Cote Restaurant owner snaps up bottle maker
THE PRIVATE equity owner of high street dining chain Cote Restaurants has added a British gin and whisky bottle maker to its growing list of companies.
CBPE Capital, which also owns ten pin bowling company Hollywood Bowl, has snapped up Yorkshire based Allied Glass for between £120m and £130m.
Allied Glass makes the glass bottles that house popular Diageo tipples Johnnie Walker whisky and Smirnoff vodka.
It is the second time CBPE has backed the firm after originally carving out the company from parent Associated British Foods in a management buyout in 2002.
It sold its stake to rival Equistone Partners for £75m eight years later – but has now bought it back from Equistone.
“We have known them (CBPE) for many years and we are very confident they are the right partner for us as we enter the next phase of our development,” said Allied chief executive Alan Henderson.
Steve O’Hare, Equistone partner and non-executive director at Allied, said: “It has been a pleasure working with an extremely talented and entrepreneurial team at Allied.”
Allied’s two factories in Leeds and Knottingley factories date back more than a century. The firm currently employs more than 600 people.
It is the latest investment for mid-market house CBPE, which spun out of Close Brothers Group in 2008. It raised £405m from investors for its eighth fund in 2010.