Tchenguiz to seek service station sales
ROBERT Tchenguiz, the high-flying property entrepreneur, is looking to sell a portfolio of Welcome Break motorway service stations in a deal that could be worth more than £300m.
Tchenguiz bought the sites eight years ago through his company, Rotch Property Group, for around £24.7m, with backing from Royal Bank of Scotland.
He is understood to have asked DTZ, the property consultancy firm, to sell the nine freeholds, according to The Sunday Times.
All parties were unavailable for comment.
Welcome Break is one of the UK’s largest operators in the sector with 28 motorway service stations across the country.
It is owned by Appia Investments, a private equity fund backed by Dutch banks NIBC and ING.
In November the group posted a pre-tax loss of £1.9m in the year to 25 January compared with a profit of £8.4m the previous year.
Robert and his brother Vincent were arrested last year and released without charge in searches related to the SFO’s investigation into the collapse of Icelandic bank Kaupthing.
In May, he challenged his arrest and filed a judicial review at the High Court, branding his arrest “unlawful and aggressive.”