Chris Bodker, founder of Image Restaurants, sells the group to D&D
D&D London has bought Image Restaurants, which is made up of Kensington Place, The Avenue, Launceston Place and The Fish Shop, all in South West London, for a figure believed to be between £5m and 10m.
Chris Bodker, founder of Image Restaurants is to join the D&D, formerly Conran, board as a nonexecutive director. He said it was an easy decision to sell to D&D, "This industry is woefully short of people who run restaurants seriously and D&D are almost unique in doing this.
They have a clear record of running restaurants very successfully."
D&D is likely to "spend some money on the existing fabric of Launceston Place" but "I don't imagine they'll be doing anything too radical to Kensington place and The Avenue as they're both very well maintained, iconic restaurants."
Des Gunewardena, Chairman and CEO of D&D London said, "Kensington Place and The Avenue in particular are two of the restaurants that defined the renaissance of eating out in London in the 1990's and continue to be popular and successful."
Image posted sales of £6.4m and operating profits of £0.7m in the year ended June 2005. It recently sold its Circus restaurant in Soho to an unnamed Russian businessman in an offer that came prior to the D&D deal and was simply "too good to refuse"
said Bodker.