Results hike Loch Fyne expectations
Better-than-expected performances from its two new restaurants in 1999 have prompted Loch Fyne Restaurants to try to raise £3.5m through a share issue to boost its seafood chain to 20 by the end of 2002.
Its offer of one million shares at £3.50 each will run to 10 March, and finance/acquisitions director Ian Glyn said last week that the issue was going "very well indeed".
The company, which currently runs four Loch Fyne outlets, has thought in terms of a 20-strong chain since it started in 1998.
Turnover at the Cambridge outlet has been twice as high as budgeted, while the Twickenham restaurant, which opened in November, has exceeded expectations by one-and-a-half times. Glyn explained: "This said to us, ‘Let's go, the market likes what we're doing'."
The company intends to open six new restaurants this year, including one at Barnet in Hertfordshire at the end of this month, and another site in Fulham, which is being negotiated.