Silverfleet announces acquisition of Paramount Restaurants for £107.5 million

Silverfleet Capital, a mid-market private equity specialist, has today completed the acquisition of Paramount Restaurants (“Paramount”), one of the UK’s leading restaurant groups, for an enterprise value of £107.5 million.

Equity funding is provided by Silverfleet and the Paramount management team, who will be re-investing part of their proceeds. Debt facilities are provided by The Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC.

Paramount operates 77 restaurants throughout the UK under the following wellknown brands: Chez Gérard, Bertorelli, Caffè Uno, Livebait, Café Fish and the recently launched Brasserie Chez Gérard. The group had pro-forma revenues of approximately £72 million in the year to June 2006 and employs around 1800 staff.

Silverfleet is backing the incumbent management team, led by Nick Basing, Chief Executive, which has an impressive track record and extensive industry experience.

The current owners of Paramount are Starlight (a company ultimately controlled by the family interests of Guy Naggar and Peter Klimt) and various other investment funds.

The group was created by the combination of Group Chez Gérard and Caffè Uno: Paramount PLC acquired the former in 2003 and was then, in turn, taken private from AIM by the current owners in 2005. Caffè Uno was acquired from The Restaurant Group PLC in December 2005.

Commenting on the investment, Nick Basing, CEO of Paramount said:

“We are delighted to have completed this transaction and secured the support of Silverfleet Capital to continue to develop our portfolio of brands. We have exciting plans to expand the number of outlets we operate while also continuing to refurbish and refresh our exisiting sites. We have been impressed by Silverfleet's experience and commitment to work with us in the next phase of the company’s development.”

Gareth Whiley, a Partner of Silverfleet, commented:

“We have been looking to invest in the fast-growing restaurant sector in the UK for some time and are extremely pleased to have acquired Paramount with its portfolio of well-known brands. The management team are highly experienced at operating the existing formats and have also successfully developed a new brand in Brasserie Chez Gérard. We are looking forward to using our extensive experience in multi-site leisure deals to support the management team grow the business both organically and, potentially, through acquisition.”