Pubs giant Punch Taverns, which has 150 pubs in West Yorkshire, slumped into the red as it counted the cost of recent bad weather and the impact of servicing its £2.4 billion debt mountain. Punch, which has almost 4,400 leasehold pubs, made a £16.7 million loss for the 28 weeks to the start of March, although it insisted that the performance was in line with expectations. It made profits of £30.2 million a year earlier. Punch said it sold more than 160 pubs during the half to raise £55 million and in time aims to dispose of almost 1,500 “non-core” pubs.
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