| CATEGORY: SMALL CAPS NEWS SECTOR: TRAVEL & LEISURE |
Coffee Republic deal due next week |
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Tue 21 Jul 2009
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LONDON (SHARECAST) - Coffee Republic’s administrators have granted a period of exclusivity to a preferred buyer of all or parts of the coffee shop chain, it emerged today.
The terms of the exclusivity agreement and the identity of the potential purchaser were not disclosed, although private property investment company, Arab Investments, was rumoured to be among the interested parties.
Reports suggested the company was looking to buy about 80 outlets, a quarter of which are overseas in places like Saudi Arabia and Bulgaria.
“As expected, the huge volume of enquiries from interested parties produced a very healthy level of offers,” joint administrator Richard Hill of KPMG said.
“We have agreed a period of exclusivity to allow that party to carry out some limited due diligence which should enable us to agree the terms of the sale of the residual business as a going concern during the course of next week.”
KPMG was called in earlier this month after holding companies Coffee Republic (UK), Coffee Republic Franchising Ltd and Goodbean Ltd ran into trouble. Holding company Coffee Republic plc is okay.
"The administrators are assessing the viability of individual outlets and expect to close the loss-making outlets with inevitable job losses," KPMG said at the time.
Coffee Republic employs 153 staff and operates 187 outlets in the UK.
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