Telegraph.co.uk- When the directors of pub group Mitchells & Butlers glance down their company share register they could be forgiven for not immediately recognising the names of all their owners. While Man Financial and Cantor Fitzgerald, hedge funds with huge holdings in the company, are well known to most, entries like Violet Capital and Vanguard Capital are a bit more unusual.
In just 18 months, the roll-call of investors in M&B has moved from old school institutions to new boy hedge funds in one of the biggest shifts any company on the London Stock Exchange has seen. Long-term value builders have been replaced by short-term speculators betting on a windfall from the sale of the pub group’s £5bn property portfolio, being pushed by entrepreneur Robert Tchenguiz.
Ever since Tchenguiz appeared on the scene early last year with an informal bid for the company, financial sharks have been smelling blood. Unfortunately for a company more used to selling pints and pies, the company’s new-found followers seem to have been little interested in the operating company, more in the property it inhabits. What Tchenguiz spotted nearly two years ago was that like many asset-rich operating companies, M&B’s property was undervalued. So why not sell it off and make everybody rich?
