PUBS group Enterprise Inns has bought 439 former Whitbread sites as it continued on the acquisition trail with a £262.5m deal.

The Solihull-based group bought the pubs from Morgan Grenfell Private Equity (MGPE), which purchased the sites from Whitbread earlier this year.

The acquisition, which takes Enterprise Inns' total pub estate to more than 3,000, could be followed by another deal soon.

A debt facility means the group has an extra £260m to spend, and this may be used to buy some of the 650 Scottish & Newcastle S&N pubs on the market.

Last month, Enterprise Inns was reported to have made a joint bid with leisure group Noble House, led by entrepreneur Robert Breare, for the S&N pubs.

Enterprise Inns has now made seven significant acquisitions since it floated on the London Stock Exchange in November 1995.

A £115m deal for 183 former Swallow Inns last May helped boost the group's profits for the first six months of the year.

In interim figures released yesterday, pre-tax profits for the first half to March 31 bubbled up to £26.2m, compared with £22.6m last year.

Turnover increased 22 per cent to £91.5m with average income taken by the group's 2,600 pubs up eight per cent.

Group chairman Hubert Reid said he was delighted with the results, given the "testing trading environment".

He said the acquisition, which will have to be approved by shareholders, represented an "excellent fit with our enhancing portfolio".

Each of the pubs bought from MGPE will be converted from managed outlets to lease and tenanted operations.