The number of pubs in the UK continues to drop fast, down 11,000 to 39,000 in the past 10 years, according to the Office for National Statistics.

But plenty of real estate investors still think they make a good property bet. Here are five of them.

Aprirose

Private property company Aprirose this week spent £130M buying British Land’s 45-asset pub portfolio, which operates under the Spirit brand. That takes its investment in the sector to £200M since 2017, meaning it now owns almost 200 pubs across the UK. “The F&B sector is particularly appealing as we seek to build our own bespoke offering,” Aprirose Chief Executive Manish Gudka said.

Patron Capital

By far, the largest investment by a real estate firm in the pub sector in recent years has come from private equity investor Patron Capital. In 2017 it teamed up with Heineken to take private Punch Taverns in a £1.8B deal. It split the portfolio between itself and the famous Dutch brewer, and ended up with a portfolio of 1,300 pubs worth about £600M. It rebranded the portfolio under the name Vine, and has since acquired a further 54 pubs.

NewRiver Retail

Over the past five years NewRiver has built up one of the largest pub investment portfolios in the UK, with more than 650 pubs valued at around £275M. In a presentation to investors late last year it highlighted the remarkably high cash flow the portfolio produced — the net initial yield for the portfolio is 13%.

Secure Income REIT

Nick Leslau’s Secure Income REIT is another REIT which has made an investment in the sector. Last year it bought a £225M portfolio from private property company Mansford which included a portfolio of 18 pubs valued at just short of £30M. The portfolio provides £2M of income and has a weighted average lease length of 22 years.

CBRE Global Investors

In early 2018 CBRE Global Investors bought a portfolio of seven pubs in London, totalling 37K SF. They represent around half of a 16-pub portfolio put up for sale for £70M by a private investor. The majority of the assets are held on leases of 15 years or more, including open market rent reviews.