UK Edition
Oaktree backs Rooney Anand’s £500m swoop on Britain’s pubs
Former Greene King chief's new venture aims to capitalise on pent-up demand from drinkers when Covid restrictions are eased
One of the world’s biggest investment firms is backing former Greene King boss Rooney Anand’s £500m swoop on Britain's beleaguered pub sector.
Los Angeles-based Oaktree, famed for founder Howard Marks’ monthly investment memos with a near-$150bn (£110bn) portfolio, is providing the financial firepower behind RedCat Pub Company, The Telegraph can reveal.
The pub sector ranks among the hardest hit by coronavirus with rolling lockdowns taking operators to the brink of collapse.
Oaktree is injecting £200m into RedCat to capitalise on increased leisure spending once lockdown restrictions are eased and a surge in staycations.
RedCat will look at buying either individual businesses or operators outright. It will target pubs in the south and east of England with a further £300m in debt funding expected to be raised.
Mr Anand said: “There is no set playbook. I am not trying to recreate Greene King. I see myself as someone who's investing in a sector that has been oversold, where people have taken cover and written it off and have been too quick to say: ‘It's not going to recover'.
“I’ve always been a strong believer in the great British pub. It has survived the Blitz, the Great Plague and the credit crunch - always bouncing back and taking its rightful place at the heart of the community. There will always be a market for a decent pub.”
Famed for its distressed investments, Oaktree has grown into one of the world’s most prominent asset managers. Mr Marks' monthly memos have attracted praise from the likes of fellow US investor Warren Buffett.
“When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they're the first thing I open and read,” Mr Buffett once said.
Oaktree’s UK investments include gym group FitnessFirst and estate agent Countrywide.
As chief executive between 2005 and 2019, Mr Anand steered Greene King to safety after being hit by the smoking ban and the financial crisis in the mid-noughties.
He said in 2019: “We did five years’ worth of work in 18 months. You learn things from things that are hard, that are difficult; rather than things that seem to go really well, really easily.”