Restaurant chain hooks Harry Ramsden’s deal

Deep Blue Restaurants has acquired Harry Ramsden’s fish and chips restaurant chain from Birmingham-based Boparan Restaurant Group (BRG).

Boparan has owned Harry Ramsden’s since 2010, but was never able to fulfil its original ambitions of opening 100 new branches. It currently has outlets in 34 locations across the UK, Ireland and Malaysia.

It has also struggled to turnaround the performance of some of its other casual dining brands, Giraffe and Ed’s Easy Diner, while the wider Boparan food group – including 2 Sisters and Bernard Matthews – have also faced significant challenges.

The Harry Ramsden’s deal sees South East-based Deep Blue Restaurants take over the famous brand, debt free, although BRG will retain an interest in the enlarged business. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Tom Crowley, chief executive of BRG, said: “This is an important strategic move for BRG and one which enables us to simplify our future business and allow us to focus on the opportunities for our core brands of Giraffe, Ed’s Easy Diner, Fishworks and the roll out of Slim Chickens, whilst still retaining an ongoing interest in the fish & chip sector.”

Boparan Restaurant Group has had a difficult couple of years, having bought struggling chains and then found getting the right turnaround recipe to be trickier than expected as the problems in the casual dining sector deepened.

Its parent company, Boparan Holdings, was also at the centre of a food hygiene scandal as practices at its chicken factories made front-page news and led to a Parliamentary inquiry into standards.

This partly influenced a restructuring of the business, which has sought to focus more on its core and profitable areas.

James Low, chief executive of Deep Blue, said: “We are delighted with this transaction which has accelerated our growth, making us the largest player in the market by a considerable margin. Our immediate focus will be on the integration of the business into the Deep Blue organisation.

“Our amalgamation with Harry Ramsden’s is a key milestone in our development but we remain committed to exploiting the unparalleled opportunities within the sector for further expansion.”