Orchid pub chain up for sale

Orchid, one of the UK's biggest pub chains, has been put up for sale with an estimated price tag of up to £300m.

According to a report in the Sunday Times, the pub company's owner, Deutsche Bank, has hired corporate finance company Sapient to find a purchaser.

The company was originally formed in 2006 by private equity firm GI Partners as a vehicle to buy a tranche of pubs from Punch Taverns. However Orchid went through a pre-pack administration in 2008 with financial help from Deutsche Bank.

In a strategic bid to increase sales, many of the Orchid pubs now serve food and, in addition, the company runs a considerable number of restaurants including Asian diners.

The most recent set of accounts filed on behalf of Orchid at Companies House are for 2011, showing sales of £180m with pre-tax losses of around £10.5m. There is reason to believe that the company fared somewhat better over the past year as its commercial director Simon Dodd recently expressed his 'delight' at improved performance across operations: ".. it shows what a joined-up strategy between operations, commercial and training can deliver". Dodd said Orchid's management mantra is "the right manager plus the right offer at the right price equals increased sales and profit".

The company, which has around 5000 staff, apparently sold over three million carvers in 2012 and experienced like-for-like food growth of 9.5 per cent in the year-to-date. Overall YTD sales growth was up 3.5 per cent.

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