Food industry tycoon Ranjit Boparan, owner of restaurant group Giraffe Concepts, is buying American-themed restaurant chain Ed’s Easy Diner.
Boparan, who owns the Giraffe and Harry Ramsden restaurant chains, is buying the business through a pre-pack administration.
Of Ed’s 59-site property portfolio, 33 restaurants will be transferred to Giraffe Concepts, and 26 will close.
From February 2016: Waiting for the F&B bubble to burst >>
Corporate financiers at KPMG have been overseeing the sales process of the business on behalf of Ed’s Easy Diner. Immediately upon their appointment, the joint administrators concluded a pre-packaged sale of the business and certain of its assets to the purchaser.
The restaurant group’s main shareholders include Andrew Guy, who returned as the group’s chief executive this year. The chain’s owners were looking to sell the business for around £100m.
The deal will also see Giraffe Concepts acquire the company’s head office team.
The closure of the 26 diners will result in 379 redundancies.
From 2015: UK’s F&B sector set to implode >>
Restaurants transferring to Giraffe Concepts:
| Basingstoke |
| Belfast Boucher Square |
| Birmingham BCA |
| Birmingham Bullring (SS) |
| Birmingham Grand Central |
| Birmingham Selfridges |
| Bluewater |
| Brighton Churchill Square |
| Bromley |
| Cambridge Extra |
| Cambridge Grand Arcade |
| Canterbury |
| Cardiff |
| Cheshire Oaks |
| Euston |
| Glasgow St Enoch |
| Gloucester |
| Lakeside |
| Liverpool Lord Street |
| London Victoria Place |
| Mayfair |
| Meadowhall |
| Merry Hill |
| Metrocentre |
| Norwich |
| Nottingham Victoria Centre |
| Peterborough Extra |
| Rugby Elliotts Field |
| Soho |
| Southampton |
| Swindon |
| Watford |
| York Designer Outlet |
| Restaurants to close:
Aberdeen Bon Accord |
| Banbury |
| Basildon Debenhams |
| Blackburn The Mall |
| Blackpool |
| Bridgend |
| Carlisle The Lanes |
| Chester Grosvenor Centre |
| Crawley County Mall |
| Derby |
| Doncaster Frenchgate |
| Edinburgh Fort Kinnaird |
| Inverness Eastgate |
| Islington |
| Leicester |
| Livingston The Centre |
| Luton The Mall |
| Manchester Debenhams |
| Plymouth Drake Circus |
| Reading |
| Redditch |
| Trocadero |
| Wandsworth |
| White City Debenhams |
| Woking |
| York Monks Cross |
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