Krispy Kreme owner JAB to acquire sandwich shops from private equity owners
Every Pret a Manger employee is to receive a £1,000 windfall as the British sandwich chain shop is taken over by the German-controlled company behind Krispy Kreme donuts and Kenco coffee, in a deal worth more than £1.5bn.
Bridgepoint, the UK-based private equity firm, has agreed to sell Pret to the investment group JAB Holdings, which has been rapidly acquiring companies linked to the coffee market in recent years.
On Tuesday, Clive Schlee, the Pret a Manger chief executive, said 12,000 of the coffee shops’s employees, from head office staff to baristas, would receive a £1,000 payout on completion of the deal.
Pret is based in London, where it was started by the entrepreneur Julian Metcalfe and his friend Sinclair Beecham with one shop in 1986. Metcalfe went on to create the Itsu restaurant chain and Metcalfe’s skinny popcorn.
Having expanded rapidly in recent years, opening 50 shops in the past year alone, Pret has more than 500 stores, generating revenues of £879m. It also has stores in the US, China and Dubai.
The company is trying to attract more British workers as it prepares for potential staff shortages after Brexit and seeks to expand further in the US and internationally.
The sale of Pret will mark a lucrative payday for Bridgepoint, which paid £364m, including debt, to buy the chain about a decade ago. The private equity firm had been considering floating the company on the New York Stock Exchange, as it eyed further expansion into the $41bn (£32bn) a year US coffee shop market.
Instead, the deal will bring Pret under the ownership of Luxembourg-based JAB, which is an investment vehicle for Germany’s reclusive Reimann family.
Alongside Krispy Kreme and Kenco, JAB owns the Douwe Egberts and Tassimo coffee brands. It announced a deal to take control of Dr Pepper Snapple, the fifth-largest fizzy drink maker in the world, for $18.7bn earlier this year, in order to combine it with its US-based Keurig Green Mountain business.
Olivier Goudet, the JAB chief executive, said: “We’re very excited to partner with Pret and its talented team to continue their extraordinary growth story.”
By Richard Partington
