Malaysia -based private equity firmNavis Capital Partners is selling all assets in fast-food restaurant chain Nirula's to A2Z Excursions (A2Z), a privately-held business group involved in the hotels and real estate business, run by entrepreneur Pradeep Chadha.
"Navis Capital Partners, through its private equity fund,
Navis Asia Fund has agreed to sell 100% of the Nirula's Group to A2Z Excursions (A2Z), a privately-held business group with interests in the hotel, real estate, travel and tourism sectors in India," Nicholas Bloy, managing partner at Navis Capital said in a response to an email query by ET. Bloy declined to comment on the size of the deal, but two persons with knowledge of the developments said the acquisitions was likely in the range of Rs 60-80 crore, though the number could not be independently verified. "The biggest asset is the Nirula's hotel property in Delhi-NCR, it is a key real estate asset. The restaurants by themselves did not get a very high valuation," one of the persons said. A detailed email sent to Pradeep Chadha's office by ET on the acquisition did not elicit any response. Nirula's, which had kicked off a rage in the mid-1980s as an iconic fast food restaurant chain with its footlong pizzas and hot chocolate fudge, could not capitalise on its first-mover advantage. Starting a decade back, it began losing out to competition from established global players in this space such as McDonald's and Yum Restaurants-promoted Pizza Hut and KFC. That was the time multinational food chains began aggressively investing money into the country and India along with China were singled out as high-potential bastions of growth. Nirula's had been on the block for close to two years. Navis had acquired Nirula's in '06 for close to Rs 90 crore. In April this year, Navis took complete control of the home-grown fast food chain, with its co-owner, MD and CEO Samir Kuckreja exiting. Kuckreja, who owned less than 10% shares in Nirula's, had sold off his shares to Navis.
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Navis Asia Fund has agreed to sell 100% of the Nirula's Group to A2Z Excursions (A2Z), a privately-held business group with interests in the hotel, real estate, travel and tourism sectors in India," Nicholas Bloy, managing partner at Navis Capital said in a response to an email query by ET. Bloy declined to comment on the size of the deal, but two persons with knowledge of the developments said the acquisitions was likely in the range of Rs 60-80 crore, though the number could not be independently verified. "The biggest asset is the Nirula's hotel property in Delhi-NCR, it is a key real estate asset. The restaurants by themselves did not get a very high valuation," one of the persons said. A detailed email sent to Pradeep Chadha's office by ET on the acquisition did not elicit any response. Nirula's, which had kicked off a rage in the mid-1980s as an iconic fast food restaurant chain with its footlong pizzas and hot chocolate fudge, could not capitalise on its first-mover advantage. Starting a decade back, it began losing out to competition from established global players in this space such as McDonald's and Yum Restaurants-promoted Pizza Hut and KFC. That was the time multinational food chains began aggressively investing money into the country and India along with China were singled out as high-potential bastions of growth. Nirula's had been on the block for close to two years. Navis had acquired Nirula's in '06 for close to Rs 90 crore. In April this year, Navis took complete control of the home-grown fast food chain, with its co-owner, MD and CEO Samir Kuckreja exiting. Kuckreja, who owned less than 10% shares in Nirula's, had sold off his shares to Navis.
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