The introduction of the Pubmaster estate to Punch Taverns has seen group turnover rocket up by over a third.

Year on year group turnover at Punch Taverns increased 39 per cent to £303m for the 28 weeks to 6 March 2004.

The figures include revenue generated by Pubmaster, which Punch acquired last year, for the 14 weeks since 1 December 2003.

Pre-tax profits were up 30 per cent to £72.5m, compared with £55.6m in the same period last year.

Chief executive, Giles Thorley, said the results showed a period of ‘excellent’ growth and demonstrated the strength of Punch’s business model.

“We have continued to invest in our estate and work in partnership with our retailers to enhance the quality of our operations to generate strong organic growth.

“Pubmaster is bedding in well and we will see further upside as our management techniques are implemented,” he said.

The company has already signed off over 200 projects to improve the Pubmaster estate.

Bill Walker, operations director, added that the company is still looking for further acquisitions: “We are always looking for individual acquisitions or small packages of pubs – even larger deals if something appropriate comes along.

“While we’ve reached the maximum amount of pubs we can own under licensing regulations in certain parts of the country, there are areas where we aren’t particularly dense – Scotland in particular – so there are plenty of opportunities for us.”

Walker also said the company was closely watching how the ban on smoking in Ireland was affecting the hospitality sector, but that he did not think a similar law should be implemented in the UK.

“We are moving more and more towards non-smoking being the norm and I can see we will get to a point where there will be designated smoking areas in pubs rather than the other way around,” he said, “but we would be reluctant to see a ban enforced.”

Many of the company’s pubs already offer non-smoking areas, and some food-based sites are completely non-smoking, but Walker said it should be up to individual retailers to decide.

Since the acquisition of Pubmaster and subsequent disposals to comply with monopoly regulations, Punch now operates 7,371 mainly freehold pubs, let to retailers predominantly in community, rather than high street, locations.