Yo! Sushi secures new backing worth £17.5m to accelerate growth

Yo! Sushi has refinanced, providing further financial firepower for the roll out of its conveyer-belt equipped restaurants in the UK and overseas.

Barclays Bank, which has supported the business for the last six years, has provided £17.5m of new banking facilities.

Yo! Sushi plans to use the new funding to return money to shareholders and fund its expansion in the UK and worldwide.

Chief executive Robin Rowland led a management buyout of the company backed by Primary Capital in 2003.

Since this time the group has expanded to 26 units in the UK and abroad. It plans to have 50 units in the next year.

Rowland said: "We are delighted to have completed this refinancing. With the continued support of Primary and Barclays Leveraged Finance as our equity and debt partners, we remain extremely confident of both our domestic and international growth going forward."

by Chris Druce

Yo! Sushi unveils pictures of its new takeway concept, Yo! To Go Kiosk>>

Yotel appoints WorksUnit for website>>

Yo! Sushi website>>E-mail your comments to Chris Druce](mailto:chris.druce@rbi.co.uk?subject=Yo! Sushi gets more backing) here.

Get your copy of Caterer and Hotelkeeper every week -