Caterer and Hotelkeeper – 6726
MYERSSPREADS PELICAN'S WINGS
PELICAN Group last week confirmed recent speculation that it is to buy 13 of Forte's 16 Dôme café-bars, most of which will be rebranded as Café Rouge outlets.
The acquisition, for £11.5m, also includes three other London outlets - the Oriel in Sloane Square, Bar Escoba in Old Brompton Road and Bar Escoba Dos in Ealing.
The chairman of Pelican Group, Roger Myers (pictured right), plans to raise the funds for the acquisition from existing shareholders through a £20m rights issue. Turnover for the 16 outlets is reported to be in the region of £7.7m.
Forte is retaining the three Dômes in London's Regent Street, the Regent Palace Hotel and the Forte Crest Bloomsbury, although no decision has yet been taken on what they will be converted to.
Tony Monnickendam, Forte's group director for restaurants, said the sale was part of the company's programme of strategic disposals to focus management and financial resources on its core hotel and restaurant brands.
"Dôme is a good business but it does not have the scale of the core restaurant brands on which we wish to concentrate," he said.
Mr Myers told Caterer the Dôme name "will certainlylive on" in three or four outlets. However, it would be repositioned as a bar, with less emphasis on food.
That will take it nearer to what it was originally intended to be when Mr Myers founded the chain for Courage in 1986. He added that if the bar-style format worked, the chain would be expanded again.
Pelican Group operates 18 Café Rouge outlets in the London area, with a further four under development. Mr Myers said they would retain their strong food emphasis and he saw no conflict between the two chains.
