New group in £250m bid for PizzaExpress
04 December 2002
A venture capital group set up by the main investors in Nando's with Punch Taverns founders Hugh Osmond and Alan McIntosh has been named as the bidder for PizzaExpress.
The pizza chain announced on Tuesday (5 November) that it had received a £250m takeover approach.
Capricorn Ventures International, which is the largest investor in Portuguese-style chicken restaurant chain Nando's, and Osmond's venture capital group, Sun Capital Partners, have formed a new company, Twigway, to make the offer.
In a statement, Twigway said it had made its offer of between 330p and 350p per share for PizzaExpress after the restaurant group's share price plummeted to 245p following negative trading statements about its declining like-for-like sales.
