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The restaurant empire founded by Sir Terence Conran is to change hands for the first time in nearly a decade after its owners entered exclusive talks with a little-known private equity investor.

Sky News has learnt that D&D, which owns prominent London restaurants such as the Bluebird in Chelsea, Coq d’Argent in the heart of the City, and Skylon on the South Bank, is close to being bought by Montecito Equity Partners.

Sources said that the talks were several weeks from being concluded and that a deal was expected to place an enterprise value on D&D of about £100m.

If completed, it will be the first time since 2013 that control of Sir Terence’s former business has changed ownership, and will come just over a year after the death of one of Britain’s most influential designers.

It will also represent a bet on the recovery of central London’s fine dining scene in the wake of the pandemic, with D&D’s roughly 40 UK restaurants having been closed for chunks of the last 18 months.

Terence Conran celebrates the opening of his new restaurant Coq d'Argent in the City of London today (Thursday). The restaurant, at 1 Poultry, EC2, is Conran's first in The City. Photo by Matthew Fearn/PA
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Sir Terence celebrates the opening Coq d’Argent in the City of London in 1998. Pic: Matthew Fearn/PA

Most of D&D’s sites, many of which became renowned as celebrity haunts, are in the capital, although it also operates restaurants in Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, New York and Paris.

A new venture in Birmingham is scheduled to open next spring.

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Little is known about D&D’s financial performance since the start of the pandemic: according to Companies House, its accounts for the period to 30 September 2020 were due to have been filed by Thursday.

The stuttering return of office workers to the centre of London, which has been delayed by emerging strains of coronavirus and permanently reshaped by employers’ differing policies on remote working, has nevertheless offered encouragement to hospitality bosses that hotel and restaurant businesses will regain their financial viability.

Some of the city’s best-known restaurants, such as Le Caprice, owned by the tycoon Richard Caring, have closed their doors permanently during the pandemic, while numerous casual dining chains have been forced into restructuring or insolvency processes.

Sir Terence Conran's family described him as a 'visionary'. Pic: The Design Museum/Twitter
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The designer and business man died last September aged 88. Pic: The Design Museum/Twitter

Sir Terence pioneered new trends in upmarket dining when Le Pont de la Tour near the Tower of London and Quaglino’s in St James’s opened in the early 1990s.

D&D is named after the current chairman Des Gunewardena and deputy chairman David Loewi, who took on the business when they bought a stake in Conran Restaurants in 2006.

In 2013, LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group, took control of the business.

The buyout firm considered listing D&D on the stock market in 2015 but a flotation did not materialise.

A subsequent restaurant venture of Sir Terence’s, which owned outlets including Lutyens on Fleet Street, was forced to call in administrators in 2018.

Interpath Advisory, the former restructuring unit of KPMG UK, has been advising on the sale of D&D as it widens its offering into the provision of general corporate finance advice, according to people close to the process.

Little is known about the investment history of Montecito, which is based in Kensington.

The firm was founded by Pravir Singh, a former UBS executive who “led coverage for a number of the bank’s most substantial billionaire clients”, according to Montecito’s website.

The exact structure of its acquisition of D&D was unclear this weekend, although one insider said it was possible that LDC would retain a small stake in the business.

LDC, Montecito and Interpath declined to comment this weekend, while D&D has been contacted for comment.

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Barclays fined £40m over ‘reckless’ financial crisis capital raising

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Barclays fined £40m over 'reckless' financial crisis capital raising

Barclays has been fined £40m over capital raising that averted its need for taxpayer aid during the 2008 financial crisis.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that the bank should have disclosed more details to the stock market about the £11.8bn in funding, from Qatari and other sovereign investors, that it had previously described as “reckless” and lacking integrity.

The penalty followed a protracted investigation that began in 2013 but was held up by criminal proceedings brought by the Serious Fraud Office that led to the acquittal of all defendants charged, including Barclays.

A decision by the bank not to refer the FCA’s enforcement case to an Upper Tribunal meant that the watchdog’s planned fine could be imposed.

Its regulatory action concerned Barclays’ navigation of the events of 2008 when the-then Labour government took huge stakes in major lenders, including Lloyds and RBS – now NatWest – to prevent a collapse of the banking system.

The FCA said of its action: “The events in 2008 were of national importance as banks sought emergency recapitalisation.

“The FCA has a primary objective to ensure market integrity. Banks should treat their obligations to the market and shareholders seriously.”

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Barclays was yet to comment.

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‘When you hit profits, you hit growth’: Businesses criticise biggest budget tax increase in decades

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'When you hit profits, you hit growth': Businesses criticise biggest budget tax increase in decades

Tax rises announced during the recent budget will hit businesses rather than encourage growth, the head of one of the UK’s most prominent business groups will warn on Monday.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has joined a choir of voices opposing Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s fiscal measures, which the Labour Party claims are needed to plug a £22bn “black hole” left by 14 years of Tory government.

Labour put growth at the heart of their campaigning during the last general election, but business believe the £40bn tax rises announced last month – the largest such increase at a budget since John Major’s government in 1993 – will stifle investment.

Rain Newton-Smith, who heads the CBI, is expected to say at the group’s annual conference in London that “too many businesses are having to compromise on their plans for growth”.

