PizzaExpress to not make an offer for The Restaurant Group
Wheel Topco has announced that due to ‘market conditions’ it no longer intends to make an offer for the high street restaurant group, which owns brands including Wagamama and Brunning & Price.
TRG revealed last month that an approach for the business had been made by Wheel Topco. However, no bid was formally submitted.
It came after a deal was struck earlier in October for private equity house Apollo Funds to purchase TRG in a deal that valued each of the company’s shares at 65p.
The acquisition gave an enterprise value of £701m for the business and a multiple of around nine times TRG’s adjusted EBITDA for the 12 months ended 2 July 2023.
The deal had been described by some investors as undervaluing TRG, in one case by up to £100m, leading to speculation that more bids might be tabled for the group.
Under the terms of Apollo’s 65p-a-share offer, a rival bid would need to be at least 10% richer for irrevocable shareholder undertakings to lapse.
TRG, which sold its leisure division to the Big Table Group back in September, reported strong like-for-like sales growth in the first half of the year (H1), driven in part by the recovery of its concessions business.
Total revenue increased 10% to £467.4m in the 26 weeks to 2 July 2023, up from £423.4m in the same period last year.
TRG said its trading performance supports a ‘moderate increase’ in management’s adjusted EBITDA expectations for the 2023 financial year.
