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Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has announced he is to sell The Warrington, a pub in north-west London that he has run since 2006.

The pub has been put onto the market following a decline in custom, following in the footsteps of another Ramsay owned pub, The Devonshire, in Chiswick, west London, which he shut a few weeks ago.

Ramsay paid £5.2 million for The Warrington four years ago and spent another £800,000 on refurbishing it to his taste. He said at the time that he intended to use the site to launch a gastropub chain that would 'establish him as a force outside the refined world of haute cuisine.'

In the most recent edition of the Harden's guide, The Warrington was singled out for being a 'Kitchen Nightmare of truly astonishing proportions.' It also became a laughing stock when a newspaper revealed that it was serving frozen food that had been prepared in another kitchen and transported to the pub via lorry.

News of this latest pub sale will leave Ramsay with just one pub to his name – The Narrow in east London. He has also been forced to close his exclusive Cape Town restaurant Maze in South Africa, which was believed to be losing £10,000 a week.

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A community pub in Grizebeck, Cumbria, has been put onto the market on the auction website Ebay.

The Greyhound Inn won the Best Traditional Business award in the 2009 Countryside Alliance awards and was taken on by a committee of local people who were desperate to save the pub from closure.

But, 20 months on from the committee’s takeover, the pub’s future remains uncertain. The locals, all of whom were regular customers at the pub, appear to have called time on the venture and withdrawn after being unable to reach an agreement to buy the premises.

Now owners Dick and Christine Strike have listed the pub on Ebay with a £300,000 price tag.
Christine Strike said, “We did not want to take it back on. Dick is going in for spinal surgery soon, so he will not be physically able to do anything in the pub. This is not what we wanted for the Greyhound – we wanted it to go from strength to strength.”

Mrs Strike said, “I was was sad when I heard the committee were unable to buy the pub. They came to us last week and said they do not have the money.

“We need someone to take it on, so we’ve put it on Ebay for 10 days. We already have one watcher. We will be keeping our fingers crossed for something to happen,” she added.

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Following the collapse into administration of Burnside (UK) and Burnside Inns last week, the pub and hotel businesses owned by the firms have been put up for sale.

The Plough Hotel in Stenhousemuir and the Graeme, a hotel bar and restaurant in Falkirk, are both owned and operated by Burnside (UK), while Burnside Inns Ltd owns and operates the Red Lion in Larbert, Stirlingshire.

All three businesses, which are available individually or as a package, are continuing to trade.
The seven-bedroom Plough Hotel, which is situated in Stenhousemuir town centre, features a public bar, restaurant/coffee shop, function suite, adjacent dining room and meeting room, and car park.

The Graeme has 14 bedrooms, including 10 en-suite, an open-plan bar/restaurant, dining room, beer garden and car park. The Red Lion comprises a 14 en-suite bedroom hotel, Champagne bar, breakfast room and Chinese takeaway service.

Brian Sheldon, director at Christie & Co and overseer of the sales of these businesses on behalf of the administrators, said, “All three businesses are in a good condition and benefit from established local customer bases.

“We therefore expect the businesses to generate significant interest from experienced operators and local developers,” he added.

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A historic pub in Bristol is desperately seeking a buyer to save it from closure or being redeveloped into residential accommodation.

The 18th-Century Lamplighters pub in Shirehampton has been standing empty since the building was put up for sale in May by its owner, Enterprise Inns.

Originally Enterprise Inns had promised to renovate and reopen the pub and said a new landlord would be moved in, but decided to market it instead, prompting fears that it could be demolished to make way for flats or housing.

Now, a campaign has been launched to save the grade II listed riverside pub, which is on the market for £400,000 and is described as offering 'a variety of potential uses, subject to planning permission.'

Peter Bridle, from Campaign for Real Ales, (Camra) is leading the campaign to save the pub. "The Lamplighters is no ordinary pub – it has massive potential.

"It is set in a fantastic location on the riverside in quiet surroundings within a minute's walk of the railway station and close to a park and ride bus service.

"The pub has extensive premises located over three storeys, a car park and a fantastic garden. I have no doubt that the pub can be a very successful and viable business serving the local community,” he added.

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Despite revealing a rise in annual turnover of almost 24 per cent, pub owner Foundation Inns is planning to sell two of its six pubs.

The company, which was set up in 2007, reported a turnover of £2.6 million for the year to 27 March 2010, while it made a pre-tax loss of almost £540,000, down from £1.75 million in the previous year.

However, these losses were recorded during a period when some of the firm's pubs were not trading – the Village in Walthamstow Village was being redeveloped and reopened in July of last year, while the King's Head and Bell in Abingdon, acquired in 2008, was reopened in November 2009.

The two pubs now up for sale are the Glass House in Lincoln – the chain's only leasehold pub- which 'struggled to perform in the face of increased local 'price driven' competition,' and the freehold White Horse in Chelmsford, which will be on the market for around £400,000.

