Home Stock in Focus – Young & Co.’s Brewery PLC

January 22, 2026

Stock in Focus – Young & Co.’s Brewery PLC

Jordan Lipson, Portfolio Manager, Cromwell Phoenix Global Opportunities Fund

Old business in a modern world

Young & Co.’s Brewery PLC (Young’s) has been an investment within the Cromwell Phoenix Global Opportunities Fund since its inception six years ago. Its history goes back far longer than that, with connections to its previously owned brewery dating back to at least the 1500s, but likely longer than that. Today Young’s owns and operates 288 predominantly freehold pubs across the United Kingdom. A combination of cyclical and structural factors have led to extreme pessimism in the UK pub sector, however Young’s is well run, financially sound and trades at a meaningful discount to readily assessable value. Furthermore, the portfolio accesses this opportunity at a further discount, given its unique shareholding structure. This makes Young’s an attractive investment, squarely within the portfolio’s investment universe.

Looking back

Records of the Ram Brewery, based in Wandsworth in Southwest London, date back to 1581, when it was run by Humphrey Langridge. After changing hands and being passed down generations, the brewery was sold to Charles Allen Young and Anthony Bainbridge in 1831, who had supplied brewing equipment to the previous owners of the brewery. It was then inherited by Charles Florance Young in the late 1880’s, at which point Young & Co.’s Brewery Ltd was established. Not long after, in 1898, the business was listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company’s history of pub ownership also goes back centuries, with a Young family partnership acquiring 88 pubs alongside the brewery. This was an early form of what is now known as “vertical integration”, with the pub’s major focus being the sale of beer made by the Ram Brewery.

Young’s and the Young family were titans of the UK beer scene. Those who grew up in London in the 1900s would probably have ordered many a pint of Young’s Original, or Young’s Special. Young’s was run by John Young for much of the late 1900s, until he retired as Chairman in 1999. The brewery was known to be a family business, that deeply cared about its staff, with many generations of family members working at the Wandsworth site. Historically, it is fair to say occupational health and safety standards were traded for a positive work environment, with Ram being the last “wet brewery”, with staff able to have a healthy sampling of the product at work until the 1970s. Ram was the longest continually running brewery in the UK until 2006 when it was decided that it would close its doors. The now valuable property was to be sold off for much needed residential housing. Up until it closed, beer was still delivered by horse to pubs serving Young’s within a two mile radius of the brewery. The iconic site hosted an animal paddock and was visited by both the Queen and the Queen’s mother. John Young passed away in 2006 not long after the decision to close the brewery was finalised. The last batch of beer produced at the site was served at his funeral.

“In this tough environment, Young’s grew like-for-like sales by 5.7% in the previous financial year and has grown that figure by more than inflation for over a decade.”

Moving on

At the time the brewery closed, it was likely losing money, or making a minimal return on capital and the core of the business was the ownership of the pubs. The Young family continue to be meaningful shareholders to this day, with Torquil Sligo-Young previously working in the business, and now a member of its board of directors. Whilst now a professional pub operator, this connection has arguably been a key to business success. It has facilitated a focus on high quality operations, investing in the pubs it owns and maintaining a conservative financial structure. This contrasts with some of the large UK pub owners, without controlling shareholders, who have used immense financial leverage to grow their businesses and have hurt non-associated shareholders. This financial strength shone through across the covid-affected period, allowing the company to keep going with only the addition of modest debt, well below its full debt capacity.

That is not to say that Young’s won’t buy pubs. They have actively rotated and grown their portfolio of pubs, achieving solid returns on capital. Most recently, Young’s completed the acquisition of fellow listed pub owner, The City Pub Group, which added 51 pubs to the portfolio, predominantly in London and the South of the UK. This was a win-win transaction, with City Pub’s small size leading it to be undervalued by the market. Young’s as a larger organisation can achieve greater returns from the portfolio with easy wins, such as combining two sets of listing and board costs into one and achieving discounts on product sourcing. As a well-capitalised organisation, Young’s will likely be able to invest more capital into the pubs making them more attractive to patrons. The combination has progressed well, with staff onboarded and profit margins for the pubs beginning to show expansion.

More recently, as sentiment around UK pubs has soured, so too has the price of Young’s shares, particularly the voting A shares. The management team and board have shown capital allocation discipline, undertaking a buyback at discounted prices. This option is only available to the company because of its financial discipline.

