Luke Johnson buys in to Ego

ENTREPRENEUR Luke Johnson has taken a majority stake in the North West restaurant chain Ego.

Mr Johnson, who made his fortune building the Pizza Express chain and subsequently invested in restaurants including Belgo and Strada, has bought private equity firm LDC’s 58% stake in the business.

The Ego group has 10 restaurants and an annual turnover of around £8m.

In a statement he said: “To secure such a high-class and well-proven management team within the casual-dining market is very exciting. Ego gives us a solid but small platform from which to look to acquire other assets where we can leverage the management team’s experience and hopefully deliver some outstanding performance over the next few years.”

Bolton-based Ego is run by executive chairman James Horler and three colleagues who worked with him to grow the tapas chain La Tasca to 74 restaurants before it was sold for £136m to tycoon Robert Tchenguiz in 2007.

LDC invested £9.1m in 2008 for its majority stake. It is not known how much Mr Johnson paid for the shares.