M&B heads for Punch-Tchenguiz battle

The future of UK pub group Mitchells & Butlers could be come down to a bid battle between Punch Taverns and a private equity group backed by Robert Tchenguiz, with the UK property entrepreneur preparing to take his stake in M&B to 29.9%. The board of M&B, which faced resignation calls from angry shareholders on Thursday, revealed Wednesday it had received tentative expressions of interest from various parties – including Punch and buy-out groups Apax, Cinven, CVC and Permira, say people close to the situation. These were made in the light of M&B’s decision to launch a strategic review in the wake of its calamitous £391m loss from closing hedging positions required to underpin a now-aborted property joint venture. Tchenguiz, whose R20 investment vehicle had persuaded M&B to enter the ill-fated joint venture, has a 23% stake in M&B, and is one of several investors wanting to see it extract value from its £5bn property portfolio. He has told M&B’s advisers he intends to raise his stake to the highest level possible before a bid is automatically triggered. Separately, the FT reports on M&B’s stormy annual meeting in which chairman Roger Carr apologised to outraged shareholders for the hedging debacle that swallowed two years of the pub group’s profits.