Operator profile: Daniel Thwaites

In his chairman’s statement in the latest Daniel Thwaites interim report, which was released in November 2025, Richard Bailey summarised that “trading performance is holding up, although it is patchy and unpredictable across the different parts of the business”. Such a sentence could be applied to most pub and bar operators in recent years, but when you allow for just how diverse the Thwaites estate is, that unpredictability is arguably more justified. 

When speaking to Bailey (pictured) just ahead of the festive season, he mentioned a couple of times how he thinks the hotel side of the business isn’t really understood by those on the outside. “On a national scale, while there are far bigger operators in that independently-owned market, we are unusual by the breadth of what we’re doing,” he says, before listing the types of venues he oversees: metropolitan pubs with rooms, country inns, spas, conferencing facilities, lodges and large hotels on the motorway network with swimming pools. “We’ve even got a five-star hotel on Lake Windermere,” he adds. “We are benefitting from the diversification of the business as well as the strategy pursued in recent years to position ourselves into more premium, experiential and health-orientated markets; there is no doubt that this has been helpful.”

Helpful indeed. Turnover for Thwaites’ most recent half year was £66.7m, up 5%, delivering an operating profit of £10.1m compared to £9.4m last year. This increase, the business says, is largely down to the combined performance of Langdale Chase Hotel (the one on Lake Windermere), returns on recent investments in its properties and price increases, which Bailey says they have tried to keep to a minimum.

“The government’s unhelpful tax grab on National Insurance came into effect, so we have spent a fair amount of 2025 trying to work out how to address our cost base and also where we can, without pushing things too far, increase our prices. These taxes that keep on being thrown at pubs and the hospitality industry are inflationary.

“It’s been a pretty busy year for us, and I think we’ve picked our way through it carefully. The business has actually performed pretty well, all things considered.”

The Lister Arms, Skipton

Big pubco profits

Bailey and I were speaking before the announcement came from Westminster about its 15% cut on business rates for pubs. Despite the festive season looking to bring a little joy to the market, operators were angry and desperate, as they prepared for yet more cost increases in 2026. Petitions were being signed, landlords were being interviewed for national press pieces, and Labour MPs were being banned from pubs left, right and centre. 
And yet, while all this was going on, Pub & Bar was regularly reporting myriad stories on large pub companies achieving record financial results.

Punch posted “strong profit growth” in October; Fuller’s half-year adjusted profit before tax grew by 28% to £22.5m; Young’s shared a record half-year performance in November, with adjusted EBITDA rising 5.9% to £62.5m. Thwaites, with its 198 pubs, and additional 23 hotels, spas and inns, also had a successful six months. As chairman of a business who, in his own words, knows operators are “angry and scared because they’re in danger of losing their livelihoods”, how does he view the disparity between the struggles of those behind the bar and the successes of those in the boardroom?

This was just one of several questions that Bailey thinks about at length before answering with a considered clarity. With zero exaggeration, I’d say there were at least 15 seconds of silence before he answered.

“You’ve referenced Fuller’s, Young’s, Thwaites,” he says. “They’ve traded for hundreds of years, and over those years they’ve traded their way through these periods in a ‘small c’ conservative fashion, carefully managing their businesses for the long term. 

“So the businesses that you’ve referenced, who’ve reported results which show profits, those profits are the result of investment over decades and hundreds of years. It’s important to differentiate that the returns in those businesses are partially property returns and partially operating returns, and the property returns are relatively stable, although they have been squeezed, particularly as companies have had to support individual licensees. It’s the operating returns that you hear all of the worry in the trade press around, that is where margins are really thin. 

“These businesses have composite returns, and I don’t think people really focus on that – the freehold element of some of these properties that they’ve earned. They own these properties as the result of running their businesses sensibly for a very, very long time. That is the answer. The property businesses are trading OK and they are stable, but the operating side of the business is becoming mighty thin.” 

Langdale Chase Hotel, Windermere

Keeping things suite

As we approached the New Year, there were strong rumours that the chancellor Rachel Reeves was going to address the outcry over the business rates fiasco, which was coming not just from the industry, but the public had got involved as well. Naturally, Bailey and I talked about what might be on the horizon, with the Thwaites chairman sharing his views on what the Labour government has (or rather hasn’t) done for business. Thankfully, in the weeks that followed our interview, Labour finally acted on behalf of pubs and bars and reduced business rates, with Bailey and other industry leaders sharing a rare sense of relief. 