Foundation Inns said that its board was 'continually reviewing all possibilities for the future,' although the firm as a whole cannot be sold without compromising the tax reliefs it benefits from until November this year at the earliest, as it was backed by the Government's Enterprise Investment Scheme.

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A successful independent dog grooming business in the beautiful, rural surroundings of North Ayrshire, Scotland, has been put onto the market.

The well-known company, which has been in operation for more than 20 years, has a substantial and long established clientele of pampered pooches.

Situated in the convenient premises of a busy town centre veterinary practice, the dog grooming business can also offer the benefit of a vet and veterinary nurse if required during office hours. The business has its own private entrance and off-street parking.

The dog grooming business caters to all breeds of dogs and offers dog baths, coat trimming, pedicures, styling and many other treatments. This opportunity would ideally suit a trained groomer ready to start their own business.

North Ayrshire is a popular tourist destination, attracting many dog walkers. It borders Inverclyde to the north, Renfrewshire to the north east and East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire to the east and south.

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The popular Birmingham-based pub group, Penn Street Taverns, has announced plans to sell four of its freehold pubs across the West Midlands.

The chain has taken on agent, Christie + Co, to deal with the sales. The pubs it is intending to off-load are the Hampton in Hockley, the Midland and the Beau Brummie, as well as the Bush pub in Wednesday.

The chain has gained a reputation for its premises in the Midlands, operating 15 branched across the counties of Shropshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Herefordshire.

The Beau Brummie has proven to be one of its more successful branches, drawing in significant trade from its proximity to St Andrews, the home ground of Birmingham City football club.

Noel Moffitt, Director at Christie + Co, who will be handling the sale said the pubs could be bought together or individually, and offered a range of development and business opportunities.

He explained, “These four substantially-sized pubs will prove equally popular with developers and established local operators. The location of the Beau Brummie should ensure it attracts high levels of interest in particular.”

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A former Odeon cinema building in Edinburgh is to be put onto the market for a three-month period at the end of this summer.

Developer Duddingston House Properties, (DHP) which owns the building, has been prevented from demolishing it to build a hotel by its current 'listed' status, so has decided to give another developer the chance to find an alternative use for it.

While they have full planning permission from the local council and heritage body, the Cockburn Foundation, their plan to demolish a 1930s auditorium at the back of the building to make way for the hotel, led to the refusal of Historic Scotland to delist the building. Another development may still be allowed if this element was removed from the plans.

DHP chief executive Bruce Hare said that despite having put forward various ideas that would retain the auditorium, he had not received a legal offer to buy the site, which was independently valued at £2.9 million in December. He continued, "Nevertheless, we have decided to market it high and wide for a three-month period to open up the opportunity to as many parties as possible."

If a buyer is still not found, DHP will reapply for a delisting consent.

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Former Wall Street stockbroker Kenny Huang has set a 10-day deadline on behalf of an unnamed group, for Liverpool FC to accept their takeover bid.

Mr Huang opened talks with the football club's primary lender, the Royal Bank of Scotland, last weekend. There is speculation that the group he is working on behalf of is the China Investment Corporation. The talks have already included discussions with the club's non-executive chairman, Martin Broughton, in an attempt to accelerate negotiations, despite there being no announced deadline to complete the deal to sell the club.

If the group is successful in buying the club, there are rumours that it will provide substantial backing to new manager Roy Hodgson to strengthen his squad before the close of the transfer window on 1 September.

The bid from Huang, chairman of Hong Kong-based QSL Sport, is one of six offers currently on the table.

Present owners
George Gillett and Tom Hicks are said to be strongly opposing the surge of approaches to Barclays Capital, the orchestrators of the sale process, due to the shortfall of their valuation for the club of between £600 million and £800 million.


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Glynn Barton, a leading holiday cottage business near Bodmin in Cornwall, has come to the market for offers in excess of £2,500,000 through Chesterton Humberts.

The business, which specialises in holidays for families with young children, is set in a beautiful elevated position with panoramic valley views, equidistant between the south and north Cornish coastlines. It was named ‘Best for small children' in The Times newspaper this April.

The 4/5 bedroom main farmhouse comes with a stone-built 1-bed guest annexe, eight letting cottages, an indoor swimming pool and an all-weather tennis court.

The business is very profitable, enjoying sixty per cent repeat business and referrals, most of whom are families from the south east of England. In 2009, the business was fully booked for over 40 weeks of the year with gross turnover in 2008/2009 of £256,157 net of VAT.

It was bought and modernised 10 years ago by Lucy and Andy Orr who moved from London to Cornwall when Lucy was pregnant with their first child.

“The property was already being run as a farm holiday business with six 2-star cottages on site, in desperate need of modernising,” said Lucy.

The Orrs spent six years doing renovations, restorations and rebuilds and each winter they added a new facility. In 2004 a six month project was undertaken to modernise the existing cottages and to restore two old barns to the 5-star cottages they are today.

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