Cadbury wins battle for Groucho bars

Related tags Corporate governance Management occupations Joel cadbury

The bitter and long-running battle for control of Groucho Club's bars in London and Glasgow has ended.A £11.67m bid from a team headed by Joel...

The bitter and long-running battle for control of Groucho Club's bars in London and Glasgow has ended.

A £11.67m bid from a team headed by Joel Cadbury, of pub group Longshot, has been declared unconditional after being backed by shareholders.

They rejected a rival offer by Benjamin Fry, the co-founder of K-bar Group, who has been trying to merge it with his Zoo Hotels business.

He came up with a partial takeover offer which valued Groucho at £16m, although he was targeting only 29 per cent of the shares to give him greater control of the bars' management.

The business includes the Groucho Club members' bar in Soho, London, plus 192 bar in Notting Hill, West London, and a joint venture, Groucho St Jude's in Glasgow.

The bid from Mr Cadbury and his colleagues is through a new company, named Kapital, which was set up to acquire Groucho.

The team includes non-executive director Marc Jonas, who is group property director of Punch Group and an executive director of Wellington Pub Company.

Mr Cadbury, who is now chief executive of the new company, is the founder and head of Longshot, which was set up to run the Goat in Boots pub in Fulham, London. While this has been sold, it now operates pubs such as the Admiral Codrington, Kensington, and the Salisbury, Fulham.

Other directors include public relations guru Matthew Freud, the co-founder of Pharmacy bar in Notting Hill, West London. The managing director is Willy Gegen-Bauer, the former general manager and executive director of the Grosvenor House hotel. The chairman is Rupert Hambro, the former chairman of Hambros Bank and founder of JO Hambro.

Tony Mackintosh, the chairman of Groucho, has agreed to work with the Kapital team by remaining on the membership committee and developing its links with the theatre, media and arts world.

Related topics Other operators

Property of the week

Follow us

Pub Trade Guides

View more