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The owner of Slug & Lettuce and Yates’s bars has revealed concern over its future as it looks to refinance more than £2bn in debts due next year, The Telegraph reports.

Stonegate – the UK’s biggest pub operator with 4,500 venues – said in its interim report that a “material uncertainty exists” over whether it can continue as a going concern (a term meaning a business has financial stability).

If the company is unable to refinance its debts, it said it “may be unable to realise its assets and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of business”.

Stonegate is owned by the private equity firm TDR Capital, which jointly owns Asda.

It also runs the Be At One and Popworld chains and the Craft Union pub brand.

At the end of the financial year, its debts were more than £3bn.

Some of this is linked to its buyout of rival pub chain Ei Group in 2019.

David McDowall, chief executive of Stonegate, struck a more upbeat note in comments to the Money blog, saying: “I am really pleased with the performance of the business in 2023, which included a sector-leading Christmas trading period. 

“We have delivered a rise in revenue and a significant increase in profitability. Our all-round performance exemplifies the strength and depth of the Stonegate estate, with our outstanding Craft Union and L&T divisions continuing to lead the way. This is testament to the hard work of our people and partners, but also to the success of our ongoing initiatives to increase profitability across our portfolio of brands and venue formats. 

“Our performance gives me real confidence in the future and excitement in seeing our strategy come to fruition. Notably our asset optimisation plan which makes sure we have the right pub in the right location, further profit improvement initiatives, and above all our efforts to continue to support the Great British pub. 

“With a summer of sport on the horizon, and the Euro’s and T20 World Cup fast approaching, we are looking forward to building on this momentum in the months ahead. We have been very clear that we continue to work towards achieving our long-term balance sheet goals, with the successful refinancing of a portion of our estate in December marking a significant strategic step towards this.”

A record number of council bosses are earning salaries of at least £150,000, according to new data from a pressure group.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance annual Town Hall Rich List says at least 3,106 people employed in local authorities in 2022-23 received at least £100,000 – an increase of 347 on the previous year.

Of them, at least 829 received more than £150,000, the highest number since the list began in 2007.

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TPA, said residents “can use these figures to ask whether precious funds are really going towards frontline services, or whether town hall bosses can get better value for money”.

M&S is investing £1m to change the diet of its milk-producing herd of cows and reduce the amount of methane they create.

The supermarket chain said it would work with 40 M&S dairy farmers to remove a projected 11,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere annually.

The move will cut the carbon footprint of M&S’s fresh milk products by 8.4%, the company said.