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Ivy Collection restaurant firm nearing £1 billion sale – reports

London-based investment firm Si Advisors is closing on a deal to buy the Ivy Collection, according to Sky News.

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The Ivy Restaurant in London

Hospitality tycoon Richard Caring is closing on a roughly £1 billion sale of the restaurant group behind The Ivy, according to reports.

London-based investment firm Si Advisors is nearing a deal to buy the Ivy Collection, which runs dozens of sites across the UK, Sky News has reported.

Mr Caring owns a controlling stake in the company, which runs the original Ivy in West London, its spin-off chain restaurants and Ivy Asia sites, alongside Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar.

Eat Out to Help Out ends
Staff at the Ivy Victoria in London, one of dozens of Ivy Collection sites (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

The pair put the business up for auction at the start of the year, with the Sunday Times first reporting they had set a £1 billion valuation.

Both are expected to sell their stakes as part of the deal.

However, the deal will not include Caprice Holdings, Mr Caring’s group of other restaurants including London’s Scott’s, Sexy Fish and J Sheekey.

Mr Caring and the Ivy Collection declined to comment on the reports.

The Ivy was founded in Covent Garden in central London in 1917 by Abel Giandolini and Mario Gallati, before the pair then opened popular restaurant Le Caprice.

In 2005, Mr Caring bought the Caprice Holdings group, before spinning off the Ivy Collection arm to rapidly expand the restaurant brand.

Most recent Companies House accounts showed the company delivered earnings of £54.8 million and turnover of almost £303 million for the year to January 2023.

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