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Issuers: Pub chains
Amounts: i535 million; 231 million Type of deal: Leveraged acquisition securitizations
Lead managers: Morgan Stanley Dean Witter; BT Alex Brown Date of Issues: 23 February; 12 March Coming off the phone from Lemy Gresh, BT Alex Brown's head of securitization, you could be forgiven for thinking he only did the Punch Taverns deal as an excuse to get to the pub more often. "Where's your office?" he asks. "Near Fleet Street? Great. One of our pubs is there."
On arrival, slightly late it must be said, a quiet chat has turned into a corporate event: Gresh has brought four other members of the team with him, including Youssef Khlat, managing director of the bank's European syndicate desk, and a vice president, Mark Radin, and two associates from the securitization group Santiago Corral and Sebnem Erol. Gresh is keen to talk, and his entourage is more than happy to oblige; "It's the first time he's ever taken us out to lunch," jokes Khlat. Must be an important deal.
The week before, BT Alex Brown had lead-managed a five-tranche, 535 million securitized bond issue for this chain of 1,428 pubs, previously owned by brewing company Bass. In November last year Gresh was approached by two executives from Grovebase Properties, Hugh Osmond and Roger Myers. The former is part owner of Pizza Express, the latter holds a big stake in the Cafe Rouge chain, and they wanted to get into pubs.
After four months working on the deal, you'd think the bankers from Bankers could at least get a table; but no. Khlat had phoned ahead, but the law of the jungle prevailed and there were no seats left. "Well, at least it shows that we've been involved in a successful deal,"...