Elior acquires Lexington to expand London presence

Lexington has a strong catering portfolio of London and south east England organisations, including leading law firms, hedge funds and creative agencies. Its turnover is in excess of £30m and it has a combined team of over 650 employees.

Gilles Petit, CEO of the Elior Group said: "We are very pleased to welcome the Lexington teams into the Elior Group. This acquisition allows us to achieve a value-creating transaction and develop our position in the UK.

“It also reflects our focused growth strategy, which is to focus on markets where Elior has strong positions.”

Business as usual​

Lexington, which was first set up in 2002 by Mike Sunley, Katharine Lewis and Rachel Lindner, will see a couple of role changes in light of the acquisition. Sunley will work as chief executive of Lexington, joining the current chief executive of Elior UK Catherine Roe on the firm’s executive committee. The chairman of Lexington, Tim West, will now serve as director and non-executive chairman of Elior UK.

Commenting on the deal, Catherine Roe and Mike Sunley said: “It will be business as usual for our respective clients.

“The added market presence this agreement brings will provide additional resources and many opportunities for our people and our individual brands, which we believe is a very exciting prospect for all of us and importantly our highly valued clients and customers.”

Catering giant Elior UK became the first ever contract caterer to be ranked amount the Sunday Times Best Big 25 Companies to work for in 2013. The company has an employee ‘peer’ system across its 650 UK sites, and also invites its workers to further develop their skills through an NVQ qualification in customer service.