Greene King to retain Spirit offices in Burton: Greene King is to keep Spirit Pub Company’s headquarters in Burton open, relocating the combined managed business to the offices. Meanwhile, Bury St Edmunds will remain the company’s headquarters and group support centre, serving as the base for its tenanted and leased division, including the Spirit leased segment, brewing, brands and corporate head office functions, with chief executive Rooney Anand based there. The decision will surprise some observers who thought Greene King would move to centralise all divisions in one location. But Spirit offices are located closer to a number of major urban centres and Greene King decided it is a more sensible place to locate its managed division staff. The decision means Burton staff will be responsible for the key part of the Greene King business – its retail division contributes more than three-quarters of profit. Staff in Bury St Edmunds were briefed yesterday afternoon and Anand explained the plan to Spirit staff this morning. A spokesman for Greene King told Propel: “The proposal is to keep both offices open and turn Burton into our retail centre. As we have a truly national retail business being more centrally located is important for its future growth and development. The Pub Partners (tenanted division) link with the brewery is very strong – so it’s important to keep those two together. We are hoping that by keeping both offices there will not be as many job losses as if we closed one office down. We have begun a collective consultation on the office location proposal and because there will be some duplication of roles. But we don’t know at this stage how many people are prepared to move or change jobs within an office. We hope this decision is both good for the company and minimises the number of overall redundancies.” At the time of its bid for Spirit Pub Company, Greene King indicated that less than one per cent of the total number of Spirit and Greene King’s combined 40,000 employees would be made redundant in the wake of the acquisition.