Pubcos

Many years ago, a previous government broke up what it saw as the unhealthy brewers' monopoly on public houses. Old fashioned tenanted houses largely vanished and my understanding is that a fairly small number of pubcos have, in effect, come in to replace the brewers. Three of these pubcos are Wetherspoon's, Greene King and Stonegate, the first two of which have the merit of being visible, flying under their own colours. While the last operates some 700 houses, flying under various colours, and is owned by TDR capital. I had not heard of either of these operations before today.

TDR capital operates at 20 Bentinck Street, quite near the Wigmore Hall, one of the streets which includes crosses let into the kerb stones, crosses previously noticed at reference 3. An address at which a whole flock of TDR flavoured companies are registered. A very discrete address, and I suspect the Street View people of having blotted out the street numbers to confuse the curious who are too lazy to go there in person, but they missed No.17, a house with a blue plaque. So the left hand door in the snap above might well be No.20.

Other inhabitants of the street include what are probably very expensive private clinics, equally discrete. And the landlord has thoughtfully provided what look like CCTV cameras, rather like the ones you get in tube trains, above every window. One clearly can't be too careful.

A matter to which I shall return in due course.

PS: in the meantime, I should add that Greene King started out as a provincial brewer - making beer I rather liked - and is still brewing as well as operating public houses. Not yet checked what proportion of their turnover is brewing these days.

Reference 1: https://www.stonegatepubs.com/.

Reference 2: https://www.tdrcapital.com/.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/06/bentinck-street.html.

Reference 4: https://www.hdwe.co.uk/. A discrete landlord. People who do have at least some property in Bentinck Street.

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/12/fancy-spirits.html. A previous encounter with de Walden, that is to say the previous reference.