Bank restaurant consortium takes 75% share control
THE consortium looking to take Individual Restaurant Company private has gained more than three quarters of its shares, enough to make its offer unconditional.
W2D2, a firm set up by IRC chief executive Steven Walker and Iceland founder Malcolm Walker, with fellow investors Tarsem Dhaliwel and Paul Dawes, already had 53.63% of the shares when its takeover offer was announced on April 21.
IRC owns Piccolino and Bank, which have outlets in Birmingham’s Brindleyplace, and the Restaurant Bar & Grill chains.
Since the announcement, they have gained control of a further 22.14% of the shares, bringing the total under their control to 75.77%.
As a result, the consortium’s offer of £5.67m for the company – or 9.5p per share, just 1p more than the closing price on the day the offer was announced – has now been declared wholly unconditional.
The consortium has said it now plans to delist. The offer was not given a formal recommendation by the board’s non-executive directors.
In a statement ahead of today’s AGM, chairman Robert Breare said the like-for-like sales growth achieved during the first three months of the year had continued over the following six weeks to May 15.
He added the positive margins achieved had been “significantly eroded by cost inflation” and the prices of alcohol, beef, dairy and other produce were likely to continue rising over the rest of the year.
“The ability of the group to absorb most, if not all, of these inflationary pressures will depend upon the buoyancy of consumer spending going forward,” he said.
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