A portfolio of London pubs, including one associated with Victorian serial killer “Jack the Ripper,” is being put up for sale, as the capital’s bars face pressure from the cost-of-living crisis and office staff working from home.
Four pubs run by the East London Pub Co. were put on the block earlier this week, after the firm filed for insolvency in 2023. The portfolio is made up of The Ten Bells — the pub
believed to have been frequented by two of Jack the Ripper’s victims — The Gun in Spitalfields, The Saxon in Clapham and The Lock Tavern in Camden.
Savills Plc has been appointed to sell the assets on behalf of administrators, a spokesperson for the estate agent told Bloomberg News. Administrators at Kroll LLC were mandated to handle the insolvency in November last year, after secured lender Proventus Capital Partners appointed a receiver to the shares of East London Pub Co.’s Irish parent company.
“It is extremely rare to have four London sites of this caliber come to the market, all of which are located in a prime leisure circuit and produce exceptional level of revenue,” Ed Sandall, a director at Savills, said in an email.
Trading at many of London’s pubs has struggled to recover to pre-pandemic levels, as workers tighten their belts following a period of high and persistent cost pressures. Inflation of alcoholic drinks hit 9.9% toward the end of last year, the highest since the early 1990s, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Bars in the city center have been hit particularly hard, as workers spend fewer days in the office and less of their paycheck on pints of lager and ale.
The East London Pub Co. struggled to trade after taking a big hit from Covid lockdowns, and then by the reduction in discretionary spending due to the cost of living crisis, according to a report from administrators published on Wednesday. Different entities of the pub group took out government-backed loans designed to help businesses get through Covid.
The Ten Bells features in much of the lore surrounding Jack the Ripper, a 19th century serial killer whose identity remains unknown and is the subject of many films, books and east London walking tours.
The pub was featured in the 2001 film about the murders, From Hell, starring Johnny Depp.
