6th Jun 2016 14:17
LONDON (Alliance News) - The owner of the Comptoir Libanais Lebanese restaurant chain is looking to sell shares and list on AIM, the London Stock Exchange's market for smaller companies.
Comptoir Group PLC, which owns and operates Lebanese restaurants in London and Manchester, is owned by founder Tony Kitous and Chief Executive Officer Chaker Hanna.
Kitous owns 75% of Comptoir Group, with the remaining 25% in Hanna's hands, according to a stock exchange filing. They are joined on the board by Chairman Richard Kleiner, a director on the board of Avanti Capital PLC, an AIM-listed private equity company.
Comptoir Libanais, whose name means 'Lebanese counter', first opened its doors in London in 2008 and seven years later introduced the brand to Manchester, according to its website.
Comptoir Group operates 11 Comptoir Libanais restaurant and also generates franchise revenue by franchising the Comptoir Libanais brand to other restaurant operators.
The Comptoir Group also operates two smaller Lebanese and Eastern Mediterranean outlets under the Shawa brand and a further two standalone high-end restaurants, called Levant and Kenza.
Cenkos Securities PLC, the UK securities firm, is corporate broker to Comptoir Group. Admission of the company to AIM is expected later in June. No details were provided about how much capital the company is seeking to raise.
Accounts filed at Companies House show that Levant Restaurants Group Ltd made a GBP1.3 million pretax profit in 2014 on revenue of GBP15.2 million, up from GBP937,596 on GBP10.8 million in 2013. Part of the increase in turnover was due to opening in Kingston, south west London, that year and a complete year of trade for an outlet in the Bluewater shopping mall in Kent and one in Chelsea in London.
In March 2014, Royal Bank of Scotland Group said on its website that Levant Restaurants Group had expanded into Kent and Surrey with its Comptoir Libanais brand using a GBP1.6 million loan from NatWest.
Two months later, RBS said that Levant had opened the new Comptoir Libanais outlet in Kingston using a GBP375,000 loan from NatWest.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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