She will say: “Across the board, in so many sectors, margins are being squeezed and profits are being hit by a tough trading environment that just got tougher.

“And here’s the rub, profits aren’t just extra money for companies to stuff in a pillowcase. Profits are investment.”

Ms Newton-Smith will add: “When you hit profits, you hit competitiveness, you hit investment, you hit growth.”

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which monitors the government’s spending plans and performance, has previously said most of the burden from the tax increase will be passed on to workers through lower wages, and consumers through higher prices.

Last week, dozens of retail bosses signed a letter to the chancellor warning of dire consequences for the economy and jobs if she pushes ahead with budget plans.

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Up to 79 signatories joined British Retail Consortium’s (BRC’s) scathing response to the fiscal announcement, which claimed Labour’s tax rises would increase their costs by £7bn next year alone.

It warned that higher costs, from measures such as higher employer National Insurance contributions and National Living Wage increases next year, would be passed on to shoppers and hit employment and investment.

The letter, backed by the UK boss of the country’s largest retailer Tesco, said: “The sheer scale of new costs and the speed with which they occur create a cumulative burden that will make job losses inevitable, and higher prices a certainty.”

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From October: ‘Raising taxes was not an easy decision’

‘Businesses will now have to make a choice’

A few days after the budget, Chancellor Reeves admitted she was “wrong” to say higher taxes were not needed during the election campaign – as she warned businesses may have to make less money or pay staff less to cover a tax increase.

But she claimed the previous government had “hid” the “huge black hole” in finances and she only discovered the extent of it once her party was voted in.

She told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “Yes, businesses will now have to make a choice, whether they will absorb that through efficiency and productivity gains, whether it will be through lower profits or perhaps through lower wage growth.”

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ITV back in spotlight as suitors screen potential bids

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ITV back in spotlight as suitors screen potential bids

Potential suitors have again begun circling ITV, Britain’s biggest terrestrial commercial broadcaster, after a prolonged period of share price weakness and renewed questions about its long-term strategic destiny.

Sky News has learnt that a number of possible bidders for parts or all of the company, whose biggest shows include Love Island, have in recent weeks held early-stage discussions about teaming up to pursue a potential transaction.

TV industry sources said this weekend that CVC Capital Partners and a major European broadcaster – thought to be France’s Groupe TF1 – were among those which had been starting to study the merits of a potential offer.

The sources added that RedBird Capital-owned All3Media and Mediawan, which is backed by the private equity giant KKR, were also on the list of potential suitors for the ITV Studios production arm.

One cautioned this weekend that none of the work on potential bids was at a sufficiently advanced stage to require disclosure under the UK’s stock market disclosure rules, and suggested that ITV’s board – chaired by Andrew Cosslett – had not received any recent unsolicited approaches.

That meant that the prospects of any formal approach materialising was highly uncertain.

The person added, however, that Dame Carolyn McCall, ITV’s long-serving chief executive, had been discussing with the company’s financial advisers the merits of a demerger or other form of separation of its two main business units.

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Its main banking advisers are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Robey Warshaw.

ITV’s shares are languishing at just 65.5p, giving the whole company a market capitalisation of £2.51bn.

The stock rose more than 5% on Friday amid vague market chatter about a possible takeover bid.

Bankers and analysts believe that ITV Studios, which made Disney+’s hit show, Rivals, would be worth more than the entire company’s market capitalisation in a break-up of ITV.

People close to the situation said that under one possible plan being studied, CVC could be interested in acquiring ITV Studios, with a European broadcast partner taking over its broadcasting arm, including the ITVX streaming platform.

“At the right price, it would make sense if CVC wanted the undervalued production business, with TF1 wanting an English language streaming service in ITVX, along with the cashflows of the declining channels,” one broadcasting industry veteran said this weekend.

“They would only get the assets, though, in a deal worth double the current share price.”

Takeover speculation about ITV, which competes with Sky News’ parent company, has been a recurring theme since the company was created from the merger of Carlton and Granada more than 20 years ago.

ITV said this month that it would seek additional cost savings of £20m this year as it continued to deal with the fallout from last year’s strikes by Hollywood writers and actors.

It added that revenues at the Studios arm would decline over the current financial year, with advertising revenues sharply lower in the fourth quarter than in the same period a year earlier because of the tough comparison with 2023’s Rugby World Cup.

Allies of Dame Carolyn, who has run ITV since 2018, argue that she has transformed ITV, diversifying further into production and overhauling its digital capabilities.

The majority of ITV’s revenue now comes from profitable and growing areas, including ITVX and the Studios arm, they said.

By 2026, those areas are expected to account for more than two-thirds of the group’s sales.

This year, its production arm was responsible for the most-viewed drama of the year on any channel or platform, Mr Bates versus The Post Office.

In its third-quarter update earlier this month, Dame Carolyn said the company’s “good strategic progress has continued in the first nine months of 2024 driven by strong execution and industry-leading creativity”.

“ITV Studios is performing well despite the expected impact of both the writer’s strike and a softer market from free-to-air broadcasters.”

She said the unit would achieve record profits this year.

ITV and CVC declined to comment, while TF1, RedBird and Mediawan did not respond to requests for comment.

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