Brief comments on Punch to Wayne Brown at

To Wayne Brown at Altiumsecurities

Hi Wanted to agree with your analysis of Punch reported in MA yesterday.I was surprised that Nigel Parsons thought otherwise. The fundamentals in the business look so poor. As a landlord they have mixed quality tenants; a desparate lack of any brands; and the huge investment made in the first 5 - 8 years is already wearing off. This of course failed to deliver the long term sustainable rent increases that any other property developer would have expected ( I accept they came through for a while). The problem was the lack of quality operators and the right emphasis of the corporate structure to support those operators. The big failing was not to develop brands to franchise. As a trading business not only is this in decline but even where sites are viable beer sales are declining as a proportion of total drink sales. There might be some short term capital gains, but they will be short term and short lived.