Gondola

Activity Casual dining operator Location UK Acquired November 2006/January 2007 Transaction value £886 million Sales £498.8 million Employees Over 12,000 Cinven representatives Peter Catterall, Yagnish Chotai, Charles Miller-Jones Senior management Chairman CEO Finance Director Chris Woodhouse Harvey Smyth Nick Carter * 12 months ending December 2009 (unaudited) www.gondolaholdings.com

Business description

Gondola Group is the leading restaurant operator in the UK casual dining sector, trading under the brands PizzaExpress, ASK, Zizzi and Byron. The Group serves over 38 million meals a year at 608 sites.

Cinven strategy

Gondola was an attractive acquisition opportunity for Cinven because it possessed characteristics of previous successful investments the firm had made in the sector: strong brands, a 'high volume, low ticket' business model and further opportunities for growth. Cinven's strategy is to accelerate the 'roll-out' of Gondola's brands, control costs, introduce best practice throughout the Group and make selective acquisitions. Cinven is executing the strategy with a mix of newly introduced and existing management.

For more information, see the Gondola case study in 'Sector Expertise'.