A pub group founded by the ex-boss of Greene King is in advanced talks to buy a swathe of sites from his former employer in a £90m deal.

Sky News has learnt that RedCat Pub Group, which was established by Rooney Anand during the Covid pandemic, is close to finalising the purchase of 39 pub-hotels from Greene King.

Sources said a deal could be struck within days.

RedCat, which is backed by the US investor Oaktree Capital Management, has had a mixed track record since it was founded in 2021.

The company trades from roughly 100 sites, about a third of which operate under a subsidiary called The Coaching Inn Group.

The unit has about 1,400 bedrooms, making it the fourth-largest pubs-with-rooms operator in the UK.

One source said the deal with Greene King would double the size of that division by number of sites.

A small part of RedCat’s operations fell into administration last year, since when a refinancing backed by Barclays has given the company significant financial breathing space.

Mr Anand stepped down as Greene King’s chief executive in 2019.

His latest deal comes amid dire warnings from hospitality chiefs about the prospects for the sector, amid swingeing tax hikes and jittery consumer confidence.

Greene King declined to comment, while RedCat has been contacted for comment.

The chairman of the UK’s biggest water company has apologised to customers but defended staff bonus payments.

Sir Adrian Montague, of Thames Water, told MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee that the utility firm, which supplies 16 million customers in London and parts of south England, was sorry.

He said: “We know the supply interruptions cause inconvenience and sometimes real hardship, and so I think the right thing to do is to start the discussion of the [company’s] turnaround plan by acknowledging we haven’t always served our customers as well as we should, and through the committee, apologising to them.”

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Customers faced significant service disruption in recent years, including a boil water notice in Bramley, near Guildford, last summer and a 40% rise in sewage spills in 2024.

It’s also struggled to raise investment, repay its debt pile, which now stands at £19bn after an emergency loan prevented it from running out of money and entering state control.

Despite the massive debt pile, Sir Adrian defended paying bonuses, saying the company was in “a competitive marketplace” and “we have to keep staff”.

“It’s true that this business, like many businesses, needs to reward its staff effectively”, he told committee members. “We do need to reward [staff] competitively.”

If bonuses were not paid, “people will come knocking, they’ll try to pick out of us the best staff we’ve got”, Sir Adrian added.

“But the amounts of bonuses paid to staff is very small compared with the capital cost of the works that we were considering,” he said.

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In the first three months of his tenure, which began in January 2024, Thames Water’s chief executive Chris Weston accepted a bonus of £195,000 as part of his £2.3m pay package.

His bonus can be up to 156% of his salary as a bonus, while frontline workers can only earn between 3% and 6%, he said.

When approached by Sky News on Tuesday, Mr Weston said he was sorry for the service that the customers received and “it’s not where we would like it to be, everyone is very committed in terms of trying and sorting it out”.

Customer bills are to rise 35% to about £588 annually per household by 2030, a figure which Thames Water is seeking to increase.

Nissan is set to announce a leap in its cost-cutting plans that will see 20,000 jobs go globally, according to reports in Japan.

The carmaker, which employs around 6,000 workers at its sprawling manufacturing operations in Sunderland, had already let it be known last November that 9,000 roles would be going amid weak sales and rising costs.

But Japanese broadcaster NHK said on Monday it expected that total to more than double.

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Nissan, which was yet to comment on the claim, is due to reveal full year results covering the 12 months to March on Tuesday morning.

They are expected to show a net loss of up to £3.8bn due to a series of writedowns on the value of its operations.

They will be the first results Nissan has declared since the appointment of a new chief executive last month.

Ivan Espinosa issued a “significant” downgrade to Nissan’s outlook just three weeks ago.

If the job cuts report is true, it would amount to a 15% reduction in the company’s worldwide workforce.

It is not known if the Sunderland production facilities form part of any planned job cuts or production reductions, of up to 20%, that were reported.

Nissan has, on several occasions since Brexit, called the plant’s future into question before proceeding with investment plans.

It has invested £2bn in Sunderland since 2023 alone.

The company secured UK government money this year for a new electric powertrain manufacturing facility in Sunderland.

But a senior Nissan executive, Alan Johnson, warned more aid was needed just last month, arguing that the UK was “not a competitive place” to build cars.

Nissan, like rivals, is facing challenges on many fronts.

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US trade tariffs of 25% on all car imports has exacerbated pressure on its supply chain and sales.

The latter has been struggling due to weaker-than-anticipated electric car uptake.

But the vast majority of its cars made in the UK will be subject to a tariff of just 10% after the UK-US trade deal agreed last week.

It does not currently send Sunderland-made cars to the United States. Most are for export to Europe and the domestic UK market.