The decision on Friday by Ralph Findlay, chief executive of Marston's, to maintain the final dividend excited mixed emotions. Some analysts said that, with a £400 million facility due for renewal in August 2010 and trading next year likely to deteriorate further, he would have been better advised to conserve cash.

There were even suggestions that he had held the payout only because that was what Greene King had done on Monday. However, most commentators decided that it was a welcome show of confidence in the brewer and pub operator's future prospects.

Mr Findlay himself explained the decision in his usual quiet but decisive fashion. By reducing capital expenditure by £60 million and selling up to 75 bottom-end pubs worth £20 million, he was confident that Marston's would be able to refinance the facility as well as continuing to pay down debt.

Although Marston's suffered a fall in full-year pre-tax profits from £98 million to £85 million, Mr Findlay said he was satisfied that the underlying trading performance was resilient, in the context of the dismal trading climate.

He said that as the industry continued to polarise between good-quality pubs and unsustainable pubs, Marston's was emerging as a clear winner. When he was promoted to chief executive of what was then Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries in 2001, it was in the middle of a protracted siege. That the predators were ultimately seen off was due in no small part to the quietly effective way in which the 47-year-old mustered the group's defences.

Since then, he has overseen a number of acquisitions that have added hundreds of pubs, as well as ale brands including Jennings Cumberland Ale, Brakspear Oxford Gold, Ringwood and Hobgoblin.

Pubs and breweries are a far cry from Mr Findlay's original chosen career. When he left Edinburgh University with a degree in geology, his plan was to join the British Antarctic Survey. The Falklands conflict got in the way and he ended up working in oil and gas exploration in Ireland before deciding that there was more money in accountancy.

Having qualified at PricewaterhouseCoopers, he worked with Bass, the brewer, and Geest, the food group, before joining Marston's in 1994 and becoming finance director two years later. Mr Findlay, who is married with two children, lives in Wolverhampton and drives a diesel Audi Allroad. He is a Nottingham Forest supporter.