The proprietor of the Cote restaurant chain is exploring the choice of injecting new funding into the enterprise and retaining management after two months of talks with potential patrons.
Companions Group employed Interpath Advisory through the summer time to sound out potential bidders.
Various these discussions are stated to be ongoing.
Cote was purchased out of administration by Companions Group within the autumn of 2020 in a deal reportedly price £55m.
The chain trades from about 70 eating places, down from near 100 shortly earlier than it collapsed into insolvency 5 years in the past.
Sources near the sale course of stated that Interpath had been advertising and marketing the corporate based mostly on final 12 months’s turnover of over £150m.
Roughly 60 of the websites are stated to be worthwhile, implying there may very well be scope for additional closures.
The sale course of comes at a time when hospitality venue operators proceed to face extreme monetary pressures, with the trade’s main commerce physique lately warning of an additional jobs massacre within the months forward.
“If we carry on with these trends and the situation doesn’t improve – and clearly Rachel Reeves’s statements are giving a signal to consumers that it is not going to get better any time soon – then I would see this accelerating,” stated Kate Nicholls, chair of UK Hospitality.
“Unless there is a change of tack by the government, we are looking at 150,000-200,000 fewer workers in hospitality during the first full year of [employer national insurance contribution] changes.”
Companions Group and Interpath declined to remark.
