Thank you for downloading this podcast from the BBC. In this edition of the bottom line,

three top executives talk about reinventing their businesses and school education.

Hello and welcome to the programme. Now you know the feeling. Just when you think you've got

everything sorted out, the world has an annoying habit of delivering a nasty shock,

forcing you to sort everything out again. So it is in life and in business too, especially for my three guests

today, who each run companies that have had to reinvent themselves. They've lived to tell us

the tale. They'll also tell us what they think our children should be taught at school.

But before any of that, let's just meet my three guests. And first up is Rooney and

and Chief Executive of the pub retailer and brewer, Green King. Runei main brand?

Our main brands would be things like Green King IPA, old speckled hen, hungry horse, old English ins, lock fine. Need I go on? And the pubs? The pubs either trade under Green King, so it would be the Green King dog and duck to you if it's your favourite local. Or it could be if it's one of our destination sites, something like Hungry Horse or Old English Inns. If I said to you, what is your business? What proportion is pub and what

proportion is beer? Well, about four-fifths, perhaps more, is now pubs. We started life in 1799 as a brewer

in Suffolk in Berry St Edmonds. And then in the last 20 years, we've accelerated a journey towards

being a pub retailer, really. So why do you bother to stay in the brewing business?

Is that just a kind of, it makes the pubs feel more authentic? Is this sort of marketing end of the pub? Well, two reasons. One is it really is very much the roots and the heart of the company. You know, we've been based in Berrien brewing there for a very, very long time, as I said. But secondly, rather arrogantly, I guess, we think we're quite good at it.

And we make quite a lot of money out of it.

People sometimes... a very, very long time, as I said. But secondly, rather arrogantly, I guess, we think we're

quite good at it and we make quite a lot of money out of it. People sometimes call Green King, greedy king, because you go round buying other brewers, don't you? It's quite a big part of your expansion. We haven't set out, certainly in my time at the company, and for at least 20 or so years, perhaps longer. We haven't set out to buy another brewery or a beer brand. What we've been trying to do is acquire really good quality pubs. If they've come with breweries and brewing brands, then effectively we've then had a decision to make about whether we keep them going in the case of Bellhaven in Scotland, which is a great brewery and is still performing very well. But a lot of them, basically, you've bought up a brewer and shut it down, which annoys the kind of the officinados of the beer, the people who love the real ale, does that really cross with you, aren't they? Well, but the UK brewing industry has been over capacity for many, many years, like many British manufacturing businesses, there has been excess capacity, and so what we've sought to do is have a centre of excellence in Berry St Edmunds, brew great beer. We've protected the yeast strains of many of these different beers that we've bought and brewed them with very rigorous processes and techniques. In some cases, you know, whilst there have been one or two detractors, there have been many folks who've said to us, you're actually brewing the beer better than it used to be brewed, in some of the breweries that we've shut down. We take product quality very, very seriously. Okay. Well, also with us is Rupert Gavin, who's chief executive of the Odeon and UCI cinema groups. Your business is substantially UK, the great heritage Odeon Brown, but it's not by any means.

No, no, no. Increasingly, we're across the whole of Europe. So we're the largest cinema chain in the UK, but we're also the largest in Spain, in Italy, and pretty substantial in Ireland, Germany, Austria, Portugal.

Now, you're owned by Private Equity, Terraferma.

Guy Hans, the founder of Terraferma,

had one of my favourite ever quotes in business,

in which he, I think, was fed up by the number of cinema managers

...