Admiral Taverns, one of Britain's biggest pub companies, is to split itself into three divisions and has appointed an industry veteran to run a tranche of 400 underperforming pubs to try to improve trading.

The company, which is controlled by the Landesberg and Rosenberg families, is understood to have appointed Peter Brook, a former head of companies including Inn-Spired Group and Tattershall Castle Group, to run about 400 of its 2,200 tenanted pubs in a divisional managing director role.

A recent review of Admiral identified a core of about 1,550 good-quality pubs and a bottom tier of 200 to 250 pubs for disposal, leaving a middle tranche of about 400 pubs deemed in need of greater management focus to realise their potential.

Mr Brook is expected to institute a programme of capital expenditure while bringing in new tenants in some of the worst-performing pubs. He is believed to be aiming for an average profit per pub of at least £30,000, up from about £20,000 at present.

Admiral was established in 2004 and over the following three years expanded rapidly by swallowing bottom-end pub estates from bigger rivals. However, in the past 18 months, in common with rivals, the company has largely kept its powder dry to focus on coping with effects of the smoking ban, the recession, increases in costs and a decline in beer sales.

Admiral, of which Lynne d'Arcy and Andy Clifford are joint managing directors, is also focusing on reducing its debt. Over the past 12 months, it has paid back about £110 million to HBOS, its main lender, by selling about 300 pubs. It expects to realise a further £50million from the disposal of the 200 to 250 pubs still up for sale.

The company, thought to be more conservatively financed than some of its struggling rivals, is selling the non-core pubs at a rate of about four a week to developers, owner-occupiers and restaurant operators.

— One of Britain's biggest restaurant operators has launched a series of new year promotions that will be “longer and deeper” than those of past years.

The Restaurant Group (TRG), which runs the Garfunkels and Frankie & Benny's chains, is eschewing the two-for-one offers that have become common among rivals in recent months, and has opted for a series of offers ranging from £5 discounts for repeat customers to £5 and £10 lunches as part of newspaper promotions.

Although January sales are nothing new in the restaurant industry, as operators seek to drum up business during a traditionally quiet period, offers this year are coming thicker and faster as chains battle it out for the dwindling leisure pound in consumers' pockets.

TRG's decision to expand its normal January sales follows a deterioration in recent trading. The company said that although it had traded “reasonably well” during Christmas, like-for-like sales in the seven weeks to December 28 had fallen by 4.9 per cent, after turning negative in mid-November.

The recent decline means that like-for-like sales for the full year rose by 1.5 per cent, against 2.5 per cent growth reported after the first 45 weeks of the year. The shares rose by 1p to 107p.

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