Regent Inns - which operates the Walkabout, Jongleurs and Old Orleans brands - has been placed into administration by BDO, with around sixty of the company's sites being taken over by a new company called iNTERTAIN in a pre-packaged sale.

The move follows the reported failure of last minute talks to arrange funding for a buyout. iNTERTAIN will run by previous Regent directors, John Leslie, Mike Dowell (formerly of Pitcher & Piano), Simon Kaye and Mike Foster, and the company will continue to employ the 1,800 staff currently working at the acquired venues.

Of the remaining Regent sites, Christie & Co. is marketing the leasehold of nine including the Walkabout-branded bars in Bradford, Lancaster and Shaftesbury Avenue, London; the Jongleurs comedy clubs in Bristol, Nottingham, Oxford, Southampton and Bow in east London; and the Quincey's Old Orleans restaurant, also in Bristol. The Punch Pub Company has acquired 12 of the sites, nine of them currently trading as Old Orleans and which will continue to operate as such under licence from iNTERTAIN.