D&D restaurants up for sale

The existing restaurants on the block could fetch around £70m, but the soon to open South Place hotel in the City and a couple more restaurant openings should push the price significantly further north. The group was formerly known as Conran Restaurants after founder Terence Conran and owns iconic London venues including Quaglino’s and Le Pont de la Tour.

D&D management wants to use the proceeds of a sale to kickstart an expansion around the world, and the sale is likely to interest foreign investors in particular. The FT quoted a person “familiar with internal discussions” as saying: “It could be interesting to people from overseas who want assets in London—and at the same time it’s clearly an exportable product.” 

It adds that management see potential for new openings in India, Malaysia, Thailand, China and the Middle East and want to double the number of restaurants if they are retained by the new owners.

Rothschild is advising D&D, which must get any deal approved by both Conran Holdings, the majority shareholder, and private equity group Caird Capital. It is the second time a sale process has begun at the group, after a start made in 2008 was aborted by the financial crisis.

For the full story, see D&D puts Conran restaurants up for sale.