THE owner of Tennent’s Lager has offloaded its stake in a major UK pub company for £55 million.

C&C Group offloaded its entire minority interest in Admiral Taverns to Proprium Capital Partners, the real estate fund manager. The drinks company had originally invested in Admiral, which has a portfolio of more than 1,600 pubs, with Proprium in September 2017.

As part of the divestment, C&C has agreed to long-term supply agreement with the Admiral Estate that includes its owned and agency brands.

C&C announced the disposal as it reported a return to profit in the 12 months ended February 28, boosted by the easing of coronavirus restrictions. The company made an operating profit of €47.9m, following a loss of €63.6m the year before, as revenue increased by 87.8% to €1.44 billion.

It noted that there were 267 days of trading in the on-trade across the UK and Ireland during the period, up from 117 days in 2021.

David Forde, chief executive of C&C, told The Herald that the investment in Admiral had been made prior to its acquisition of wholesale companies Matthew Clark and Bibendum. Admiral gave it access to around 1,000 pubs in Britain, while Matthew Clark opened up distribution of C&C brands to between 20,000 and 25,000 outlets in the pub trade.

“In terms of a vehicle to build our brands, we believe the Matthew Clark, Bibendum, TCB (Tennent Caledonian Breweries) system is a more powerful, more robust and deeper-reaching system than the minority interest in the pub estate.”

Shares in C&C were up nearly six per cent following morning trading.