Price for Oriental may be higher than expected

Noble House Leisure today played down speculation that it will buy London-based Oriental Restaurants in the next few days.

Reports suggested it was in the final stages of putting forward an offer which would value the group at 150p a share, or around £12m.

Tony Carson, managing director of Noble House, dismissed this as "inaccurate".

He said: "Oriental Restaurants has more than one million shares, which equals £15m, plus you have debt on top of that. If a deal was done it would be for considerably more than £12m."

He added: "We have been in discussions with Oriental Restaurants but we cannot say when a deal will be done."

In July it emerged that Noble House, the company set up by Robert Breare to target acquisitions in the pub and restaurant sector, was interested in buying Oriental, whose restaurants include Imperial City and Sri Thai.

Noble House is also expected to buy 10 Fatty Arbuckles restaurants this week.

It has been trying to tie up the deal since Fatty Arbuckles, the US-style diner chain, went into receivership in July.

Carson said today: "There are a few little nuts that need tightening on the deal. We are confident it will happen within a matter of days."

Noble House, which owns the Jim Thompson's chain of Oriental-themed pub-restaurants, is also expected to make a renewed offer for Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries later this month.

Last month its bid of about 500p a share, which would have valued the brewer at £470m, was rejected.

by Louise Bozec louise.bozec@rbi.co.uk