Gresham sells Individual Restaurant Company for £41m

Gresham Private Equity (“Gresham”), the UK mid-market private equity firm, today announces that it has successfully exited Individual Restaurant Company Limited (“IRC”) through the sale of the business to Bank Restaurant Group plc (“Bank”) for a value of up to £41m. The transaction which was financed in conjunction with a £32m equity placing on AIM with mainstream institutional investors will see the combined group trade under the IRC umbrella going forward under the stewardship of the IRC management team. The sale is conditional upon the approval of Bank shareholders and will yield Gresham a return on investment of 2.3 times.

IRC operates a chain of 16 premium restaurants under 2 key brands, regularly serving over 18,000 customers per week. There are 12 restaurants operating under the Piccolino brand and 4 restaurants under the Restaurant Bar & Grill brand. The most recent restaurant openings have been 2 Piccolinos in Virginia Water (Surrey) and Wandsworth Common (London).

Since Gresham backed the buy-in management buy-out in March 2004, IRC has undergone a period of rapid organic growth, opening 11 restaurants (10 Piccolinos and 1 Bar & Grill). Over the past two and a half years, Gresham has helped IRC to realise its tremendous growth potential by providing strong strategic and financial support to the management team.

Steven Walker, Chief Executive of IRC, comments: “Gresham has been a very supportive and proactive investor over the past two and half years throughout our continued expansion and growth. We are very excited at the future potential of the business and look forward to working with Bank.”

Christian Bruning, Director at Gresham, adds: “When we invested in IRC we saw a great opportunity to back a strong management team that required a supportive partner to take it forward to its next stage of development. It has been a pleasure working with the team and we wish them every success in the future."