Boparan pays £3.4m for Carluccio’s portfolio of 31 sites

Giraffe and Ed's Easy Diner operator Boparan paid £3.4m for a portfolio of 31 Carluccio’s sites.

The Italian casual dining chain fell into administration in March, comprising 71 sites, after the Covid-19 pandemic saw the enforced closure of the estate, decimating cashflow.

The group had approached owner Landmark for additional funding, but it had been unable to commit further finances, an administrators statement has revealed.

The group, which employed 2,001 staff, 1,701 of whom were able to be enrolled on to the furlough scheme throughout the administration process, had previously entered a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) in May 2018.

The statement reports that a subsequent turnaround project had been seeing improvements in the three months before Covid-19, with 13-week rolling like-for-like sales improving from -5% in November 2019 to -1.8% in February 2020. Underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation was also £263,000 better than in February 2019.

Following the administration three substantive offers had been received, with Boparan’s the “clear leading bid” at £4.5m for 47 Carluccio’s sites and the intellectual property. However the final offer was revised down to £3.4m for 31 sites, which the administrators felt was “still the best outcome”.

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