Tragus buys Italian chain

Tragus, a UK restaurant operator backed by private equity house Blackstone, has made its biggest acquisition yet, picking up Italian chain Strada for £140m.

Strada runs 50 Italian restaurants on UK high streets as well as five Belgo and Bierodrome restaurants. Tragus aims to treble this number of outlets, and hopes that owning Strada alongside fellow Italian chain Bella Italia will boost its position in the casual dining sector.

Strada was sold by Richard Caring, the owner of famed London eatery The Ivy. Caring paid just £60m for the chain in September 2005, when he bought it from Channel 4 chairman and former Pizza Express chairman Luke Johnson.

The acquisition is Tragus’s second since Blackstone bought the company from Legal and General Ventures for £267m in December 2006. In February 2007, it paid £14.5m for the Ma Potters restaurant chain.

Not all deals have gone Tragus’s way, however. Earlier this year the company lost out to property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz in a heated battle for Spanish tapas restaurant chain La Tasca.

Tragus had agreed a £96m takeover of the target following an auction, but Tchenguiz stepped in with a Kaupthing-backed counter bid of £98.6m, eventually sealing the deal with a revised £104m offer.

Cinven had also been rumoured as being interested in acquiring La Tasca.

Barclays Capital provided debt for Tragus’s Strada acquisition. Advisers included Rothschild, which represented Tragus.

Tim Burke