LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - British pub group Enterprise Inns said it would expand its own managed division and rampup its commercial property arm as part of plans to protect itsbusiness from a new law that will allow publicans to choosewhere they buy their beer.
Almost half of 50,000 UK pubs are run by tenants undertraditional "beer-tie" agreements, which mean the publicans buybeer from the firm that holds their lease at above marketprices, receiving subsidised rent or other benefits in return.
Some publicans have complained that such deals are unfair,prompting the government to introduce a law which will allowtenants renewing their leases to buy their beer elsewhere andchoose a market rent only option.
The prospect of lost beer revenue has hit shares inEnterprise Inns and as well as rivals like Punch Taverns, forcing them to come up with ways to offset the impact.
Enterprise Inns said on Tuesday that while it would continueto offer tied deals, it planned to increase the number of pubsit manages directly from around 16 now to between 750 and 850pubs by September 2020.
The firm also said it would expand its commercial propertydivision, which includes free-of-tie pubs as well as retaildevelopments, from 185 now to between 900 and 1,000 properties.
Enterprise Inn raised its expectations for disposal proceedsto 75 million pounds ($117 million) for this fiscal year andnext as it sells off non-core pubs and said it expected itsestate to reduce to around 4,200 by 2020, compared to about5,200 now.
The company made the announcement as it posted a 0.6 percentrise in like-for-like net income for the six months to March 31and core earnings before exceptional items of 144 millionpounds, in line with expectations.
($1 = 0.6423 pounds) (Reporting by Neil Maidment; editing by James Davey)