Punch Taverns, the owner of more than 4,500 pubs in the UK, gained for a fifth day in London trading yesterday as Lloyds Banking Group sold Admiral Taverns to Cerberus Capital Management.

Punch shares rose as much as 36 per cent, the biggest intraday gain since August 2011 and gained 1.10 pence, or 11 per cent, to 11 pence in the afternoon.

This extended their gain to 48 per cent since Morgan Stanley said on December 28th it had raised its stake in the Staffordshire company to 12 per cent.

Cerberus paid about £200 million (€246.54 million) for Admiral’s pub business, according to three people with knowledge of the deal, who asked not to be identified. Lloyds took a stake in Admiral in November 2009 as part of a financial restructuring in which much of the company’s debt was written off. – (Bloomberg)