this week for failing to provide firms with much-needed certainty by extending the measures as part of the latest lockdown support package.

Marston’s revealed in a trading statement on Friday that it is burning through cash at a rate of £3-4 million per week in full lockdown, and bosses do not expect to reopen “until March at the earliest”. The firm, which has laid off more than 2,000 workers since Covid hit, has around 97% of staff furloughed.

In the statement, Findlay said that it is vital pubs “not only survive the short-term crisis but are supported in order to recover and flourish. Extending the business rates holiday and VAT cut for the rest of this year is a minimum requirement”.

His comments came as the pub giant reassured shareholders it has a “significantly strengthened balance sheet” to help it see out the pandemic - and that bosses believe its largely suburban estate is “well positioned” to recover as soon as restrictions are eased.

The firm said revenues across its 1,379-strong estate during 13 weeks to January 2 came in at £54 million. It comes after the group reported plunging to an underlying pre-tax loss of £22 million in the year to October 3, down from a £95 million profit in 2019.

But Marston's recently put its beer business in a joint venture with Carlsberg UK, in which it has a 40% stake. The firm also collected £233 million in the process, which has been used to pay off a section of its £1.3 billion debt.

Executives added that the group's purchase of Welsh pub group SA Brain “does not compromise our stated financial strategy of reducing borrowings to below £1 billion by financial year 2024”.