$100m merger bridges Neil Perry’s dreams with reality
Neil Perry’s celebrations over the weekend were low key: just a bottle of quality wine and a dinner date with his wife.
He may have just become the face of Australia’s largest restaurant group, in a deal worth some $100 million, but Neil Perry’s celebrations over the weekend were low-key: just a bottle of quality wine and a dinner date with his wife.
The celebrity chef has signed a deal to sell his Rockpool restaurant chain to Quadrant Private Equity for a price believed to be close to $100m.
“We finalised the deal on Friday, about 6pm … and we did some press interviews up until 9.30pm; then I was up early the next day to get my daughter off to basketball,” he said.
“Then Sam and I just went out for date night, sat by the kitchen and had a great bottle of wine.”
Perry, 59, said he was excited about expanding the restaurant group internationally, a move he had been looking to make since the 1990s.
Quadrant will incorporate the operation into its restaurant business Urban Purveyor, which could potentially be earmarked for a public float on the Australian Securities Exchange next year.
This would be along with Quadrant’s Zip Industries operation and, potentially, Icon Group and Super AMart if they are not divested through a sales process in separate company listings by the buyout entity. Rockpool, headed by Perry and his cousin and business partner Trish Richards, includes Eleven Bridge, Rockpool Bar & Grill restaurants in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, Spice Temple in Sydney and Melbourne, and Rosetta Ristorante and Burger Project.
Perry, who is also a television presenter, co-ordinates Qantas Flight Centre Catering and the David Jones food hall offering through Rockpool Consulting.
Quadrant bought the Urban Purveyor Group last year. The business, started in 1976, now controls more than 26 dining and entertainment venues, generating at least $200m in revenue a year.
Within its portfolio across NSW, Victoria and Queensland are restaurants and bars, including Ananas Bar & Brasserie, The Argyle, The Cut Bar & Grill, Sake Restaurant and Bar, Bavarian Bier Cafe, Munich Brauhaus, El Camino Cantina, The Alfred and Fratelli Fresh.
UPG chief executive Tom Pash predicted that the new entity would grow from 47 venues to 80 within the next 12 months.
That excites Perry. “I always wanted to grow the business and go overseas, (and) they are the things that are going to happen now we have capital — it’s in our hands to move forward and make those dreams a reality,” he said.
The deal excludes Perry’s consultancy with Qantas and a more recently forged partnership with David Jones.
His flagship fine diner, Eleven Bridge — rebranded from Rockpool 1989 earlier this year in the lead-up to the merger — has also been quarantined from the UPG deal.