State of the market

As previously mentioned, sentiment around UK pubs is poor. Firstly, they had to see off the depths of pandemic closures. Many large pub companies came away from that experience with very stretched balance sheets. Subsequently, pubs have had to face rising cost of goods sold, affected by food inflation, electricity cost hikes, additional taxes on alcohol and this year they will face a meaningful increase in the UK National Insurance rate. These factors have combined with generally lower rates of alcohol consumption in the Western World. The number of pubs in the UK has dwindled from more than 60,000 in the early 2000s to approximately 40,000 today. Much like the Ram Brewery, part of this can be ascribed to higher and better use of the properties. The UK still maintains a higher number of pubs per capita than Australia, but pales in comparison to our Irish friends, who frequent the same number of pubs as Australians, despite having approximately one fifth of the population.

Despite the challenging operating environment, Young’s has performed admirably. Thankfully, there are many listed UK pub companies, with long histories of financial information allowing us to form a clear picture of the industry over time. Listed players have meaningfully outperformed the broader pub market over time, as independent operators have struggled to compete against the scale and professionalism of larger operators. Amongst listed peers, Young’s has maintained either the best or second-best performance depending on the time of measurement. The only other company that compares is JD Weatherspoon, who not surprisingly has a controlling and aligned major shareholder who cares deeply about the company. JD Weatherspoon was a previous successful investment for the portfolio. Today Young’s is however best placed, with London outperforming the rest of the UK and its more upscale pubs better placed for today’s market environment than Weatherspoon’s highly affordable options.¹

In this tough environment, Young’s grew like-for-like sales by 5.7% in the previous financial year and has grown that figure by more than inflation for over a decade. This has been aided by premiumisation, with sales of cocktails far outpacing the growth in sales of beer and wine. Young’s business model is also somewhat decentralised, with a lot of the key decisions about pubs handled at the pub manager level and support provided from central management. Supporting this, 85% of Young’s general managers have been internally developed, with many in upper management beginning their careers pulling pints.

The value

Given the quality of management and the pubs owned, one may expect Young’s to trade at a premium valuation. That is not the case today. Young’s values its property at market value on its balance sheet, allowing for a simple calculation of its net asset value (NAV). As at the end of December 2025, the company’s Voting A shares traded at more than a 40% discount to this value. The assumptions used in these valuations are also likely to be conservative and significantly undervalue the freehold estate when compared to similar Australian properties, which can trade at capitalisation rates below 5.0%.

But wait there’s more! In 2005, Young’s simplified its capital structure to maintain two classes of shares (down from three) and moved to the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) from the main listing segment of the London Stock Exchange. Young’s lists both its voting A shares and its non-voting shares (under code AIM:YNGN). Its non-voting shares have traded at a meaningful discount to the voting shares for a long time. Over the past 8 years the discount has averaged 33% and was as wide as 50% in 2021. This discount has somewhat closed, and ended the period just over 20%, aided by the fact the aforementioned share buyback is taking place solely amongst the non-voting shares. The portfolio has only ever invested in the non-voting shares, which has cushioned some of the pain of Young’s weaker share price performance, as the discount has closed.² We are more than happy to relinquish this voting power as management, the board and the Young family have done a very good job in charge of the business for a long time. We would only ever vote with management and see no need in telling some of the best operators in the sector how to do their job. The discount we receive for giving up these voting rights is also extremely attractive. At period end the non-voting shares traded at a 54% discount to the readily assessable NAV of Young’s. At that valuation we are happy to keep a watchful eye on the cyclical factors affecting the industry and hopefully enjoy the returns created by a best in class management team with a well-positioned portfolio.

Footnotes

A “small breakfast” of a fried egg, bacon, sausage, beans and a hash brown can cost as little as £2.99 at Weatherspoons!

The Young’s non-voting shares ended the period at a small discount to the portfolio’s cost base.

Learn

Stock in Focus – Young & Co.’s Brewery PLC

Jordan Lipson, Portfolio Manager, Cromwell Phoenix Global Opportunities Fund

Old business in a modern world

Looking back

“In this tough environment, Young’s grew like-for-like sales by 5.7% in the previous financial year and has grown that figure by more than inflation for over a decade.”

Moving on

State of the market

The value

Footnotes

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Learn

Stock in Focus – Young & Co.’s Brewery PLC

Jordan Lipson, Portfolio Manager, Cromwell Phoenix Global Opportunities Fund

Old business in a modern world

Looking back

“In this tough environment, Young’s grew like-for-like sales by 5.7% in the previous financial year and has grown that figure by more than inflation for over a decade.”

Moving on

State of the market

The value

Footnotes

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