Hawthorn CEO steps down following Admiral sale
Mark Davies called the time at the community pub company a ‘great honour’ of his career
Community pub company Hawthorn has released a statement announcing the departure of Mark Davies as CEO at the group.
The move follows the completion of Hawthorn’s acquisition by Admiral Taverns, which saw 674 pubs transferred to now run under the operation of Admiral in a move funded by Proprium Capital Partners.
Having commenced his professional career as a footballer for Wolverhampton Wanderers, Davies switched to an accountancy position at BDO before becoming CFO at Exemplar Properties and Omega Land in 2007.
Davies then became a founding director at NewRiver REIT before acting as CEO at Hawthorn in what was a “great honour” of his career.
He said: “In seven years, we have built a leading and well-respected community pub company with a high-quality management team, a best-in-class operating platform and industry-leading licensee satisfaction scores.”
Davies also revealed that the group’s ambition was to “explore an IPO alongside private sale” with the goal of “securing the funding to help us grow and realise that objective”.
He added: “We were successful in receiving the strong support of the capital markets and a number of leading private equity firms, which is a testament to the high quality business and team.
“It has been a pleasure and a privilege to grow a new pub company at a pace and achieve so much with Hawthorn in a few short years”.
