I will not have any nonsense in my pub company

SUSAN Barratt has a dreadful confession to make. She may run pub group Eldridge Pope, but she's never actually pulled a pint.

And if she is correct in her candid admission that Eldridge Pope - now on the receiving end of an unwelcome bid from pubs entrepreneur Michael Cannon - is unlikely to remain as a public company in the long term, it may be some time before she acquires barmaid skills.

'I'm very good the other side of the bar though,' she adds hastily.

She needs to be. Formerly Eldridge Pope's finance director, Barratt, 38, took over the top

job at the end of June after the departure of predecessor Michael Johnson and the ending of a possible bid from Wolverhampton & Dudley.

It took only five weeks before she found herself under assault from Cannon - mastermind of chains such as the Magic Pub Company and Devenish - who is hoping to build a 29.9% stake in the company.

Other rivals, including Greene King and Punch, have also run a ruler over the company.

But Barratt admits that the company might not survive in its present form and has her own ideas about its future.

Once the performance is back on track, options include a trade sale, taking the company private, an acquisition or a merger, she says.

'We've got to do the best for our shareholders and we'll look at any proposals for the company. We need to show investors that we can generate true value from our assets and prove that we can run pubs, which we haven't really done for the past few years.'

The big issue facing Barratt is whether she and her Dorsetbased company, which runs a stable of rural pubs and inns as well as the High Street outlets trading under the Toad brand, will be given time to show they can do things better.

Clearly reluctant to criticise her predecessor, Barratt none theless admits: 'Michael joined with a view to going on a big acquisition route, but the core of the business was already under pressure. And in Eldridge Pope they're used to a structure where people will do what the boss wants and no one questions it.'

Barratt says that when she joined as finance director, the strategy was already in place, adding: 'Often there's only one strategy for a company our size and there's only one leader of that strategy. And unless that's you, it's often difficult to shift it.'

Now, though, her attempts to drive the group on are in danger of being derailed by predatory interests. 'It was a real shame because I was trying to raise people's morale and was really gathering momentum, but then suddenly the diary got shot to pieces,' she says recalling Cannon's unwelcome intervention.

It has propelled her into a new role of face-to-face meetings with big investors in the City where she admits she is an unknown quantity.

She would, she says, be far happier simply getting on with running the business.

A chartered accountant, she worked first for Coopers & Lybrand before joining banana importer Geest and then leisure group Whitbread, where she spent some time in the pubs division. When that was sold to Morgan Grenfell, Barratt went too, but just ten months later she was headhunted for the Eldridge Pope job.

Her plan is to get back to basics. She has scrapped the acquisition ambitions and has

Keen not to repeat the mistakes of her predecessor, she says: 'We've got a much more open culture now - my door is always open.

'I feel that the people management part of the business is my strength and I just love the challenge.'

Top of her list is to revive the Toad-branded pubs which need to attract more diners and lunchtime drinkers.

'The Toads are not doing particularly well,' she says, 'but we have some great plans for them. There's a lot of potential there.'

Being the lone female chief executive of a pub company doesn't faze Barratt. 'I'm confident and won't take any nonsense. I'm not going to sit quietly and let people run all over me.

'But I don't see it as something necessarily to be proud of - I just want to be picked because I'm the best person for the job.'

But one person, at least, is proving impervious to Barratt's confidence and open door - Michael Cannon. He had arranged to meet her and chairman Christopher Pope, but was advised to cancel, much to Barratt's annoyance.

With more than a tinge of that irritation in her voice she says: 'Your guess is as good as mine as to what his next move is going to be.'