Demand for leased or tenanted pubs at record high, says Stonegate CEO

The chief executive of Stonegate has claimed the level of interest in applying to run a leased or tenanted pub is “at the highest it’s ever been”.

David McDowall told The Sunday Times that agreements ending or people handing the keys back to the pub giant have been “at their lowest for quite some time”.

His comments come after it was reported late last year that Stonegate was accelerating plans for a £1b sale of more than 1,000 pubs – roughly a quarter of its portfolio – in an effort to reduce debt.

Over the weekend, the Sunday Times stated that Dowall’s plans to turn Stonegate into a smaller but more profitable business would involve the transformation of its managed pubs into tenanted and leased sites, which could reduce payroll and operational costs.

The paper added that the number of managed pubs operated by Stonegate fell from 674 to 544 last year, contributing to a decline of almost 5,000 employees in 2025.

In response to the redundancies, Dowall told The Sunday Times: “We’ve had to look at the level of resource that’s required. You need less central oversight.”

While he stressed there was no rush to finalise a plan on the sale or refinancing of his pubs, he said the group could consider selling off some of its brands, such as Slug & Lettuce or Walkabout, in the longer term.

TDR Capital-backed Stonegate was founded in 2010 with 333 pubs and now has more than 4,500 sites under brands such as Slug & Lettuce and Be At One following its acquisition of rival chain Ei Group in March 2020.

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