Little Chef denies trouble – For more hospitality stories, see what the weekend papers say

Little Chef in urgent bid to raise finance

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Whitbread in buyout talks for TGI Friday's

Dutch bank ABN Amro is in talks to take a majority stake in TGI Friday's after teaming up with American leisure group Carlson Wagonlit to buy the restaurant chain from Whitbread for about £70m. Whitbread, which owns the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>

UK franchise for TGI, has been trying to sell its 46 restaurants for several months. Carlson has long been seen as the buyer, as it owns the TGI brand. - Sunday Times, 17 December.  Yo! Sushi valued at £35m  Yo! Sushi has completed a refinancing that values the business at about £35m. Shareholders in Yo Sushi will be able to recoup much of their investment following the injection of £17.5m of new debt finance from Barclays. Those to profit from the deal include management, led by chief executive Robin Rowland, founder Simon Woodroffe, who still owns about 22% of the chain, and private-equity firm Primary Capital. - Sunday Times 17 December.  Jurys Doyle to expand in UK  Jurys Doyle Hotel Group is working on a network of nine or 10 Jurys Inns in Britain, for which the group is embarking on an extensive fundraising exercise. Reversing its plans to sell the Inns chain for €700m (EURO), the company, taken private last year by the Doyle and Beatty families, has appointed Merrill Lynch to co-advise on a refinancing of the business. - Sunday Times (Irish edition), 17 December.  Nick Nairn calls for tax rise to pay for school dinners  Nick Nairn has called on ministers to increase taxes in Scotland to pay for healthier school meals. Nairn, who advises the Scottish executive on healthy eating and runs a cooking school in Perthshire, has called on the Scottish executive to increase income tax by 2p in the pound to raise £300m to improve nutritional stands in schools. - Sunday Times (Scottish edition), 17 December. Get your copy of *Caterer and Hotelkeeper* every week - ](http://www.qssa.co.uk/reed/subcentre/subsorder.asp?promcode=1697&title=cho)

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