Living Ventures swoops for five of Paul Heathcote’s restaurants
LIVING Ventures, the Knutsford-based bar and restaurant group, has bought five of Lancashire restaurateur Paul Heathcote’s venues for an undisclosed sum.
The firm has bought three Olive Press-branded outlets at Cheadle Hulme, Liverpool and Manchester city centre as well as its Spanish restaurant Grado on New York St in Manchester and the London Road restaurant in Alderley Edge.
Living Ventures, which operates the GUSTO premium Italian restaurant brand and the Blackhouse Grills venues, will take over the running of the outlets with immediate effect.
The deal means that Heathcote’s empire will retract to a small core of operations in Lancashire, including Olive Press outlets in Bolton, Preston and Clitheroe and his flagships restaurant at Longriddge. He is seeking a buyer for his Bolton site, while the Clitheroe site is already being converted and the Preston site is likely to be rebranded.
“I am looking forward to running a smaller, more focused family restaurant business,” said Heathcote.
“There is every chance that I will look to re-brand the Preston restaurant in the New Year but a final decision has yet to be made.”
He added that a licensing agreement had been reached with Living Ventures over joint continued use of the Olive Press brand and that both organisations would take some time to decide on future branding of those operations.
Heathcote said: “I have known Tim Bacon, CEO of Living Ventures, for many years. He is a very good operator and has had great success in growing his two brands – Gusto and Blackhouse Grill – so I know the restaurants are in good hands.
“The deal will allow me to concentrate on gaining recognition for a small group of restaurants. I have high ambitions for my original restaurant and the new Clitheroe one which opens next week.”
In August, Heathcote closed two of his Simply Heathcotes restaurants in Leeds and Liverpool, with a downturn in trading at the latter blamed on the demolition of a footbridge llinking the restaurant’s location at Beetham Plaza to offices and the Albert Dock on the opposite side of Pall Mall.
His Simply Heathcotes company also received a cash injection from Bruntwood earlier this year, with accounts for Bruntwood 2000 Ltd showing that the property firm swapped some of its loans for extra shares in the business.
Living Ventures’ managing director Tim Bacon said that his firm was “delighted to be bringing this boutique group of restaurants into the Living Ventures family”.
“We are looking forward to developing the sites and integrating them into our existing brands,” he said.
Living Ventures was founded in 1999 by entrepreneurs Tim Bacon and Jeremy Roberts. It initially built a successful bar chain known as Living Room, which was eventually sold off to Premium Bars & Restaurants. The pair also sold a 40% share in the business in 2005 to The Restaurant Group.
In the year to March 31, 2009, Living Ventures Group declared a pre-tax loss of £1.1m on sales of £22.4m.
