Carluccio's deal costs Boparan £3.4m
An administrator's report of the sale, which was completed last month and overseen by administrators FRP Advisory, shows that the Giraffe and Ed’s Easy Diner owner spent £3.225m on its takeover of Carluccio's UK business, which included 30 of the chain's 73 existing sites; with an extra £125,000 spent acquiring a single site in Dublin.
At the time of the sale there was online speculation that the deal had cost BRG around £3m. It was also rumoured that the group plans to eventually convert 10 of the Carluccio’s sites to its fast-casual chicken brand Slim Chickens, which currently remains a point of conjecture.
The administrator's report shows that BRG paid £1m for the intellectual property of the brand; with the leaseholds for the 30 UK sites costing £299,966.
It also reveals that BRG originally put in an offer of £4.5m, which would have seen the group acquire 47 sites including the one in Dublin. However, that offer was subsequently revised down, and despite FRP receiving two other 'substantive offers', it was decided that BRG's still presented the best outcome for creditors.
As a result of BRG's deal, more than 800 Carluccio's jobs were saved. However, the permanent closure of the rest of the casual dining chain's UK estate led to a loss of 1,019 jobs.
Carluccio’s, which was founded over 20 years ago by the late celebrity chef Antonio Carluccio, collapsed into administration at the end of March, little more than a week after having been forced to close all its UK sites as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.
At the time, Carluccio's directors said a sustained period of challenging trading, which had been exacerbated by the Coronavirus outbreak, meant the chain was "unable to meet its financial obligations as they were due".