This all happened during the dreaded month of January, when pub and bar operators, large and small, attempted to persuade health seekers, Dry Jan’ers and penny savers to still visit the on-trade. What does Thwaites focus on at such times to make this happen?

“Well, people are after value,” says Bailey. “That operates on a number of different levels, but in the first quarter of the year, value means price. Things that help people to soften the impact on their pocket, anything really, is a good thing. At other times of the year, value means quality, price and experience.

“I don’t think there are any surprises. As ever, value is best to find at two ends of a spectrum. For the quality offering, people are prepared to pay to go out and have a great experience with great-quality food and drink in a beautiful environment. And at the other end of the spectrum, people like cheap beer where they can get it and will move to go and find it, which is why offers like Craft Union have been so successful. In the middle, it’s really squeezed because it’s less well defined. The middle ground is pretty brutal.”

Far from the middle ground is Langdale Chase – take a look at its website and you can see what a quality Thwaites experience might look like. It is a stunning offer. As are a number of the premium inns in its estate. I put it to Bailey that having a room offer is no longer just at the premium end of the spectrum, as so many operators have added that revenue stream to their business. How does a veteran pubs-with-rooms company cope with such an increase in that specific competition? 

“We’ve been on this road with rooms now for 40 years as a business,” he says. “Others, including private equity, have woken up to that and have invested in that space, so there are fewer sites around now, but where you can find them, it is a model that works well. The bedrooms definitely help stabilise the returns in the operating business, so that’s something that I think we will look to do more of. 

“We’re challenging ourselves to look again at how we do all of that and push the quality of what we’re doing, just to raise the bar again. Because a lot of people have come into the market, so quality is a differentiator. If you’re average or poor at anything, you get found out.”

Inside The Lister Arms, Skipton

Best to invest

In its most recent interims, Thwaites revealed it had invested another £6.2m into its estate – a necessary and beneficial part of operations. Take The Bull’s Head in Earlswood, Solihull, as an example, which reopened with a new look in April 2025 following a £600,000 refurbishment by its owner. Yes, the investment delivered a sparkly new aesthetic – including The Barn at The Bull’s Head, featuring an outside bar, table tennis, interactive games, a fireplace and seating – but, crucially, it immediately boosted sales. The pub pulled 24,221 pints in the 10 weeks after it opened, which was a 22% increase on the same period last year. 

“Over the last decade, Covid aside, we’ve put in between £12m and £20m a year,” says Bailey. “Next year, we’ll probably invest between £10m to £15m. We need to see how the business trades over the next few months, because it’s been very volatile. In a business like ours, a freehold business, you take your foot off the capex pedal at your peril. There is always something to be done, and if you pause, it can take a long time to catch up.”

That’s investment then, but what about new venues? In the six months to 11 November 2025, Thwaites sold four sites and acquired one, the Blue Bell Cider House again in Earlswood, suggesting the business isn’t exactly speeding along any sort of acquisition trail, certainly not when compared to some of their peers. 

“We are incredibly demanding on what we like and what we don’t like,” explains Bailey. “We like to tick all the boxes that are on our criteria. We’re not a cookie-cutter business. When we find something that fits our criteria, we’re pretty confident that we can add value. Our teams in the business have got the experience and expertise to transform a site successfully. But because we’re not a cookie-cutter business and because we like individual properties with a lot of character, then it’s unpredictable as to when things will fall, but when they do come our way, then we are conservatively financed and we have sufficient resources to be able to buy stuff.”

And so is the Thwaites way. Given the continuous content Pub & Bar receives from many pub companies out there, I tend to view Thwaites as one of the more quieter operators in the UK. That could be its press strategy or it could be a genuine reflection of its activity – the business is busy looking after its diverse estate, keeping an eye on the market and investing where it deems necessary in sites old and new. From a journalist’s perspective, it certainly makes for curious observation, waiting to see what the next big piece of news from the Lancashire outfit will be.   

“We’re not in a hurry,” Bailey concludes. “When the conditions are right, we can go at pace. Our business has been around for over 220 years, sometimes it’s going fast, sometimes it’s going slow, but things will come, and if they suit us, we’ll tuck them in. We’re not quarterly reporting or anything like that – we’re trying to build a fantastic, long-term, strong, sustainable business that, yes, provides returns for our shareholders, but also that’s a great place for people to work.”  

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