Leith's joins forces with cityline team
by Dominic Walsh
Eurest International, the contract catering arm of French giant Accor, has further strengthened its UK presence with the addition of Cityline Catering and its sister company Austin Bedford Catering.
The deal, the terms of which are not being disclosed, follows Eurest's acquisition of Leith's in July 1993 and that of Midlands-based Caterskill just before Christmas.
Cityline and Austin Bedford, which together have 48 contracts in London and the South-east, will be merged with the staff feeding division of Leith's.
Philip Redfern, who formed the two companies in 1987, will head the enlarged division as managing director, reporting to chairman Prue Leith. After a handover period, Adrian Stokes, who previously ran the division, will take responsibility for purchasing and quality for the whole of Leith's.
Eurest's UK director, Franáois Thuillier, said the Cityline and Austin Bedford names would continue to be used and developed in accordance with Eurest's strategy of developing "small customer-focused businesses".
He said both clients and staff stood to benefit from being part of a bigger group and there was no question of either cutbacks or redundancies.
Mr Redfern said it would be "very difficult for anyone to notice anything different". Indeed, he is so confident of this he has offered a case of Champagne to "the first member of staff who finds something detrimental about the deal".
He said he was delighted to have joined forces with a big company that shared his views on the need for contract caterers to be "localised and specialised in what they do".
"It wasn't a deal we could have done with any other company," he said. "With anybody else it would have been a case of having to take your money and clear off."
Mr Thuillier said that after three acquisitions in two years, consolidation would be the watchword for Eurest in the UK and no further deals were in the pipeline. The aim was to grow the business organically by 15% a year.
That expansion would include both Austin Bedford, which operates in the staff and education sectors, and Cityline, which specialises in executive catering for companies such as ANZ Bank and Trafalgar House.
