Admiral Taverns, a community pub group, agreed to acquire Hawthorn Leisure REIT, a pub business holding company, from NewRiver REIT, real estate investment trust specialising in buying, managing and developing essential retail and leisure assets throughout the UK, for £222m. "Over recent years, we have grown Hawthorn to become the UK's leading community and wet-led pub business. As a consequence of this, we received significant interest from a range of potential buyers for Hawthorn, following the divestment plan we announced in April 2021," Allan Lockhart, NewRiver Chief Executive.