Punch chief is knocked out

PUNCH Taverns embarked on a curious game of musical chairs today, replacing the chief executive with the chairman as it unveiled its first results since floating in May.

Stephen Lambert, who until today was chief executive, will leave immediately to 'pursue other interests' while Giles Thorley, who was executive chairman, is now chief executive.

Thorley, who has always been very much in charge, said the management changes were 'collectively decided'. Following the Initial Public Offering in May, the financing and the demerger of the managed pub group, Punch, 'didn't need all the management resources going forward'.

A bizarrely worded statement from Lambert, 50, who had been chief executive since early 2000, shed no light on the matter. He said: 'I have enjoyed my time at Punch enormously...I now feel able to explore new aspects in the knowledge that there will be no interruption in the running and development of the business.'

Deputy chairman Phil Cox, who was previously finance director at Asda, will become chairman.

Exceptional costs resulted in a pre-tax loss of £120m compared with a profit of £3m in the previous year. As part of a restructuring prior to flotation, Punch took on £144m of debt which turns up in this year's profit and loss account as a one-off charge, together with £69m linked to the IPO. With exceptionals and discontinued business stripped out, profits in the year to 17 August grew 9% to £93m.

Like-for-like sales, measured across 93% of the pub estate were up by 3% and the contribution from the pubs, such as rents, which accounts for most of Punch's turnover, is up by 5%. Thorley said trading in the new year was continuing roughly in line with last year.

He said he was speeding up expansion. 'We bought 187 pubs last year and we've bought 50 this year. We're buying about five pubs a week and we've set ourselves a target of 300,' he added. This would take the whole estate to 3,600. The shares were today down 2p at 228p.