LONDON (Brand Republic) - Luke Johnson, owner of The Ivy restaurant and Belgian-themed restaurant chain Belgo, has found a new financial backer to fund his purchase of 3,000 Whitbread pubs.
US investment bank Lehman Brothers has offered a loan of £1.5bn over 10 years -- the cost of the Whitbread estate -- after Johnson鈥檚 original partner Schroder Ventures backed out 10 days ago. Venture capital firm Morgan Grenfell Private Equity could provide some of the required £150m equity.
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the investment bank handling the Whitbread sale, hopes to find a preferred bidder within a month. Johnson, who also founded the Pizza Express chain, faces possible competition from a Whitbread management buyout team backed by venture capital firm Candover and the UK鈥檚 biggest pub landlord, Japanese bank Nomura.